Good bye, July

Good bye, July. Don't take it personally, but this year, you sucked. I don't mind heat in the summer. It's the Midwest. That's normal. But three whole weeks of temps at 100 degrees or higher? And heat indexes up to 110? Really? Was that necessary? I set a personal record for number of showers in one day - 3.

Other July highlights: watching our county go from dry to moderate drought to severe drought to extreme drought; watching crops start to burn up in the fields; not mowing the lawn for nearly 7 weeks; open burning bans; water usage reduction requests from our rural water service (hmmm, too many people are taking 3 showers a day); training between 5:30 and 6 a.m. because it's still to hot to function outdoors in the evening.

Surely August has to be better. Right?

On the bright side, the Lily Lake at Amana is in full bloom. It's pretty much a dry lake bed at this point but the lilies (American lotus or great yellow water lily) are blooming anyway. They're cool.