Is it fall yet???

[FourRingCircus]

Ugh... I hate summer. I don't tolerate heat well and we are in the middle of a heat wave right now that is making it difficult to even get the bare minimum of animal chores done. I might have to start getting up earlier, before the sun, for it to be even manageable. I'm struggling, the animals are miserable, my garden is pitiful, and our yard is crunchy. Yuck... Our AC is running almost constantly (the house is in the middle of a hay field, NO trees around... we bake all.day.long).

Not to mention I almost lost half of my rabbits yesterday. The rise in temps caught me off guard (how quickly it got hot) so by the time we got back from church they were looking pretty bad. I hate to think how close they were. I quickly got together frozen water bottles and a fan plus misted them to get cooled down. We also pulled out our old tent/canopy to put over them in hopes of blocking more of the early sun. It was 93* by 9:30 this morning!

I did lose one chicken, but it was later in the day while she was in the nest box - her vent was bloody so I don't think it was the heat that was the issue. I got her from DH's cousin so who knows what shape she was in... I know he was just feeding them scratch and corn so they never laid any eggs for him. They started for me after being on layer pellets (at least two out of the 5), so maybe there was an underlying issue with her system.

Anything else I can do? There's no end in sight for the heat and humidity (which is the kicker... just heat is somewhat manageable... the humidity takes it out of me)... not much of a chance for rain either.

 

[katiebear]

I feel your pain..We are hitting the 100-105 range for the first time this week. But you are correct the humidity there would kill me...It is a little more humid here than usual..But not so much ... the misters and hosing off the roof still helps..I was telling hubby that we need trees, lots of trees around the rabbit enclosure, he agrees but hates to plant because our ground has so many rocks, some pretty big ones too.
I leave the fan on 24 hours a day now and the misters I turn on at 8 am and off around 8pm. I still have to spray bottle down the buns and hose down the ground about every hour, every half hour between noon and four. It wont cool down here until october or november....and the hottest months are still to come. :x :x :x

 

[FourRingCircus]

I'm originally from Phx, you would think I would handle heat better! I remember vacationing in Mexico when I was little and getting sick from the heat...

 

[Zass]

It's 76 where I live... 8)

Arizona seemed easier to me when I lived there.
With dry heat, you can at least sweat and cool yourself.

Those with high humidity...I think that's worse

 

[akane]

We were within a couple degrees of the record high for June a week ago. We are mostly 80-85F now. Occasional dips to 70s. It's just high enough to give me trouble weeding the garden. I will take it over winter. When it gets below 40F my cold weather asthma kicks in and when we start getting down near 0 I feel horrible. Being cold when not doing work makes my whole body feel like it's burning and an uncontrollable need to get warm. Last winter was warm (no -20f) and I still hated it.

 

[katiebear]

Uugghh. ..4 pm 105° heat index of 108° what happened? ?excessive heat warning until Friday. ... :evil:

 

[EnglishSpot]

We're being inundated with rain and high humidity, which ratchets up the "feels like" temperature. Ugh. Feels like I need gills to go outside. The rabbits have ice bottles and shade, but I'm going to have to use some duct tape and feed bag scraps to protect their food in the feeders.

 

[Miss M]

I remember going from 95* and humid to ~115* and 17% humidity once, going from southern Louisiana to the northern Texas panhandle. The low humidity was so nice, it felt like it was 80*... couldn't believe it.

 

[FourRingCircus]

I think the humidity is what does it to me... makes it so hard to breathe sometimes!

 

[alforddm]

We lived in 29 Palms CA for 4 years. About an hr north of Palms Springs. We really enjoyed the low humidity. We never had an AC only a Water Cooler (Swamp Cooler). The hottest I saw it while we lived there was 128F. On really hot days it would be about 90F in the house. It was still hot but didn't feel sticky.

 

[EnglishSpot]

Humidity makes all the difference!! A humid 88* is much more "hot" than a dry 88*!!!! I remember being on the employee bus in Houston in August and thinking to myself, "I need gills. Why did I move to Texas?" In all honesty, northern Ohio is just as bad, if not worse than Houston, for at least 5 weeks (end o July - beginngin of Sept).

 

[Zass]

I spent my formative years in San Diego and to a lesser extent Apache Junction AZ...

I don't ever remember the heat being as much of a drag as it is on a humid and breeze-less summer day in northern PA.

And FL? Walking out of a building on a hot humid summer day can hit you like a ton of bricks. :stars: