Dog days

Normally, we think of the last sultry days of summer as the "dog days," the time of year when not much is blooming, the summer vegetable garden is finishing up, and its just too hot to get outdoors to play in the yard.

It seems like the entire summer has been a "dog day" summer.  For the entire month of July and now in August, the weather has been the same; morning lows in the mid 70s, afternoon highs in the mid 90s, humidity levels hovering around 90%, and those random afternoon showers that don't really water the garden but raise the humidity all the way to 100%. 

There has been enough rain in my backyard to prevent drought conditions but not enough to produce a bumper crop of flowers and veggies.  Even the plants seem to be waiting for fall.

Mordecai, the tortoise is the only family member who thinks this weather is perfect, but his native habitat is sub-Saharan Africa.

Interesting fun fact:  The term "dog days" does not refer to the fact that it is so miserably hot that even the dogs lay around.  The ancients believed that the rise of the Dog Star, Sirius caused the temperature to rise.  Of course, what they didn't know was that the stars appear at different times in different places in the world and that the placement of the stars doesn't affect the weather.  (When it is too hot to play outdoors, I have time to look up strange questions on the internet).  Stay cool, fall is coming.