We have friends who just buried a 35 year old man who went home early last Friday from heat exhaustion and died that weekend from a heart attack. There are friends who know of an 18 year old boy who suffered brain damage from heat stroke.
Being well informed of the risks of heat exhaustion and heat stroke (see: What to Do In The Heat) we are being careful with everyone in the family. My husband is getting by and now taking Sustain Tablets to help with the heat.
Yesterday, I was hauling stuff to the dump and the truck wouldn't make it up the steep hill with the trailer we were hauling and it died on the worst part of the hill, then the battery loosened up wouldn't restart it. We jiggled it and it finally started so I tried to coast down the hill to get a better start up again and put the trailer in the ditch. We got to sit on the side of the road about 30 minutes till my knight in shining armor arrived to rescue us(my dear husband).
Our garden looks pitiful, we have gotten a couple of cucumbers a handful of cherry tomatoes some small zucchini and a handful of green peppers the size of a half dollar. Our plants continue to live on but barely. Our sweet potatoes have some vines, who knows about any potatoes yet. The cows have snuck in six times now to eat my plants. We are grateful for anything it brings forth at this point. It certainly isn't enough to can or even feed the family more than a meal or two.
Our vehicles and equipment are losing tires left and right, there have been 8 flats and blow outs so far. It has gotten tough to keep everything maintained.
Electricity has been stressed all over the state and we lost power for 2 1/2 hours on Monday morning and this morning for 1/2 an hour while writing this blog article.
The family is suffering heat-related headaches in varying degrees.
We can, however, find thankfulness in all that is going on here. We praise God for his loving protection and are trying to not be like the Hebrews in the wilderness complaining for all of their lacks. While we may not understand it all or why we still are thankful for:
- Having enough pasture and a spring fed pond and are able to support our cows, while many ranchers have had to sell all of their stock off due to having no pasture and at way below market cost.
- Using an artesian well for water that has not run dry, it continues to give us what we need for washing, bathing, cooking and even enough to let me water the garden once a day. Most of the state is stressing from lack of water and on mandatory restrictions.
- Being able to enjoy fresh watermelon, it made it through all this drought and is delicious. The bugs and weeding have been minimal, they don't like the heat either.
- Having electricity and enjoying air conditioning in this heat. As well as the many other attributes it runs like the water pump, electric fencing and lights.
- Our chickens still laying eggs.
- Everyone being healthy and the fact that there have been no accidents, injuries or heat illnesses to warrant hospital visits.
- Having a cell phone with me to be able to call my knight to come rescue his stressed out damsel in distress. I don't usually grab it, the dump is only about 2 miles away. It was 106 degrees out in that heat yesterday, no water with us and we were able to find a shady spot to sit and wait. Also a boss that let him leave early to play his knight role for the day.
- Having more than one vehicle to drive, so my husband can still get to work when one is down for repairs.
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