Heat Wave - Day 4 & 5

Wednesday was day 4 of our heat wave.

We started out at the library.  Each week in the summer school age kids can attend our Library's Story Time. (Click here to see pictures of week #1.  It's under the KidStuff tab if fun pictures don't pop up.)  

This year they are learning about other countries and cultures around the world.  Wednesday they had a professional musician & story teller perform.  Usually we are outside in the shade near a very pretty gazebo.  This week we were all crammed into our very, very small library but the story telling was mesmerizing and the children all sat with wonderful behavior.  YAY!

After Story Time we headed to the grocery store and then back home again to lay low.  Earlier in the day I received a call from each ball team telling us they were canceling the last week of ball due to the excessive heat.  That was sad, but a very good call.  It was 90 at 5:30 pm when we would have been loading up to drive to the fields. 

Thursday on any other year I would label to be hot enough for a heat wave.  Our high for today was forecasted at 87.  I picked beans today.  I picked for an hr in our lower bean patch.  I call it the Jungle.  It is a mixed crop patch.  We planted peas and beans together alternating seeds.  The peas are done producing and I have pulled most of them.  The beans are now the primary crop but there are places where we allowed the volunteer tomatoes to grow.  Those volunteer tomatoes are mingled here and there and there are places where it's really hard to find the bean crops which are still growing and producing.  We thought about pulling the tomatoes up but all year those volunteer tomatoes are bigger, healthier and have much more green fruit growing on them then the seedlings we started AND the green house seedlings that we purchased!

So far I have put away about 25 quarts and have a very large batch waiting to be washed, snapped and canned yet today.  (Perhaps I'll do them tomorrow.)

Aren't they lovely?

So how have you been surviving the heat?