Summertime

Sunday afternoon around 4 - , it’s 110f (42c) outside. I always say ‘well, it’s a dry heat’, but let me tell you, when you walk outside from the air conditioned inside it’s like being hit by something. You walk outside and feel the heat on your face and wonder why the heck you’re here. But I take my iced coffee and sit under the patio cover and watch the birds on the feeder and drinking at the fountain and just enjoy it. It is a dry heat, and a heck of a lot better than that 83f with 98% humidity I remember from New Jersey summers, where you would just lie awake all night with the window open hoping for some kind of breeze.

The temp of the pool water is 93f (34c), so it’s cooler, but still really nice for swimming. That's the temp I like. It was up to 98f on thursday, which is a little too warm, kind of like a giant hot tub without the bubbles - we don't have a pool heater, but just keeping the cover on uses the passive solar heating to warm it up. I had to leave it open for two days to cool off. Left the cover on for two weeks last year and the water temp was up to 105f. We usually go swimming around 5, when we start getting some shade from the little pool house on the water. It’s just too hot to be floating around in full sunshine.

I wandered around the yard yesterday and took some more flower pics, these of things in bloom right now. The earlier two posts were flower pics taken over the past few months, and a lot of those are gone now. But we do have some plants blooming all year ‘round.

Our palm trees are in bloom. These flowers are a little high to be very noticeable, but there are lots of bees up there, and the small flowers fall into the pool.


Another flower that is popular here and in Arizona is the Mexican Bird of Paradise. These are available in either bright yellow or these mixed red and yellow.


The bushes grow up to eight feet tall, and are covered with small green leaves and these flower clusters all summer. In the background are two shades of lantana, which also blooms all summer.

Our pomegranate is also in bloom.


Not many flowers left, these are big orange things. It’s time for the pomegranates to start showing up, I think we can start picking those around late November.

For an off garden shot, we went out for hamburgers last week. Our favorite spot for burgers in San Diego was the Cotton Patch chain, a local San Diego family owned chain with four or five places. Here in Vegas we hit the Red Robin. These are all over the US, and a little upgrade from the fast food Burger King patties. Most Red Robins have varied decorating schemes, the one near us uses merry-go-round animals. There was a tiger close to us.


We usually get the Hawaiian burger, a burger with teriyaki sauce and a slice of pineapple. Fries and onion rings on the side, and they make good malts and a really cool orange creamsicle drink. I think I'm going to create another blog to list restaurants around town, if I remember to take photos.