My youngest and his family finally made a trip here to visit, and we had a very nice time. We did things like going hiking, touring some old mills in our area, antiquing, more hiking, swimming and ate out a few times. He helped some with a few chores here, and we hung out a lot, and I got to show my rock collection to my teenage grandson. He likes rocks as much as his dad and I do, so we enjoyed that. He has a birthday coming up soon, so I gave him some prized rocks for his birthday. He liked that. He is a good boy/young man. It is hard to believe he will be an adult in a few more birthdays. The mills were located in such lovely areas, with springs that put out millions of gallons of water per day. The one spring is considered "small" and only puts out 10 million gallons of water per day. The other one is "only" the 7th largest spring in Missouri and puts out 81 million gallons of water per day... This one is in a national park. Both are lovely places to visit, and learn a bit of history. We went swimming in a local spring fed river, and the cold water felt so good on a hot summer day. ******* Summer here has been extremely dry, despite the historic flooding in our area the end of April/early May with nearly 27 inches of rain. Since then, we have barely had a few sprinkles, and my garden is fried and a flop... I did get some tomatoes, and parsley. Between the heat, Japanese beetles (wish they would all go far away), rabbits and deer I have had very little from my garden. I did make a few jars of salsa from the tomatoes, peppers and onions. We had a very hot spell in July, with a week of over 100' F temps. My new phone even complained of the heat, and gave me a warning that "40 C" was not good for it. I had a friend look that up, and it equals 104' F, which sounds much hotter than 40' whatever. Well, whether you call it 104' F, or 40' C, it is way too hot for me! My porch thermometer has always been accurate and said 102' F for those days. Other son's car thermometer also said 102' F. Personally, I don't like anything over 75' F myself. Even my poor flowers are fried. Those rotten Japanese beetles ate a lot of my trees, as well as flowers, and those pheromone traps were a joke. Sure, they attract the beetles en masse, BUT the beetles eat through the traps, and breed more than they would otherwise. They all escape.... I had to put the trap in a bucket of soapy water to drown the vermin. Guess I need to put out more buckets of water.... When I was a kid, grownups paid kids 25 cents to go around with a coffee can of gasoline to pick and drown those things... Not that we could have climbed tall trees to get them, but we got rid of many anyway. I hope your gardens did better than mine did!
