have I mentioned how hot it is

I got up Monday morning, replenished the dry food for the dog and cat, grabbed up my pruners and went out and cut back all the purple coneflowers in the yard. They had all gone to seed and were brown or dead. Took me not quite an hour as they have colonized just about everywhere in this yard. I don't know if I would call them invasive but they do spread easily just like the orange cosmos. This was between 7:30 and 8:30 and when I came in I was dripping with sweat.

Tuesday morning, same thing only this time I set up the sprinkler and then spent a half hour or more clearing out all the dewberry vines that were taking over a section of the front flower bed that I didn't know about until I cut back the purple coneflowers and, once again, by the time I finished sweat was dripping off me. After breakfast I went out and picked up all the fallen branches while Marc mowed but earlier when I first went out there were two whistling ducks up in one of the pecan trees which I didn't notice until I heard their whistling chirpy vocalizations.

I ran out of bird seed a month ago maybe, maybe longer. I don't seem able to keep track of time these days. Anyway, I didn't run out and get more because...summer and also because...grackles. Those three little bastards just would not move on and they would get on the bird feeder and just start throwing seed out left and right looking for I don't know what. Last week I went to Tractor Supply looking for a rain gauge but I didn't like the three options they had so I got bird seed instead and so far, no grackles but you know what else I've noticed over the last few weeks? No squirrels. I have not seen a single squirrel for weeks, a month, maybe even longer. My neighbor says he hasn't seen any either. Where are the squirrels?

Well, damn, looked up a couple of hours later and there was a fucking grackle and it brought a buddy. They've both been spending a lot of time in the bird bath.

Have I mentioned how hot it is here? It's only (ha) supposed to get up to 97˚ here today but the real feel is 115˚ and there's no relief in sight. I went outside first thing this morning, which is the only time to be trying to do anything outside, and while sweat did not drip off me as I was just standing in the shade hand watering parts of the yard while the sprinkler worked elsewhere and the day's hot south wind had not started to blow yet but even so it was hot enough to be standing there thinking how fucking hot it was so early in the day. Later around 5:30 I went out on the deck and sat. Lasted about 5 minutes, like sitting in a dry sauna.

Some things don't mind. The rangoon creeper has started blooming, 

the mexican bird of paradise is sending up more bloom stalks, the light pink plumerias are in full bloom, 

zinnias still looking good. Of course I water all that stuff every day. The orange cosmos, after an unusual flush of spring blooms are growing taller. The begonia has been blooming for weeks.

Very pink around here.

The coral butterfly ginger is sending up it's bloom cones but the white is suffering. It does not like the hot sun and it doesn't matter how much I water it (though I did erect the shade cloth in front of it so we'll see how it fares).

I'm back to staying off my leg today and icing it, even took some ibuprofen earlier and it's currently wrapped in a compression bandage. Woke up this morning after a week of no pain, though still slightly swollen, and normal activity as long as I didn't kneel directly on the knee, to more swelling and more pain than any time previous except for the initial impact. So definitely developed some bursitis (I looked it up). Don't know what I did to aggravate it but it didn't bother me at all yesterday.

All right, this is already too long. If I could just remember to post every other day like I intend.