The “dog daze” of summer making many delirious

Morguefile

I was delirious as the lawn mower was choking on the thick dew-stained grass under the blazing hot sun attempting to make my yard somewhat presentable. It was only a matter of minutes before I was going to crawl to the shed to get the sledgehammer so that I could put the poor mower out of its misery.  How could I possibly do this to my mower which only wishes to cut my grass, not “murder it” by taking down “mountains of vegetation.” That’s torture for anyone or anything which includes this innocent machine.

Cami intercepted me to offer a break and some water. I refused. The sounds of thunder were approaching.

“I got to get this monster lawn full of grass, weeds, tics, ants and deer droppings sliced down before the storm arrives!” I protested.

Cami gave up on me, heading back inside to the AC. Instead of reaching for the sledgehammer, I retrieved my water bottle which saved me during plenty of my insane summer runs and guzzled away, trying to save myself from a heat stroke and/or a nervous breakdown. Why was I mowing in this heat and humidity? What got into me? Perhaps I wished to take my aggressions out on the lawn.

Unless you dear reader or anyone you know has been visiting the Arctic Circle during the past few months, we have all been residing in a brick oven – minus the delicious pizza that comes out of those brick ovens. It is common knowledge that our summers in the Southeastern U.S. are hellish, but what makes this current summer even worse, is the tropical system parked over all of us. Rain and heat and vice versa has been playing out here in Georgia for weeks on end. Car and home AC systems are taxed to the max; outdoor felines are hiding under vehicles rejecting the offer of food from yard warriors like myself; our roofs are baking faster than Aunt Vidalia’s meatloaf; the paint is fading our houses from the intense sunshine.

The silver lining to our frequent storms is that we are out of the drought zone, but the humidity and heat have been punishing us – and our poor air conditioners. Perhaps it’s the heat getting to me, but I cannot help but give our equipment their own personalities – making them appear as being “anthropomorphic.”

As I’ve written in this space in the past, we certainly need the rain being in this mainly land-locked region, but we could do without the high winds and strong lightning. We had some recent home strikes throughout the metro Atlanta area. Even a boater was struck by lightning attempting to get away from a fast-moving storm.

I finished the challenging self-imposed yard work on that 95F degree day. The forecast called for strong storms so I had to move fast. Despite the thunder shaking the soil, that strong cell merely brush our area leaving just a few raindrops before departing for neighborhoods north of us. As I write this, it is late July 2017, which means we that I must write tongue-in-cheek: we have three more months of summer. So, July will go out like someone wrapped in several layers of wool and August will come in like someone wearing layers of parka jackets.