It was pale pink when cut and brought into the house, now these beautiful colours have emerged.
Yesterday morning we set forth around 7:00 a.m. for our daily two mile walk. About a half mile into the walk I knew it would not be wise to attempt the whole two miles, so we walked a mile and a half. By the time we arrived back home I was blinded by the sweat in my eyes, and my clothes were soaking wet. After entering the house, I disrobed, and stood naked before a fan for about twenty minutes to cool down.
I was not feeling great, my electrolytes were a little off, so I had a teaspoon of apple butter, a handful of salty corn chips, and a huge glass of water. Within a few minutes I began to feel much better. Today, after my shortened morning walk, I downed a teaspoon of apple butter, three homemade dill pickles, and a huge glass of water. My diet is very low sodium, so during these heat waves I need to carefully balance my electrolytes.
One of our exterior doors has single pane glass. There is so much condensation on the outside of the glass that we cannot see out of it.
Right now it feels like 40C out there, in the shade, and the day is just getting going. It will get a lot hotter over the course of the day. Yesterday we had an intense thunderstorm with very high winds and a deluge of rain. The same is predicted for later today.
We are very lucky to have a cooling system.
Attila does not usually feel the heat. Even he feels this heat wave, and limits his time out of doors. It takes extreme circumstances to keep Attila out of his garden!
As usual we are busy with food. Yesterday I baked bread, made Kombucha, and a batch of Cream of Spinach Soup Base. Attila has been blanching and freezing edible pod peas. He roasted garden garlic scapes, that is the last of the scapes for this season. They make a great salad topping, along with homemade croutons. Our first broccoli harvest came in today. There isn’t enough for a full batch of soup base. I will cook it, and freeze it, until the next harvest to have enough for a full batch..
When the pandemic started, we decided to up our game with food storage. One of the items we stocked up on was frozen spinach, it was $1.00 for a package, so we bought quite a few for the freezer. Those packages expired in April of 2023. There were two left in the chest freezer. I am seldom daunted by Best Before dates. Quality and nutrition deteriorate over time, but properly stored food is still safe to eat way beyond the best before date. I used the very last package yesterday to make my soup base. I had a bowl of it for lunch and it was delicious.
Those packages of spinach are now $2.00 each. Our income has not doubled, but the price of food has, and then some. We perused the grocery store today, many shelves were almost empty. They were selling large cuts of beef for $129.00, brisket, that’s a pass. For protein we seldom eat red meat these days, hamburger occasionally, our pork sausage patties occasionally, bacon two or three times a year, that is about it. Mostly we eat beans, legumes, and some fish and chicken. Dairy also provides us with protein.
The heat and humidity are awful. When I look at the weather map I can see that as awful as it is, to south of us it is a lot hotter, the humidity is not indicated.
I am hoping you are all comfortable and safe!
Worldly
Weather
34°C (36°C in the shade outside my kitchen window)
Date: 2:00 PM EDT Wednesday 1 July 2026
Condition: Partly Cloudy
Pressure: 101.3 kPa
Tendency: Falling
Temperature: 34.4°C
Dew point: 23.4°C
Humidity: 89%
Wind: S 14 km/h
Humidex: 47 (116.6F, I believe the humidex is distinctly higher than this at our house)
Visibility: 19 km
29°C (32C in the shade outside the kitchen window)
Date: 11:00 AM EDT Thursday 2 July 2026
Condition: Partly Cloudy
Pressure: 101.4 kPa
Tendency: Falling
Temperature: 24.4°C
Dew point: 28.9°C
Humidity: 91%
Wind: S 15 km/h
Humidex: 40
Visibility: 24 km
Quote
“Three failures denote uncommon strength. A weakling has not enough grit to fail thrice.”
Minna Thomas Antrim
1861 – 1950
Hi Maggie. We’re having extreme heat here too…until Sunday. I try to stay indoors and not overdo. I also drink 60 to 90 ounces of water mixed with an electrolytes and ice. Food prices amaze me. I don’t know who’s buying meat. It was priced out of my budget quite some time ago. A friend of mine likes fresh cherries and blueberries. She said at the grocery store a pint of cherries cost $9.50!!! A pint! And a pint of blueberries was around $6.00. but those were organic from Michigan, which has great blueberries. Do you also grow spinach in your garden? That’s such a great veggie. Stay cool!
Hi Sandy. Your strategies to beat the heat sound good!
Wow, those food prices are very high. We usually buy fruit when it is on sale, and don’t even think about organic offerings. We are lucky though, that everything coming out of our garden is organic.Our federal government has plans to improve our food production and delivery system, hopefully that will mediate the high prices.
We did grow spinach in our garden this year. We have harvested all of it, because it hates the hot weather and will bolt and turn bitter in the heat. I froze seven batches that I had cooked with garlic, they will be used for cream of spinach soups. Our home grown spinach is organic, and a much better quality than the $2.00 frozen packages. I am glad the last of our commercially frozen vintage spinach is used up!
Stay cool Sandy!