End of an era

The cicadas that live in the trees that surround the house begin very early in morning to stitch their sewing machine songs. These are not the smaller periodic cicadas that we had in the late spring, these are the big ones that are with us throughout the summer every year. Even if there were no traffic whizzing by 24/7, there is nothing quiet about country living in the summer. The cicadas go to sleep in the early evening, and then the katydids wake up and sing to each other throughout the night. I love the sound of the katydids. Puts me right to sleep

The Bandido Brothers show up fairly regularly here after dark. Each year there are a different group -- the Momma raccoon brings the latest batch of infants to the house to introduce them to all the goodies that might be had here. They scavenge the leftover bird seed at the bird feeder, they invariably tip over the large saucer of water I put out for the birds, and if I forget to bring the hummingbird feeder in, then they are all over that. They squabble and make noise and are just adorable. Until they grow up. They apparently did not come by last night, because this morning I see that the water is still there.

The heat continues. I suppose it is hotter in some areas than it is in others -- I think we get a bit of a break because our house is well shaded by trees and surrounded by tall trees and there is no asphalt or cement around the house to serve as a heat sink. It gets this hot in Los Angeles for sure, but there is no late afternoon marine layer coming off the ocean to moderate the heat. The "low" the other night was about 80 degrees. I find that even though we have lived here since 1981, Los Angeles is still home. I still think of myself as a "California girl".... urr... well, make that "geezer."

I sort of "engineered" it so that someone came on Wednesday and installed two window air conditioners, one in Richard's office and one in our bedroom  (my office is in the bedroom) so we will have "zone cooling".  He was annoyed with me because he "wasn't ready" to do what needs to be done so the A/Cs can be installed (had to move a bunch of stuff away from the window so the A/C could be put in), but one of the A/Cs has been sitting in its carton for at least a year and the other one even longer, and it was time. Installing a window A/C is not a major deal, but Richard can't lift anything very heavy because he has an umbilical hernia that he must be careful with.

So an era is coming to an end -- an era of suffering through the Midwestern summer with no relief except for box fans a few hours of cool air being drawn through the house in the early morning and early evening by the whole-house attic fan. The heat never seemed to bother us much -- or if it did we have forgotten how miserable we were -- but at least now we can be a bit more comfortable.