Happy Harvesting

I got a bit of a lecture this morning. 

There we were, breakfast done and we lingered over our morning coffee contemplating what we were going to be doing today.  Being the high-tech wonder that I am I had just checked the weather app on my phone (instead of getting up and walking over to the deck door and stick my nose outside to check the temperature).  It was already too hot for me.  I commenced grumbling.

Instantly I was chastised for complaining about hot, sunny weather during harvest.  I suppose I should have known better, but it's been a few years since we actually had a harvest of our own to worry about so my frame of mind was not in harvest mode.  He, on the other hand, has spent the past week working for a neighbour; he is in full-blown Farmer-itis. 

"This is the best combining weather we could ask for!"

"Everything is ripening to perfection!"

And, scrolling through the 14 day forecast on his phone "There's not a drop of rain in sight for two weeks.  We couldn't ask for better than that!"

It hadn't been the rain, or lack of it, that had been on my mind.  It was all those days of temperatures over 30.  I really don't do heat well.

I get it though; hot and dry is good.  Let the farmers get their crops off.  A single rain can degrade a crop  tens of thousands of dollars, and a wind can shatter seed pods and throw the seeds on the ground - a waste for this year and a curse for next year.  By this time of the year the days are getting shorter all the time; a farmer doesn't want cool, dewy nights either because it takes half the day to get the crop back to dry again. 

The bottom line is people like me just need to keep our heat disapproval to a minimum until the crop is in the bin.  It can't happen fast enough to suit me.

I have a whole list of things I need to get done.  There is a little bit of grass to mow.  There is garden to clean up, and there is always weeding to do.  There are strawberries to pick, potatoes to dig, corn to bring in for supper, and although I have no idea what to do with them anymore, there are tons of cucumbers out there.  They love the hot weather.

The trouble is none of these jobs can be done in the shade.  I was so desperate for something to do inside yesterday I even cleaned out my bowls/plastics cupboards, and the notion that I should tackle my deepfreeze next keeps crossing my mind.  My subconscious is at war over this - my emotional side screams "But you hate that job!" while my practical side points out that "At least it would a cool place to hang out for an afternoon."  So far my sheer laziness has saved me, but their constant bickering is really starting to get on my nerves.

The dog really really really wants to go for a walk but he's crazy.  He's a Husky/German Shepherd cross and has a hair coat that safely gets him through Canadian winters - 30 degree summer days are worse for him that they are for me.  I can just see me having to carry the lunk back home when he keels over from heat exhaustion.  Well actually, he would probably do fine: I'm just worried that if I keeled over from heat exhaustion he wouldn't bother carrying me home.  So just to be on the safe side, we're not going for a walk until it's much cooler outside.  Like maybe mid September.

This may call for a trip to the library for something to read, or maybe I will checkout what Netflix has to offer.  Or maybe I will Google BBQ recipes - I have no desire to heat up the inside of my house to feed this re-awakened farmer of mine.  I do hope that they have a clear run and the crop comes off in peak condition ... the faster the better.