It is only 9am.  It is already 98 degrees outside. The wind is not blowing ...yet.

Yesterday, being Monday, is my heavy work day.  Before 10 am, I had washed and hung 4 loads of laundry, fed and watered the animals, watered all the plants and washed all the dishes from our busy birthday weekend.  Oh yeah! And stripped the bed and put clean sheets on it.

 Our only granddaughter turned 5 years old on Saturday, my husband had a birthday on Monday and Father's Day was on Sunday.  We celebrated all those on Sunday.  Steve got a big new bar-be-que grill for his birthday so he bbq-ed pork chops for 11 people.  We also had coleslaw, potato salad, hot dogs for the kids, applesauce and two cakes, one for Eden and one for Steve.  Eden's cake was a rainbow layer cake with all different bright colors inside.  I made a pineapple upside-down cake for Steve, as that is his favorite and he almost never eats cake anyway.  Of course, Eden got so many gifts it looked like Christmas in June!  The theme this year seemed to be horses and mermaids.  Along with her horse quilt, she also got a horse pillow and a stuffed horse.  Her aunt got her a herd of "My Little Pony" horses that had long manes and tails and combs to style them.  She got a mermaid Barbie and an "Ariel" mermaid from the movie.  For the pool, she got new water wings and another mermaid doll with seahorses that swims! Ha!  What a haul!

We had a fire behind us and a fire in front on the border.  We watched the big air tanker fly back and forth from Parker Canyon Lake to the fire behind us all day yesterday.  The smoke seems less this morning.  I do not know if either fire is out or still going.  The weather people are saying we will get record high temps this week and then get "steamy" by the weekend.  This will be a precursor to thunderstorms on the weekend and perhaps, the start of the monsoon.  I am not looking forward to the "steamy" part, but I do like the monsoon storms.  We will have to start swimming in the mornings if we want to swim at all.  Afternoons will be full of lightening and heavy rains.

Our swallows on the front porch hatched the first batch of babies for this season.  As far as I can tell there are at least 3 little wide open mouths up there when the mamma comes by to feed them.  There are probably more.  They are tiny right now.  All you can see are big mouths and eyes.  The lizards are loving the dry hot weather and are everywhere. It is a good thing because if not for the birds and lizards, we would be overrun with bugs, bugs, and more bugs.  The crickets are abundant and obnoxious with their leg rubbing.  The tiny little red ants are virtually covering the yard and everything else.  I can hardly water the animals or the plants without getting some on me.  They are nasty little biters too.  If I am wearing a sundress, which I often do, I have taken to picking it up and walking, like the ladies used to do in the Old West. Sometimes the ants will still hitch a ride, but I usually notice if they are crawling up my feet and ankles.  Then I can stamp them off before I go inside.  If they get on the hem of my dress, I may be inside before I notice the buggers!  I've even gotten them on my arms from leaning on the fence as I fill up water buckets!  Yikes!

This week our #1 daughter and her family, including 3 of our grand kids, are moving to their very own first house in Tucson.  Steve is helping move their stuff.  I will help by keeping the kids while the move is made.  Then, our #2 daughter and her son are moving into the house being vacated by daughter #1.  Steve and I will be official "empty-nesters."  Whooo-hoo!  I have been looking forward to this but I am thinking that it is going to be rather weird at first.  I will be alone much of the day.  What will I do with all that time????  Don't worry!  I'm sure I will think of plenty! 

I have been working for several weeks on a quilt for my grand-daughter's 5th birthday, which is coming up this weekend.  I finally completed it this morning!  It is so satisfying to complete an artistic project.  I think it turned out pretty good if I do say so myself!

My cat, Loki, seems to like it too.  He planted himself right in the middle as I was trying to take pictures.  Silly cat!

We will hit 102 degrees this afternoon.  I got the ironing done this morning too right after the quilt.  It is just too too hot here to do anything that takes any effort in the afternoons.  Tomorrow it is supposed to be even hotter, 105*!  Yikes!  I really don't mind so much.  I am thankful that we have air conditioning in the house, but I also know that we can survive without it as we did a couple of years ago.  And we have the pool.  I plan to use that this afternoon for awhile.  Gotta get my exercise in you know!

Due to several fires in our area, we have been having some spectacular sunrises and sunsets lately.  I tried to capture the sunrise the other day with the alpacas relaxing in the foreground.  It came out too dark to see the alpacas.  In the one that I posted you can see the dove sitting on the wire though.  Mornings are my favorite time of day.  It is nice and cool and quiet.  The birds are just coming alive and their songs and chirps are about the only sounds.  No new problems or news has yet to invade my consciousness.  Nothing to disrupt the feeling of peace and thankfulness.  And I can just thank the good Lord for small miracles.

Here it is June again!  Hot days and cool nights.  On Thursday last week we were inundated with heavy smoke from the fire just across the state line in New Mexico.  We could not see the Whetstone Mountains just in front of us.  It was like being back in southern California with all that  brownish white smog. It made for some spectacular sunsets.  Even the moon had a pinkish glow for a few nights. That lasted until about yesterday I would say.  Then our constant companion WIND picked up big time and blew much of the smoke away.  So as much as I often curse the wind, there are times when I am grateful for it too.

My tomato plants are getting bigger and are actually producing tomatoes.  It remains to be seen whether or not we will get to enjoy any of them.  There was a good sized one I was watching.  It was starting to turn reddish orange.  I reached around the leaves to see how big it really was and YUCK!  Half of the tomato was already pecked away!  Eaten by birds no doubt!  There are several fruits on each plant now.  I hope they aren't all eaten before they are ripe.  The squash are doing nicely and there are already a few jalepeno peppers on those plants.  I wonder if they will be hotter than the ones in the store.

My geraniums that I transplanted outside are finally blooming like crazy.  So are the petunias.  I also have a large bush in the backyard that I love.  I don't know what it is as it was there before I moved in.  I call it a butterfly bush because it is similar to those.  It's blooms are dark purple and cone shaped.

The saguaro in the front yard is shrinking from lack of rain as it always does this time of year.  One of its branches it also starting to bloom.  As I was taking pictures of the blooms, I noticed a bird at eye level inside the cactus trunk.  I took a picture of the hole, but the bird hid way down inside, too dark down there to get his picture.  

We have been swimming most every afternoon.  It is very refreshing after the temperature hits 100 degrees. I worry about fires and they are popping up all over the West.  We have to hang in there and be extra cautious until the monsoon comes in July, only a few weeks away.