How long til fall ?

How many days over 110 degrees so far this year?  How many days over 100 degrees?  I have been watching the news a little bit and the weather is always a prime topic.  The newscasters  are talking about the “heat waves” elsewhere in the US.  What a bunch of babies!  Their heat wave is our cold snap.

In Arizona,  we have our calendar completely turned around.  We let our flowers die in the summer, and try to keep our grass green enough to not get cited by the city for brown  grass. Our lawns are lush and beautiful in the winter and our flowers are prolific.  I watch the weather and if there is a “freeze warning” I drag out the frost covers and cover it all.

What grass looks like if you don't water in summer.

Last year we had a couple of our trees trimmed by a tree trimmer that brought in the big chipper.  They turned our lawn water off.  We were out of town at the time and in a week our lawn was brown.  We were cited by the city for a brown lawn.  Really- As soon as we found out what had happened we fixed it.  Here is my dilemma- the city upcharges you based on your water use.  If you are a light user you pay $1.65 per gallon,  tier 2 is $2.85,  tier 3 is $3.55,  etc.  Trying to keep grass green is a nightmare.  So we considered fake grass.

Fake grass

We live on the corner of our subdivision.  We are the lucky recipient of all of the main power boxes, including the cable company.  We have one box in our front year and this year they added a second one because of some new fiberoptic.  I had a few discussions with the cable company about why we deserve to have all of the connections in our yard.  They really don’t care – they have easement rights

I asked them what would have happened if I would have put in the “fake “grass.  They said they would have cut it up to get to the wiring that apparently runs all over (or under) our front lawn.  So I decided that I need to just keep watering and do our best to be smart about it.  

Just visualize fall and you will feel better.

I love the fall, winter and spring here is AZ.  It is wonderful.  I guess if it were too nice in the summer we would be absolutely overloaded with people.  Now they stay away in the summer and just come when the weather gets nicer.  There are some advantages:

• You can walk right into a restaurant.  Don't worry about a reservation.  Any one who can get away is already out of town.
• We will see a lot of new movies.  You need to choose indoor activities and places with air conditioning.
• I have a really good excuse not to exercise.  People die from exercising here.  So I need to wait for the temperature to go down.
• You can't clean your garage.  See previous bullet.  You could die cleaning your garage.

I am thinking of a few leaf projects, for fall this year.  

This song has NOTHING to do with today's post but I heard it yesterday and I liked the lyrics.  It was on a country station and it is by Mark Wills.......


"It was 1970 somethin'
In the world that I grew up in
Farrah Fawcett hairdo days
Bell bottoms and eight track tapes
Lookin' back now I can see me
Oh, man. did I look cheesy
But I wouldn't trade those days for nothin'
Oh, it was 1970 somethin'"

Coming Soon:
My Catalog Obsession
Staging without renting furniture and selling in four days
The Birthday Club

Love, Ya-Ya