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Monday, July 30, 2018

Depressing heat

This must be the hottest summer on record. I'll be surprised if it isn't. Not much of an exaggeration to say that about the only butterfly I saw today was this Texas Powdered-Skipper floating dead in the tank scum.


I managed to get the trees watered before it reached 107° today. And I also managed to find a couple more common butterflies. Here's an Elada Checkerspot.


I was hating to see the reeds in my dragonfly pond start to die, so I rigged up a little drip in there to help them out. I have enough water as long as I get at least one good monsoonal rain this summer, and if I don't, the water I have won't last until next rainy season anyway, so I may as well enjoy what I have, judiciously, of course. 


July, August, and September are monsoon season. It's one-third over and I've had less than seven-tenths of an inch of rain so far this July. The only year I've had less than that in July was during the drought of 2011. I'm not too worried. I didn't get my monsoonal rain last year until August. And thankfully I caught some runoff this June to tide me over.


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