Having a Heat Wave

I'm having a hard time coming up with topics right now. We haven't done much at Borderlands because of the heat. As I type this, the temp is already at 95 with a heat index of 97. The heat is making it hard for my little brain to even come up with topics, well, upbeat topics anyway.

The weatherman said it was going to be 99 today and 100 tomorrow. Then supposedly we are getting a cold front. How can you call a cold front 90? But I'll take it because next weekend we are supposed to be at 100 again. It's going to make the Colton Jubilee Days smoking hot but luckily we'll be sitting in the shade. If I'm lucky there will be shade and the extreme heat won't come until later in the day.

I had hoped to get up early yesterday morning to work on putting up electric fence but the body said no. Mike and I are still fighting this headcold which is now turning into a chest cold. Add to it the heat, there was no way either of us could muster the energy to crawl out of bed and put in electric fence.

Now I'm wishing we would have done it anyway. We did wake up early this morning and head over half way early to start putting in fence. After about an hour, I had to give up. Too hot, and too much walking was the end of me but luckily Mike had more energy and was able to get all the electric fence up. It wasn't yet 90+ when we came in but I'm thinking it'll have to be tomorrow before we put the electric fence up and bring the horses over. I'm considering taking the day off to get it all done so I can keep an eye on the horses and get it all done before the heat sets in. That or I'll do it on Tuesday and take a day off the paying job since it's supposed to be "colder" then. Sad to think that 90 is colder.

While we were over at the neighbor's putting in fence, I could see exactly how bad our pasture is. There's absolutely nothing. We are east river South Dakota and our tradition was to go to the Black Hills every Labor Day weekend. Our pasture currently looks like west river terrain and it's only mid July. I'm definitely worried. There's absolutely nothing left. Luckily the neighbor's pasture is pretty good still. Our hope is that we made the fencing large enough to keep them content for one week and then next weekend we can move the electric fence to a different area. I'd rather not burn up and totally trash the neighbor's pasture like we are doing on ours.

If we don't get some rain soon, there is going to be in influx of horses being dumped soon. Typically August is the beginning of the dumping season but with the weather the way it is, I can see that it'll either start sooner or that there will be way more horses pushed into the auction and slaughter pipeline. Unfortunately, we can't take in any more. If there were more funds coming in (other than my paycheck), or if someone were to sponsor one or two horses, we could possibly take in one or two old warriors but right now, I want to make sure that those horses here are taken care of and we are going to be pinching pennies to make sure that everyone is well taken care of thanks to this damn drought.

Because my mind is mush right now (thanks to the heat and this head cold), I thought maybe I'd dig into the archives and look for some chilly pictures. Sure enough I found a few right away. The following two pictures were taken two years ago. I'm walking through a snowdrift that took the snow grader three passes to bust through.  In the distance off to the right is where we are going to put the horses (between the first and second power pole and then straight to the right in the first picture).

I want to thank the volunteers who said they would come out this morning and help. After hearing that the temps were going to be even higher, I didn't think it wise to put anyone at risk. Mike and I have both been sick because of the heat and I didn't want to risk anyone else getting sick. We can run over and putter for an hour and then head in where it's cool. I would feel guilty for putting people to work in this heat. When it ever does cool off, I'll beg for help. I need to get some electric fence up in the mare pasture I thought we couldn't use. Otherwise, I'll be hauling all three mares up to Madison for a week or so to eat down that pasture.

I hope everyone stays cool during this massive heatwave. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that we'll get some type of rain soon to break this drought. I just don't know how much longer we can hold out without any rain. It's making life even tougher than when we were dealing with sub zero temps. I guess this is the type of weather that makes us hardy (or crazy) South Dakotans.