Day 85 / 280

Saylorville Lake 85 Degrees Sunny

The down side of living in an RV is they aren’t insulated like a house. If the furnace quits you can start up the fireplace or put space heaters out. If the AC goes out, your screwed. There’s no polite way to say it. We are living one of those, “how bad could it get” scenarios. While we wait for a compressor fan motor to be rebuilt, (since the motor is a special order, nothing is easy with RV parts) we roast in our fiberglass and plastic box with only an inch of insulation and black glass windows on the west side. This is one of those days when I recall my childhood. Not that we were dirt poor or anything, but in the 70’s Air Conditioning was still considered something of a luxury. I grew up in a house equipped with air conditioning but my parents chose to spend their dollars on other things instead of cooling the house. I can count the number of times they actually turned it on, on one hand. As an adult my responce to that unpleasant memory has been to cool my home in the summer no matter what else I had to give up. I like summer and hot weather, but I like it a lot more when I can go inside, when I’ve had enough, and sit in my preferred 75 degree air. Don’t get me wrong 85 outside and 96 inside, as it is today, could be a lot worse in Iowa. It could be July and 105 degrees and god knows how hot inside with heat indexes overnight hovering in the upper 80’s. I’ve written before about liking the outdoors. It’s a good thing. We are spending most of our days and evenings outside in the shade. The saving grace is, it is getting into the 60’sat night so we start out each day about 70 inside.

[caption id="attachment_838" align="alignleft" width="200"] Judy and Bridget having a planting party with me[/caption]

I focus my thoughts on the fact that I love to be outside and it is quite comfortable here as I write. My other joy is that I spent yesterday morning planting my adopted bed in the Butterfly Garden at Saylorville and got to spend good time with a fellow volunteer Judy, who loves gardening as much as I do. After I finished my bed I helped her the rest of the morning working on other beds in the garden. Over two dozen, some adopted by local volunteers, some not. At any rate my green thumb is happy when I’m here in the summer and need to nurture my spirit growing beautiful things like flowers and witness the butterflies arrive and thrive in the gardens for the season.

Life is hot today, but it is good. It’s all a matter of attitude.

Until tomorrow…