The summer heat as arrived and that means a few different things around the farm, first I should explain that we regularly during July and Aug get high temps and totally stupid humidity, examples would be regular 28 to 35 C with Humidity that feels over 40 degrees.. its just yucky when that happens.
Here is a little list of things that I tend to do that help get us though it.
- Hand out the pickles-big juicy ice cold dill pickles, become a regular thing on the snacking menu while working outside, this is a great way to keep your salt intake up, which the heat is pulling out of you by way of sweat. I also have been known to add a pinch of salt to our homemade Ice tea’s which help keep your sugar levels up.
- Take and drink water or homemade cold sweet tea’s with you everywhere, before the weather gets bad, in spring or fall, we drink a glass each time we come in, but in summer, we take a jug of 4 liters with us, and if you stop, you have a drink, heat stroke is easy to come by if you are not careful.
- Summer kitchen-I picked up a propane stove for ten dollars at a farm sale a couple years back that means that I able to can or cook outside, but if you have to cook inside, remember to fully use that oven and fill it with roasts, breads etc so that you are doing a weeks worth of cooking in one go and you can just reheat or have cold plates.
- Keep out the sun, heavy heat blocking curtains are a must, but I will own up to the fact that I am to cheap to buy them, I was however able to get queen size pretty old fashioned looking quilts from walmart on sale, and with a little hemming, and a good study hanger and volio, heavy duty heat curtains for a much reduced fee, these work in winter to keep drafts out, and in summer to keep heat out.
- Watch your natural wind patterns, if you tend to have breeze in the afternoons, open the windows that will catch it, otherwise, keep it closed, check your yard, when I moved here, we had a back window that hot air came in, I planted tree’s and now, its a lovely shaded window that cool air come in and with the help a fan, it now only cools that room but the room next to it.
- Give yourself a little dump, wet your hair and shirts, they will naturally cool you off while working and a little trick from my kitchen working days, put your hands up a couple inches your wrists into cool water, and relax for a few min, it will help cool your whole body down.
- Work in the early morning and in the evenings, and rest or nap in the heat of the day.
- Listen to your critters, if you are out working in the morning and you think it might be getting way to hot, check what your critters are doing, if they are all tucked in the shade of their tree’s or are in the barn (which tends to be about 10 to 15 degree’s cooler then outside) its time to head to the house yourself.
How do you deal with the heat? Any tips to share?
Just another Day on the Farm 
We eat a lot of popsicles, ice cream and cold meals….most of the summer, you can see the kids carrying around cups of crushed ice that they munch on when playing outside. And when it’s really, really bad, we retreat to the basement.
Hi Andrea,
Liked your post about the chow-chow, its amazing how it takes to fill those quart or pint jars in the end does it not.. ah, yes, thank goodness for basements to retreat to..
Ha! Too funny!! Yup, just me and the dogs; hiding out inside, having lunch, reading your blog and waiting for it to “cool off”. (Might be here for a couple of days, if Env. Canada’s right; )
To keep cool? Well, last week, I made a HUGE (two ice cream containers worth) batch of Banana-Citrus Sorbet. We’re eating berries as soon as they’re ripe and cooking as little as possible – in between endless watering of pots and new plantings – and soaking in the pool. This is definitely basement sleeping weather for the next couple of nights…
I hear you totally on the cooking as little as possable, when the heat gets that hot, I find I am not that hunger anyway, Last we between Dh and I, we went though a watermelon a day for snacking, cold, cool, got natural sugars etc. The Sorbet sounds good, want to share the recipe?
Mr. S and I have been having a debate the last few days about getting an air conditioner. He wants one, I don’t. I have to admit I do see his side of things, the man is a walking furnace and tends to wear shorts into October, and the upstairs of our house is rather hay mow-like at the moment. But, when it starts to cool off a bit tonight I’ll fire up a couple of fans we have in the windows to pull in the cool(ish) night air and hopefully make it sleepable. The downstairs of the house stays relatively cooler with the thick stone walls, and the south side of the house is covered with vines, which helps too. We may end up sleeping in the livingroom. 🙂 Other than that, no cooking here, I cooked up a bunch of stuff earlier in preparation and with salads we’ll get by. Just wish it would rain, though. No rain here for going on six weeks now. I have some pretty nervous neighbours who are worried this year will be a total write off.
Six weeks without rain! wow, do you have your own well for the garden or are you paying for your water? I have to admit that Dh and I had decided that picking up a AC for the upstairs bedroom only is reasonable, I would not want to get to the point of doing the whole house but honestly a good nights sleep is important.
We have an old cistern to collect rainwater and use a submersible pump to get it to the garden, but we’ve drained it twice already. I have a really awesome relationship with my water guy (we go way back) and we’ve set up an informal barter system so most times I pay in pickles or stuff like that. 🙂 But I hate to take advantage so I’m going to give it a bit before I ask him to come back with another load. Right now I’m just watering what looks like it’s in distress, using water from our main cistern. There’s a couple of old drilled wells out by the barns but we would need to get a new pressure pump and heaven knows what else to get them going, and then figure out how to get it all the way to the garden. It might come to that. Fingers crossed, they are calling for a bit of rain this weekend.
P.s. Did you get my email? I sent you the pie recipe but I had problems sending it.
Hi Daisy,
I did get your recipe, I thought I had sent a thank you reply but realized I didn’t , sorry about that. Good for you for using your old cistern for collecting rainwater, sounds like you are really in need of some rain, here’s hoping you get some soon!
Heat? What heat? The thermometer is barely grazing the low 20’s here in Vancouver!
I would be happy to send you some, I just listened to the radio say that today is to be the worst of the current heat wave, they are expecting it to get to 35 with humidity it will feel like 45, and even the road crews and city works are stopping today at noon, with warnings for heat stroke and to start out of the sun and no outside working if possable..
I guess I will be heading out three times today to check and double check all the water’s for the critters, I have frozen plastic pop bottles all ready to go for the rabbits, you put them out in the cages and the rabbits will either lay on top of them or against them to help keep cool.. got all the house and barn fans running, and even the most skittish stray barn cats are barely flicking a eye at me as they lay in front of the fans.
I’m interested in knowing more how you hung your quilts. You said you put them on a sturdy hanger? Or do you mean that you hang them on a curtain rod? Thanks so much for clarifying for me…
Hi Linda
Welcome to the blog, thanks for stopping by, I do mean a very heavy duty curtain rod, or in my case, I bought a round dowl from the feed store and used it as the curtain rod. Hope to see more of you in the future 🙂