Feeling the heat and humidity...

On the first warm day, the morning was just delightful. And then the afternoon seemed a little too warm. 

I was really annoyed with myself. I had been cold for months, and now that the sun was shining I was complaining of the heat? It was only 80 degrees!

I was weeding the garden. My back was turned to the sun. In short order I was drenched with sweat.

After an hour of misery I realized it wasn't the heat, it was the combination of 80 degrees with about 80% humidity. 

The goats had moved into the shade, and Dusty was lying on the porch. I took a hint.

The problem with quitting weeding at that point was that the weeds were loving the heat and humidity as much as the rest of the garden. They were neck and neck. Head to head. Indistinguishable! And I wasn't going to the rescue.

I was actually quite disappointed in myself. As a kid I had turned red-faced at the slightest increase in temperature, when other kids were playing happily along. So maybe I had less tolerance for it. 

But such fussiness did not fit into my vision of self-sufficiency. I couldn't picture the farmers of old whining because they were hot, or stopping the planting and hoeing and the hope of their families making it through the next winter because the humidity was uncomfortable.

But no matter what my attitude about it, no matter how many little chats I had with myself about enduring and suffering through for the greater good, I still got heat cramps if I was out in the sun for too long.

Not that the indoors was much better. We had no air-conditioning, and so often these warm and humid days were accompanied by little breeze.

And on top of this dysfunction in the heat, my disappointment with my ability to perform, I realized there was no solution. Either we lived the dream and suffered through bitter winters (which never overthrew my ability to function) and hot humid summers, or we gave it up.

It probably didn't help that whatever winds there were were from the south-southwest, straight up from New York City. You could taste the foulness of the air, and maybe some of the wooziness was due to the pollution.

Whatever the case, my inability to function in even late-spring heat was threatening to our whole homestead concept.