October brought cold fronts which finally took the temperatures below 90 degrees. It was no longer 113 degrees in the afternoons. The chickens survived another summer. They could finally exist without their daily bowl of ice cubes and frozen fruits to cool them from the inside out. We did it. We made it another year. Keeping animals alive through a texas summer is no small undertaking. Im relieved the weather is cooling down. The dogs can stay outside while im at work now. The a/c unit gets turned off when i am home. It has been dipping into the forties at night and getting into the 70s or 80s during the day. The weather is beautiful. I forgot what it was like to feel like you could exist for an extended period of time outdoors. Now my mind turned to the extra dog crate in the shed and how many chickens i could fit in it if i put it in the house during a winter storm…how to bolster the well house against freezes, whether i had the key to the outdoor electric box handy, where the down comforter was in the shed, and when i should get the blankets out to cover the fruit trees against freezes. Typical. I’ll enjoy something for about five minutes before i begin preparing for the next disaster. It keeps me on my toes i guess.
