Monday--June 12

The temperature hit 92F here yesterday and should be hotter still today. These are the kind of days when everything that is going to get done is done early while it is still cool. I will have to water everything well this morning but I don't have anything else to do outside. I will finish working with the herbs I cut yesterday; nothing else is ready to harvest.

Tuesday--June 13

94F yesterday last I saw. I may have gotten a degree or two warmer after I checked.

Wednesday--June 14

We had hail yesterday evening. Totally unexpected. I will check closely to see if it did any damage to the gardens but, from what I saw through the patio door, I don't expect to see any. The hail was small and light. We finally put the air conditioning on and we do feel much better for it. The heat just sucked all the energy out of us. We turned on the morning news, which we rarely do, to see what they had on the hail but found nothing. Evidently it wasn't either wide spread enough or severe enough to mention.

I did just check out the gardens after refilling our coffee cups. I saw a lot of torn leaves and spent flowers on the ground but no seriously damaged plants. My catnip looks a bit frazzled but I expect it will recover quickly. No other damage.

Found this item almost first off. I developed my skepticism about American Exceptionalism over a lifetime and didn't have a base of childhood skepticism. My family, my father especially, was the quintessential "love it or leave it" type. He wasn't too happy with me when I answered his favorite "My country right or wrong" with another quote "My country: when she is right to be kept right and when she is wrong to be put right." The skepticism has fermented richly in my 68 years.