The broiler.

That's what it feels like outside.... a broiler. We've gone way beyond the oven, way beyond the baking stage. We are flat-out into broiling.

And what do we do at that point? Go for a walk, of course. I asked J if she would like to walk, once she got somewhat settled in after the big move here from Pennsylvania. That's walk as in exercise, not walk as in strolling. However.... the temperatures being what they are, we are sort of strolling down the hills, up the hills, across the hills, then back again. On the way back, we sit on my porch and drink cold water before J continues on up the hill to her house. The chickens sometimes watch us as we sweat and drink.

I can hear my Aunt Dolly saying "Ladies do not, ever, sweat." Well, I beg to differ.... but in this state, in this heat, in these broiling-over-100-degree temperatures, we do indeed sweat. But still, we're walking. There are just two prime-time walking portions of the day here at this over-heated time of the year... either first thing in the morning, or after dinner as the sun is going down.

Getting out of bed and going for a long walk isn't really my first choice, especially since I have cats to feed, litter boxes to clean out, chickens that are squawking to get out of the coop, and a coop that needs cleaning. All morning things to do, especially the coop, before you put on clothes that you care about. (When you live out here, you seem to collect a bunch of clothes that you don't want to be seen in outside of your own property. Those are my cleaning-the-coop ensembles.)

Walking after dinner seemed like a good idea, as long as we started out as the sun was going down, but not so late as to risk having to walk back in the dark. Even walking back in the dusk is risky-- how can you see spider webs and snakes when you have limited sunlight? Plus, when you know you're going to be walking after dinner, you tend to eat less. Which isn't a bad thing at all, considering it's the calories you eat after six o'clock at night that end up on your thighs.

So we walk. Starting out in the sunlight, which is blindingly bright on J's side of the hill. I can see her as she starts out from her gate, so I walk up my part of the hill to meet her up there, then walk back down. And we're in the bright sun the entire way until we get by our property and then we're in the shade of the pecan trees near our gazebo. The shade doesn't last all that long once we get near our front pasture.... then we're in the sun again till we get down by the trees surrounding our pond. In case you haven't guessed, during these walks of ours, we live for the shade.

Our pond, by the way.... It's no longer a pond, really..... just a huge football-field sized hole in the ground. Not a drop of water in there these days. How could there be? We haven't had rain in too many weeks (months) to count. And that little bitty morning-long rain shower that we had last month doesn't really count because all of that rain got slurped up by the dry land as soon as the wet drops hit the ground.

The television weather wizards say we have a 50% chance of rain tomorrow. 50%--- that's a higher percentage than they've been promising all year long. However, we had a 30% chance of showers the other day..... we got exactly two raindrops-- one fell on the stones in the courtyard by our garage, the other fell on J's arm as she was leaving my porch after the cold-water pit-stop following our walk.

I will believe the rain when I see it. Till then, we walk. I carry cat food in a little container in case I see the stray cat (she usually comes by at 7:00 in the morning, but just in case she gets hungry at dinner-time, I'll be ready for her). We gave apple cores and peelings to B's horse Diablo last night.... apples and carrots are his favorite treats. Diablo nuzzled up to J last night as she calmly put her head next to his face. I am not that brave.... Diablo is a huge horse and his head looks like it's four times the size of my own. It's all I can do to put the apple pieces in the palm of my hand and trust that he will gobble up the fruit without gnashing his teeth into my fingers.

Broiling. With a capital B. And of course, Walking, with a capital W. That's about all the news there has been from up here in the hills.