so you think YOU have volatile weather

 These last two weeks have been wild with summer abundance. Canning, harvesting, riding, fencing (not as awesome, but still largely a summer project). It's been hot, I've been sweating and turning brown. Overall just happy to spend my days in my favorite weather, where the days are hot enough to play in sprinklers, but the evenings are crisp with the promise of orange pumpkins and yellow leaves.

Okay, I'll admit, it wasn't perfect. There was (and is) quite a bit of frustration with the fence and rogue ponies. But it's easier to look back and see only that golden sunlight on the apple trees.

(juvenile mountain bluebird)

Beautiful puffy summer clouds. Fair weather fo'ever, right?........

right.

This is what I woke up to Thursday morning. Overnight the soft rainy drizzle that fell the day before turned into this muck. (sorry, I'm a little bitter. Last year we had eight months of snow, and I've never much cared for the stuff ANYWAY.)

 I mean, what the heck. Technically it's still summer! The henpecked weatherman assures us that by this time next week we'll be back in the 80*s, but the damage is done. My tomatoes and squash and cucumbers and beans are all dead. *sigh*
  I'm glad we got the fence done. Now the hurry to winterize the farm will really get going:
     Wood to be chopped
 (so much wood... I love fire),
        ducks to cull (we can't have two piggy males),
 hay to stack,
      chicken houses to clean, and heatlamps to install.
 I kinda hate having to prepare for the bleak months ahead in September...
 I love where I live, but there has got to be a better climate for me - like the equator :)