The weekend was the weekend, and I didn’t do much unrelated to watching footy and listening to music whilst cooking food and enjoying pints of the black stuff.
With that, I was happy to be back lumbering in the woods on Monday for a warm and sweaty 6+ mile loop. It was warm, but nowhere near what it would be like on Tuesday.
Thus far, the Michigan summer has been amazing; sunny with moderate 70˚-ish temps, gentle breezes, and best of all, no need to run the air conditioner. I think until this week, we ran it less than 5 times all spring and summer. Something easier said than done when you own an English Bulldog, a breed that loves the heat and sun, but is not built for it, and doesn’t have the brain power to think, “You know what, it’s cooler inside.” Thus requiring three months of repeatedly saying things like, “Lola, inside! Too hot for bulldogs!” as you shush them indoors against their stubborn will.
With that said, there are heat warnings all over the place, with daytime “real feel” temps into the low 100s. So, I was up at 5 AM on Tuesday and out the door and on the trail at 6:01 AM, and it was already 77˚. SHIT!
I wasn’t so worried about the heat, as I was about the bugs that the heat brings. So, I made some slight modifications to my loop that avoided a stretch of swamps and standing water that the mosquitoes call home.
The reroute turned out to be a wise decision, but it did shorten my loop, and I still had to deal with various other flying insects constantly buzzing by my ears despite being coated in several layers of chemicals. It was as if my tinnitus was turned up to eleven!! Buzz-buzz-buzz-fat MF.
The heat and humidity brought little critter activity, and while I did see a couple of deer, there was little other action except for the omnipresent red-winged blackbirds squawking at anything that moves.
I finished with a shorter loop than I wanted (5.79), one good photo, and no bug bites, but every single layer of “moisture wicking” clothing I had on was drenched; socks, gutchies, shorts, shirt, hat, I looked and felt like a honey-baked ham floating in a well-used gas station toilet.
I. WAS. NOT. DONE.
When I got home just after 8 AM, I immediately got out of my clothes and in the shower. I needed to feel human again before breakfast AND prevent any chafing or irritation around my aging, flaccid buttocks.
After a breakfast burrito, I was off to the eye doctor to pick up some warrantied glasses. That took a whopping 15 minutes, so I was left with a dilemma: cut the grass on Tuesday, the “coolest day” of the heat wave, or wait until the weekend and deal with raking and grass disposal. Tuesday it was!
So, I proceeded to walk behind a mower for nearly two miles, and once again sweat through every piece of clothing I had on. To tell you the truth, I was prepared with a giant bottle of ice water, a towel, and a plan to take breaks, but it was never really needed. The sun was still behind a haze of clouds, and there was a breeze blowing, which made it totally doable. Sweaty, but doable. Had I waited even another hour, the sun would have broken through, and things would have been miserable.
As I finished my second shower of the day and then proceeded to rehydrate from the gallons of sweat I lost, I already knew that a Wednesday lumber was probably not going to happen, and I was totally OK with it.
I was even more OK with it Wednesday morning when I let Lola out around 5:15, and it was already 80˚. Not to mention, I need to get her to a Spa Day at 11, England kick-off at Noon (C’MON!!!), and apparently I have to wash all the sweat-soaked clothes that I wore on Tuesday as the temps rocket past 95˚. Not to mention, I felt the need to write this trash for some reason.
Photo Notes: The only photos here today from my lumbering are of the rabbit and of the red-winged blackbird. The rest are from backyard visitors and of my pollinator garden that continues to blow up!
Later.