My burning bushes are toasted, totally brown. We were at 104 yesterday, expecting 105 today. Will this wretched summer ever end?
We're hoping for a cold winter here. Last winter was so warm that the trees couldn't rest, and that made it worse this summer. The buzzards are circling here, because they are feasting on all the dying fish in the ponds that are drying up. Starving deer wandering into neighborhoods are more and more of a problem. They can't find water either.
The only real tourism our state has is out of state hunters, and this year, we won't get that. Cattle, corn and airplanes were all a bust this year. only thing that brought in good money was wheat.
What amazes me most are the plants that ARE doing well. I have some apple trees that are having their best year, full of apples and green leaves. A Japanese maple that had lost all its leaves put out all new leaves after our little 1.5" rain last week. The only roses I lost were the ones from Edmunds that never broke dormancy.
And 1 or 2 from Palatine...need to email them about that.
The paper today had a correction. This wasn't our hottest year ever, just our driest.