It is hot, not a mere usual North Carolina hot, but "it's bloody stupid out there" hot as my old daddy used to say as he hunkered down in the house safe in the air conditioning. Most folks would follow his lead but I had several things that had to be done outside this weekend (and some that I just wanted to do of course) so I was out there in the blazing heat and oppressive humidity. At one point I had to fill up my pond, clean out the filter on the pump and remove some matted weed from the waterfall. After that I cleaned out the bird bath which was about three inches deep in birdseed shells and as you can imagine smelled absolutely delightful. Seeing as just standing there doing absolutely nothing will cause one to sweat profusely in this weather you can imagine how much one sweats when one is actually moving around, doing something. Not surprising then that after I had finished hosing out the birdbath and refilling it I turned the hose on myself and just allowed the water to cool down my scalding hot face. Ahhhhh is there anything better I wonder? Somehow I doubt it.

When people ask me how hot it gets here in Eastern North Carolina I have told them in the past "its so hot the cats come inside to sleep." As most folks know cats are incredibly hedonistic beasts, and care for nothing but their personal pleasure. Heat therefore is one of those things which they seek out, and it does not matter where it happens to be that they find it, that is where they sleep. (In fresh laundry for instance.) On really hot days my cats will sleep under the car, on the cool concrete of the driveway in the shade. However, on days like this weekend (and today in fact) even they will not venture outside during the heat of the day but can be found in the house taking up every available horizontal surface waiting for the sun's fury to dim somewhat whereupon they will wake, stretch, perhaps have a cursory wash and then once again leave the house to take up their prime napping positions in the driveway. They are funny creatures.

Lazy Sunday afternoon, once the heat had subsided a little both me and the cats went outside. The cats to continue sleeping, me to take some photographs. I particularly liked this one of Con asleep on the arbor bench, he looked so content.



Well he looked content until "someone" noticed how content he was and that "someone" just couldn't bear that.





Speaking of Peaches she discovered many new things this week. Here is a further excerpt from her diary.

Tuesday - I discovered that I could remove the top from the female's bottle of face stuff and then put it in the bathtub. It made the most wonderful noise as I batted it around the tub. Does anyone know what "three o'clock in the morning" means? I wish I knew cause someone keeps yelling about it.

Wednesday - Female had replaced the lid of her face thing bottle but I didn't mind because I discovered that I could remove the plug thingy from the bathroom sink and that made SO much more noise when it was batted around that it was much more fun than the lid of the face thing bottle. I still don't know what "three o'clock in the morning" means, wish someone would tell me.

Thursday - I ate a cricket today. I think I prefer dragonflies.

Friday - Today I ran everywhere for no apparent reason. I like doing that, it always confuses the humans.

Saturday - I managed to trip the female up as she was walking down the path carrying groceries by weaving in and out of her feet really quickly. She says some funny things sometimes. I wonder what a "little monster" is?

Sunday - I was very busy today, even though it was very hot. All the big cats were sleeping which was really boring and I kept trying to wake them up by jumping on their heads but it didn't do any good. Still I had some fun. Eventually though I just gave up and went to sleep too, if you can't beat 'em join 'em I always say.