Al - most definitely take cuttings of your tomato plant. They root super easy. And if they start to language over winter, take cuttings of your cuttings. What kind of lie temps do you get, anyway? You may have better luck getting tomorrow in fall or spring without the killing temperatures. We've got 88⁰ coming today. I'll cope by doing errands in the 4 Runner. Had functional air conditioning. Otherwise it's lazing around in bed with Ami and the air conditioning (only room in the house with an air conditioner - central air want needed here until the last several years. Another plus for potential geothermal)

I looked into geothermal and discovered they banned it here because of what it did in pagosa springs.

Dont get me started on weather. Trying to explain that 82 is a heatwave to texans just doesnt seem to compute. But watching them look like they took a bath in borscht is hilarious. They seem to miss the concept of uv and that at 8400 ft, the uv is actually 70% stronger then at sea level.

Lucky for me other then barking my dogs dont really care about fireworks, 3 of the 4 are bombproofed (thank you air force) amd spider doesnt care.

Speaking of spider, she has been banned from my mechanics shop. She has a curiosity about things that is sometimes bad. Its one thing for a dog to not care about power tools but a dog that eants to play with power tools... not good. And i have never seen a dog get in the way of dropping a tranny like she tried to do.

So al finally took the jeep in? And maybe you can explain something i keep hearing because maybe my brain is melting or im missing the insult. Customers keep saying "and god bless texas" when i say have a nice rest of your (insert day here) now i would expect hearing that in texas but since this is colorado is that a polite way to say "fuck you" or did the heat melt my brain?

Jenn congrats, im slightly jealous because i gave up and went on birth control after the 6th miscarriage, but im also extremely happy for you.

So here we can get a rebate through our electric cooperative to go with the federal tax rebates (while/if those last) and when it's all done you aren't in geothermal anymore than you would be into a new hvac system. Think when I looked it would cost us about $12k, which by the time we shell out $5k for a new heat pump and condenser unit, plus modification to the '90s setup for a modern system, and then installation there's no difference in cost to us. My biggest crux is I don't want a horizontal run system, I want the vertical wells. We have space for horizontal but I don't want the yard dug out in every direction so we would have some wait time on the one company that does it that way around here. The soil where we are is pretty safe for geothermal, now you go further north and the karst gets worse and poking holes in it can be iffy.

Last year we would have killed for a quarter of the rain we've gotten this year. Rain stopped in April last year and we didn't see a drop at our house again until pushing October. My parent's ponds almost dried up and they are deep ponds.

I'm not going back on BC after baby. When I went off it after 13 years my mental health made a huge turn around. I knew the stuff was giving me rage fits because I could feel it, that weird anger that just sits there for no apparent reason. Spent years controlling it and that all went away when I went off BC. The natural me doesn't really have mood swings, even pregnant I haven't, and so I am firm in not going back on the toxic stuff. Just really makes me wonder how many women who struggle with mental health do so simply because of their BC that they have been put on for a whole host of non-contraceptive reasons.

Jenn, wondering if the BC you were using had high progestins? I never used hormonal BC - back in the late 60s when it first came out, the first patient my dad prescribed it for, a young woman just getting married, stepped out and died. The pills were very high estrogen in those days. But the story sort of scared me off, big time. I used IUDs (with much monthly distress, unfortunately) and after my third baby, tubes were tied. But I still had rampant PMS with the family walking on eggshells 2 weeks a month. After my hysterectomy, went on a bioidentical bucchal troche and I can't believe how it evened out my mood (once we ditched the progesterone - that was rage City and created a storm in a local grocery store with 2 make store managers that probably still don't know what hot them .) I still use it today - mostly for bone health and colon cancer risk reduction.

I've been on several different kinds of pills over the years. Never did IUD or shots. Always just pills that would get changed every couple years as my body would break free of their scheduling.

Welp, today was a throwaway day. Remnants of Beryl, a system descending out of Canada and other complex weather phenomena have had the region on alert most of the day. Not just heat but, I think, the highest potential for tornados ever seen around here. Ten percent chance. There were warnings coming at us, skimming by just to the north and ditto to the south. I took down the pool umbrellas, all small side tables in the shed, potted flowers on the shed porch and electronics unplugged. Talk of torrential rain ( which my pool could have used.) the severe storms and tornados skipped us completely. Thankfully. And though there was rain, not sure it was even measurable. Not sure about areas around us, they were pretty much orange and red on the radar and more tornado warnings them I've ever seen up here. But I think they were probably minimal.

I have endometriosis so the bc helps with things but it does make me weird sometimes. Weird sometimes beats half the month in bed or only partially functional. Other then bleeding half the month i was controlling it fairly well with tramadol. Then the docs here all signed contracts saying they wouldnt prescribe it for more then 3 days and i had to explore other options. I have adhd so im already prone to weird moods.

Nothing but hot and dry here. I put the ginger outside yesterday. I will see if it can handle the uv. Like my rose that should love full sun will burn if i let it have full sun and not sure about the ginger.

I'm going to have to back up a bit since I haven't had anything to say to any of the last few days posts.

@amymeme - definitely going to take some cutting of the tomatoes since they've been blooming and bearing (sorta) all summer long and in this heat most tomatoes just wither and die.  I picked up the plant at our local (80 miles is local, right?) Home & Garden along with the Strawberries ... I'm going to have to see who the vendor was but I do remember that neither plant had a 'breed' on the tag.  The strawberries are suffering a bit in the heat but still blooming ... but not producing.  Sokay, we'll see what later in the year brings.

Y'all were talking about something called 'BC' and since I have no idea what that is, I guess it's not something that pertains to me.    Oddly interesting though.

I'll ignore the discussion about geotherm ... it's always been an interest of mine but it seems to have a need for electricity and getting enough solar panels and batteries to make one work would be, I think, prohibitive. I've wondered a few times about using 'heat' to cool the house. Warm house, a field of pipe with a lay that causes the air to come in from the outside, run through the pipes to cool off (relatively) and then into the house -- air being pulled into the house by the hot air rising and being pulled out. Don't tell me, it makes sense to me ....

In Texas, at least, electricity co-ops don't have to 'buy back' solar energy (if the house produces more than it uses) so there's no incentive to bulk up on panels.  But then Texas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) seem to be hand in glove on how to use our money ...

Beryl, it's not fair that Beryl went north!  Y'all already have more water than you need and we didn't get more than some shade (which sucks when you're getting electricity from solar!) For all y'all I hope it isn't as bad a summer for hurricanes as they're predicting. We could use the water and we have a pretty steady breeze anyway ... but Louisiana (where a friend lives) has no standing trees if I listen to her. So wet that it doesn't take much to just blow them over.

Had to laugh at the (relative) puppy.  She and Avalanche have had the same discussion a few times ...  both sprawled out asleep on the floor and Belle stretches ... Avalanche thinks someone is infringing on his space so wakes up enough to tear her (what'd *I* do??) a new one.  They're gradually learning to leave a little more space between themselves ... but they both tend to be slow learners at some things.

Yeah the "bc" i dont think you need to worry about getting pregnant.

https://www.drought.gov/states/colorado/county/rio%20grande shows us as having the 3rd wettest june in 130 years.

I get the idea of a cold room using pipes as a heat exchanger. I looked into it as a way to both cool and heat a greenhouse. But here i would have to do a sset of flowing water pipes in the floor along with the ceiling pipes. Seems like you could do a closed loop water system. My crazy neighbor built a wannabe perpetual motion machine that he uses during power outages. And yeah a real perpetual motion machine is even less likely to exist then a time machine, but his has a very small battery powered motor that kicks in to restart the machine when it goes too slow. I think if i was somewhere like west texas where its hot and dry most of the year i would look into energy generating bricks

We had considered doing a heat pump water heater. Pulls heat from the air to warm the water in the tank and then expels cool air pulled off the water. Would have been a nice little boost to our AC system in the summer. Our machine room in the basement though where it's already 60 degrees most of the time so we nixed that. If our machine room was upstairs where it's naturally warmer we would have went that route rather than a traditional water heater this last time. We had intended to go tankless but our water heater went down a little more suddenly than expected and didn't have time to do all the extra electric work to put in the tankless.

Beryl went through earlier, gave us a couple nice days and about 5 more inches of rain. Now we have a heat index of 110 today. Our humidity is through the roof and it's just gross out.

Since our humidity is normally in single digits - except for when I cuss it! - we don't normally concern ourselves with the heat index (and I don't know how to calculate it in the first place.  On the other hand since Beryl threw her weight around it's been hot and humid over here (86° w/ 56% humidity.)  We've had a couple of nice (for the water tanks) showers but really need more much more my tanks are about 1/4 full - say 2000 gallons - and that's not going to make it through the next summer -> spring.

ETA:  Oh, this is how you calculate the heat index .... right!

The house weather station said 93 degrees with 71% humidity when I got home from work yesterday. Gross would be an understatement. More rain possible today into tomorrow then heat should break.

We had another round of severe weather yesterday with tornados reported (though not, I think, yet verified.) High winds and up to 3" hail.Tons of damage, trees down everywhere and widespread power outages, many still ongoing (suspect a portion of our linemen crews are down in Texas ). We personally did not get hit with any of the masters but the wind and rain were wild for about a half hour. Was a bit worrisome as hubby was down running errands in the worst of it. In a convertible. After looking at radar and researching the warning, I tried to phone him to find a car wash to hide in our else park and go in store. Unfortunately our cellular connection was abysmal - I could hear him but he couldn't understand me. At one point he was sorry of trapped between two fallen trees (about a mile apart) but was able to backtrack and remove the smaller one. He finally stopped at a Chinese buffet to wait out the second round. But he was soaked when he got home.

And, today? Another round with a tornado warning blatting on my phone. Didn't last long before heading east and I didn't think it touched down. Only issue for us is high wind, brought some vulnerable plants inside and, wind being from the south, the pool umbrellas are safe with their backs up to trees and brush that form a nice windbreak ( the umbrellas are closed up tightly and in heavy cast iron bases. The tables are that metal mesh so they don't catch a lot of wind - but if that wind were from the north, is be scurrying!

Sigh I had a canine tooth filling replaced last week and since, I've been having upper and lower, intermittent, brief but severe nerve pain. Which oddly enough, does not involve the canine. Really hip it settles down 'cause it's a b*#$h when it happens. When suspects trigeminal neuralgia which is not funny in the least. I think if I were a more vulnerable person right now, I might shoot myself. Instead, I'm just mighty irascible

Welp. Is a root canal good news? I have a big cavity under a3 piece bridge. They're gonna try to drill through the bridge but if they can't thanks it's pull the tooth.

Sigh. I hate my teeth. They've been trouble since I was 6 years old

Owowowowowowowo That doesn't sound like fun unless you're a confirmed masochist! Good luck to you with that.

Let's see if I can really mess this up. Much of my childhood I lived with my grandparents, our drinking water came from a spring that had a high iron content. As I understand it, iron replaces the calcium in a persons teeth and eventually that iron leaches out and you're left with a mouth full of rotten teeth ... yep! I think the powers that be that I don't very often feel anything. A cavity rots out and pieces of my teeth fall off but seldom is there any pain ... and tylenol take care of that ...

Oh yeh @amymeme you have my sympathy ....

Thanks, Al. I was beside myself last night, Tylenol wasn't touching it. Wayne tried some gentle traction since it felt like it was worse with head flexion/extension. Tried warm compress on the side of my face. Finally in desperation I took half of I've of those CBD gummies Wayne got me for my knee. It didn't do much for my knee but was a miracle for the nerve pain last night. The dentist kept apologizing over and over, saying it's not visible in clinical exam, only shows on xray. Started back on antibiotics today - I finally got my stomach back to normal, about 2 weeks ago finished my last course of famotidine. As soon as I mentioned antibiotics, I remembered the multiple courses I was on last year with that root canal. Suspect that may have been what messed about my stomach. Hope it doesn't happen again. Will be eating lots of yogurt, berries, cabbage family stuff, try to keep a good microbiome population.

Like my mom said "getting old is not for sissies. '

Im trying to figure out how to pay for dental stuff right now, since between the local hospital and the champva admins in the va, they seem to want me to be broke, otherwise they would get the billing straight and i wouldnt have bills that ended up in collections. I got the root canal figured out just nothing else. I have had horrible ear pain off an on for years and the ent keeps asking about my teeth instead. It keeps being not taken seriously to the point i have considered having all my teeth pulled and then when it starts they cant just ask about the dentist. Ent also is pushing for me to fix the blockage in my nostril thinking it is why im constantly sick.

And i just experienced 90 with way high humidity in highlands ranch yesterday and today. And im really not sure what is wrong with all the lockheed martin people that pay monthly at the hotel  to the hospital today.at 8am It was 71 and really humid and they are all "can you believe how nice the weather is this morning" and i responded that no its already hot and the air highlands ranch smells funny and there is too much oxygen in the air.  People always find it odd that you can get altitude sickness from living at 8500 ft and going to 5200 ft.  

Yeah they say the water here is high in minerals and will rot your teeth also.

Seems like the monsoon is back and we are an inch over our normal annual rainfall total already. Does that mean a wet winter?  To kinda emphasize that we avg 9 inches of rain a year most of our moisture is snow.

Wow crews all the way from ny in tx. Considering they tried to send part of our local xcel crew and they threatened to walk off.

@amymeme true but it gets compounded when you break yourself. As the ortho surgeon said not many people get to experience age 85 at  19 after looking at my mri. And it does cross my mind sometimes that if all there is to life is dr appointments, i may as well kill myself. It happened real bad in my early 20s, now it only comes up sporadically. Now mostly its jerrys appointments.

Im still not 100% sure why you didnt get a thc/cbd topical or a tincture and then mix it as a topical or just use it straight. I bought a 1:1 1000mg each tincture with plans to dump it in a bottle of icy hot lidocaine.  I think for your knee pain a topical would be much more effective and no risk of getting high from it, since i know that is a big concern.  Its a weird misunderstood plant and by no means a miracle cure for anything. So far they know of over 500 active compounds and really so far only thc and cbd have been studied and now cbn is being looked at. And im not sure what is available in ny but here the do strain specific stuff. Because while they havent been studied yet, terpenes play a huge role of what a given strain is good for.

Emily - I didn't go for topical because a day or two later I saw the Ortho and had a steroid injection into my knee. And that was like a miracle. No pain, f walking up stairs normally now. Only rare swelling which, I think was the cause of my pain - the bakers cyst would swell, leak into my lower leg and that was what was the most painful. Over two days after the shot, I was pee'ing constantly. Wayne would say - you just went, now you're going again?!!? I look 7 pounds over those 2 days

And also somewhat miraculous - after 4 doses of antibiotic, no ear pain, no referred pain in mouth and only the very vaguest suggestion of pain localized to that tooth. I'm a happy camper. So is hubby - just a here minutes ago he said it was nice to see me not in so much pain.

Emily, I am so sorry you have so much body crap to deal with. You are far too young. Wishing you some relief. And physicians that listen.

I haven't been to a dentist in 20 years, literally. Been blessed to this point with good teeth from my dad's side. My husband has had a lot of tooth issues over the years though. Has several cavities he's had to have filled. I really hope the kid will get a lot of her health from me. If she could get my teeth and his eyes that would be perfect. lol. My eyes have been pretty weak since I was about 16, though metal shard damaged one, so not exactly fair to say my eyes totally suck, at least one had extra help getting to its current condition.

Went to see the Dr today for a followup on a month ago ...
Have I been taking the Thyroid med he prescribed ... Nope, it was the wrong scrip and you didn't write a new one.
How am I doing? ... generally good.
What do I need today? Rerun the prior lab work, there's just too much that I don't agree with. Like 'major' hyperthyroid problem when my T4 is only 2 points off ... that's not high to me. You show me a being positive for Hep C - never have been in any prior lab work; but you don't show me positive for Hep B - which is a know positive (or at least the Red Cross thinks so.)
I'm not sure whether I irritated him more or if his attitude irritated me more. I never have had the "Doctors are God" attitude (oops, sorry)

---

Mom had her teeth pulled when she was about 24 and exchanged them for uppers and lowers ... I remember her coming home bleeding and at 5 I really didn't understand.
Most of her generation and a lot of mine have had rotten teeth ... what can I say ... nothing I can put in here!

Well, a note that one shouldn't put 'compostables' in a hole in the garden.  I have a <bad?> habit of putting waste that is probably compostable in the garden ... seems like it's a lot less effort than bagging it to take to 'recycle'.

Anyway, we got grapes and watermelon in commodities last week, the grapes left a lot to be desired - I like semi-sweet grapes and, up to a point, the sweeter the better - these weren't so I ate a couple of handfuls and decided these were going out (and no, they didn't go into the hole...!!)
The watermelon was good!  I tossed the rind into the hole and threw some dirt on top ... hmmmm...  I got up this morning and Belle was wanting out - vocally!!! She got out and stopped just off the front porch and had one of the messiest, runny messes I've ever seen - I just thank the powers that be that she wanted out, cause that would have been hell to clean up!
As I was watering the stuff out back I saw where she'd dug up the trash I buried yesterday and while watermelon isn't bad for a dog - at least not like grapes - apparently indulging in the rind of a medium sized melon was more than her stomach could handle ...  Oh, dogs!!!

I have my compost area just over the fence from the dog yard and for the most part don't have an issue with my dogs trying to get to it but every now and again a possum goes rummaging through and pulls some of it out and I have to pick up some various rinds. Right now there's a pumpkin plant growing out of my compost so nothing has really been bothering it. Outside of the squash bugs that are driving me nuts.

Well, we got water in the basement for the first time. We are getting ready to replace all the flooring in the basement and when we went tear out the old stuff over the weekend we noticed water was in one of the corners. We had a massive rain a few weeks ago and suspect it got through during that. Because it was carpet down there the stuff just got soaked up. So now we have 10 ton carpet rolls to heave out of the house. We found the spot where it pushed through where the water main comes into the foundation to get that sealed. Hand dug that section of the foundation yesterday which nearly killed us. It was upper 80s and I didn't see the humidity drop below 75% all day. Husband is lucky I have some energy during this second trimester or he would have been on his own. Belly starting to pop but not overly in the way just yet. We are expecting to be mid to upper 90s this week with heat index of 105-110, and since we found the leak it's rained a little bit every day making it really hard to get it fully dried out so that i can reseal the interior portion of it. I hate basements. They are just magnets for water trouble. On the flip side people only wanting to build a slab foundation house right now and those have their own issues, usually with slab movement during drought and if you have a plumbing issue in those you are toast because that's breaking up a whole slab. No thanks. If we build new we will do a traditional tall crawl space with a two story house on top if we are just desperate for multiple floors.

What do you think Wayne would say if his doctor diagnosed him with "Hypocalcemia of puerperium"???  My only comment was "Excuse please, what the hell??"  
This, on top of the rx for medicine for hypothyroid when I'm (arguably) hyper dinna make me happy!
Talked to VA, I's lookn' fo' a new doctor ...

Welp. Wayne had nothing to say. I posed the question to him and he stared, look blank and his jaw dropped.

I'm guessing an electronic record snafu.