How did civilization evolve before AC?

It’s been exceedingly hot and humid the last few days, and I’ve accomplished almost nothing after 11am. This morning, John from Sunflower Journeys came out and filmed me spinning in front of the school–it was already 90, but there was a breeze and some shade, still. He’s from Kenya and thinks he heat here is awful. Where he’s from, it’s a dry heat and an ocean breeze that makes it much more comfortable. (So now I get to say it’s hotter than Africa here! It’s still way better than Texas, though. But at least there, there’s AC everywhere.)

By the time he left, the sun was overhead and it was heating up. Once that happens, all I do is hold still and stay in the path of the fan. It was 99 today and 97 yesterday, neither of which would be in the horror range without the 90% humidity we’ve been blessed with.

All the poor animals feel the same way, apparently. They just sit in the shade and pant. Fudgy shows her handsome teeth when she pants.

The Shetlands are a little more stoic than the Merinos and Romneys, although their fleeces are just as long or longer (maybe not as dense, though?).

Mister Shivers’ yearling fleece is looking nothing like his lamb fleece! The gray is much darker, and so far, there’s no sign of the chocolate brown of his tips last year:

Here’s a bit of his fleece from last year, washed. The tips are chocolate, the middles about the same color he is now, and the base (closest to shearing) a pale heathered gray. A very strange fleece, indeed. But apparently the lamb fleece can be something of a mystery. I guess it’s like baby hair. I had light brown hair until I was 8 or 9, when it got really dark. Now it’s almost black.

Mostly because I want to be a good mama, but also to avoid stressing their fleece, I’m trying to minimize their exposure during our little heat wave, which apparently is set to continue through the end of the week. I set up a couple of fans in the little barn, and we put up a big shadecloth awning across the strip of the barnyard and over their water to keep it cool. Ever the neurotic mama, I check on them 10 times a day. At one point I peeked in and Fudgy was pressing her face against the fan.

They graze in the morning, before it swelters, spend most of the day in the barn, drift under their awning in the afternoon when the sunny spot betwen the barn door and the awning finally shifts, and then head out for supper around 6 or 7, when the shadow of the building finally gives them a little cover in the pasture.

I should go ahead and buy an AC. It’s the only sure way to put an end to the heat wave. And lucky me, I get to work outside all day tomorrow. Yay.

Ron & I have taken to making Ronnie faces all the time:

And I’ll leave you with an itchy Agnes: