Route 197, 100 degrees this afternoon

June 9, 2008 – It is difficult to love a farm during a heat wave as sharp as this. Everything smells, bakes, stills. Everything is tougher, as it is in the cold. Rosie is doing yeoman work, getting the sheep out to pasture, early in the morning, in the cooler evening. It is hot and they don’t want to go, and her tongue is hanging off the ground in seconds. Rose never quits or falters, not in the heat or cold or rain. I am lucky to have her. We brought out hay for the cows, so they don’t have to struggle up the hill. I can only imagine what it must be like to be Elvis in this heat, hauling 3,000 lbs around.
  I will post some photos I took trying to capture the heat, Izzy and I drove around for hours this afternoon and tonight, we had a Hospice visit, which was a tough one, and then Rose and I grazed the sheep. I am tired, but think I got some good pictures. Storms tomorrow, cooler Wednesday. Sometimes a farm is an endurance contest, and I drove by all of those real farmers, out in their boiling tractors, haying their fields. I salute them.