It’s been pretty warm around here. If you live in Tucson or Manhattan you have my condolences, but “pretty warm” for us is above 90 degrees, with 70% humidity or higher. Our SIP house stays delightfully cool, and when it’s hot I’d rather be inside. We leave all the windows wide open all night, and close them in the morning; and that way the house stays cool all day without spending a dime for air conditioning. As a missionary in Argentina I would go out and work regardless of the weather (and it got even warmer down there), but now when it gets hot I’d rather sit in the cool house and read. (Yes, I even got some books from the library, as if I had the time to read them. Go figure.)

So if I have heavy labor to do outside I like to do it while it’s cool outside–early in the morning. Last Saturday I was up betimes, prayed and studied scriptures as I do every morning, then went outside and fixed the railroad tie steps down to the garden. Then I awoke Emma and Becca, our two oldest children. Jess was down watering the garden heavily, in preparation for the day’s heat. (Next year I’d like to put in a drip irrigation system, to reduce the stress that heavy watering puts on our well.) When the girls came down I put them to work painting the shoop, which as you may remember has only been half painted since last year.

They did a good job. The paint had spent the winter in the shoop and was half liquid, half solid, and all gross. The liquid part was full of chunks and had the consistency of runny oatmeal. But the girls kept at it, painting every wall all the way to the eaves, and even painting the chicken coop on the back.

Here you see both of them at work on opposite sides of the shoop. This picture was taken by Abby, age 7, so it’s not quite in focus; but I still think it’s important to record our labors. (The chickens’ size is a trick of the lens. They’re not that big.)

While they worked I was busy digging a trench for a water line up to the top of the poultry yard. I want to put a hydrant in right over the duck pond (nee styrofoam boat). In the wintertime, when the whole yard fills up with snow, it will be handy to have a water supply exactly where we need it. Every day last winter we supplied the ducks’ drinking water using buckets filled at the garden hydrant. That was a tough job, especially when the mounded snow grew slippery.

In the summer heat it’s hard to remember that over half the year up here is cold and snowy. When the snow gets deep, anything that’s not under a roof is so deeply buried it’s impossible to access. So even though it’s hot, we’ll prepare for winter while the sun shines.