It’s Labor Day weekend and it’s still just as hot as ever: when you have air temps well over 100 and dew points in the low 50s it makes for mighty oppressive conditions. It’s been the hottest and driest summer we can remember out here. The monsoon season, which is now winding down, has been a huge disappointment – we’ve had lots of dust storms down here in the Valley of the Sun but precious little rain. We actually had a dust storm blow through here around 2 AM the other night that actually did bring some rain with it, but all that did was create splotches of mud all over the place. All the flowers in my pots have compressed the size of their leaves and foliage to conserve their use of water to the point where you can barely see them, and the grass, which I can normally keep green with two 7-minute intervals each day, has gotten crusty and in some places brown altogether. And the pool temperature has stayed stuck between 91 and 93 for the past three weeks. Unfortunately, the nights have been so warm during this heat wave that I just haven’t felt like using it.

Still, there are signs that the seasons are getting ready to change. The skies now feature the kind of less hazy, much clearer sheen of blue that you see before the onset of monsoon season, meaning we’re heading into that final stretch of blazing hot sun you get just before the heat breaks around the second week of October. You also see less people out and about – the folks around here are now past the tipping point of tolerance when it comes to the heat. We’ve been in it now for more than four months, and everybody just wants to be done with it. While the sun is still a blazer, its angle is a lot different, and the shadows of the lemon and lime trees against our east wall are much more apparent while I’m doing my afternoon work. Most especially, the first cases of Samuel Adams Octoberfest has shown up on the shelves at the local Fry’s. Picked up my first case on Saturday and quenched my thirst with one (OK, two) after cleaning the pool filter yesterday. Wish it could have been a little cooler (the temp was 110 at the time), but it’s my all-time favorite beer.

And there are the fall plans to start arranging for. Last year, it was re-designing the back patio – a lot of work but a lot of fun to see your design come true and look as good as you imagined it to be. This year, we’ll be having our house painted. Financially, we’d prefer to hold off for another year, but the wood frame above the stucco and under the roof is so weathered and cracked from the heat and sun we dare not let another Arizona summer have at it. I’ll be doing a brick border around the rocks that lie against our east wall, which I think will be nice – especially if I can get some grass to grow under the newly-pruned lemon and lime trees.

What have y’all got planned for your fall projects?