Living Without Air

Summer is here,.... definitely here. The time of the year when the humidity is so high that the haze just hangs in the air and you feel more like you are swimming than walking when you are outside.  I wake up in the morning and hustle outside in the pre-dawn to do chores before it heats up, sometimes dressed in only whatever pajamas I slept in the night before, and on these hot summer nights... it is a good thing that I live in the country without too many neighbors driving by.  We dress to fit the weather around here because living in a turn of the century farm house means...you guessed it, no air conditioning.   I know, I know....at this point you are all thinking, "Oh my God, how does anyone live without air conditioning?!"   Well, up until about 30 years ago, everyone lived without air conditioning.  It was a luxury - saved for large hotels and businesses - and now it is considered the "norm".  Unfortunately, the way we spend our cash on fossil fuels and energy, it will likely, once again, be considered a luxury before too long. 

As hot and sticky as it can sometimes get, I have never really longed for an air conditioner.  It was nice when I was pregnant in July with my third child and we were living in town, but I did just fine without it on the subsequent two pregnancies.  I, personally, can't stand the sound of motors and compressors running all night - even the fan is a bit too much noise at times - birds, coyotes, dogs barking, thunder, wind,....fine, just nothing mechanical.

And so, we live in the heat and this, in a nut shell, is how we survive.  We open the windows and catch the breeze. 


Dark, shady and cool - the perfect siesta

Timing is everything, however.  You have to open the windows at night - all the windows - on every side of the house, and if there isn't a breeze, you create one with fans until the cool night air seeps in and displaces the warm air of the day.  Then, (and this is key), in the morning first thing, you close the windows and the drapes.  It sounds a little counter intuitive, but after many summers of living quite nicely through days of high heat and humidity, I can tell you this works. 
We have also done what we can to be sure that we have plenty of shade trees surrounding our house.  Deciduous trees planted on the south side so that their leaves shade in the summer and allow sun in during the winter, and when the heat just gets too stifling, then it is time to pull out the hose and have a little water fight action to cool things down.

And as it so happens, just about the time that you are convinced you will not be able to take the heat and humidity for one more day, the horizon darkens and the haze takes on a new appearance of omminous clouds in the west.  You can feel the storm clouds building and rolling in until, finally, from the completely still, fetid air comes a blast of cool wind that brings with it a thunderstorm, the smell of ozone and a cool breeze.  That cool breeze I appreciate more than any air conditioner I have ever known.

The June Delusion

Deep in the gloomy hollow of winter, I picture June.  I imagine running outside with only flip flops on my feet rather than snow boots, I picture my kids chasing each other around the yard, riding bikes and playing in the sand box...I picture time on my hands to relax, to drink beer on the porch, to nap in the hammock.  And every year, I am completely delusional. 

I think how wonderfully unencumbered I will be to not have to run kids around to school functions, how much extra time I will have since the days are so much longer, I imagine the fantastic mini-vacations we can plan.  Again, I am delusional.

I find myself mystified by how May seemed to evaporate before I even registered its existence, and then I find myself standing in front of the calendar in the kitchen with jaw dropped open wondering how it could be the middle of June already?!  And what is even more worrisome is that there isn't an "unscheduled" day on the calendar until sometime the end of July. 

This happens every year, you would think that I would learn by now.  The kids get out of school and rather than being one organized, unified family of children, they spin off like so many pin balls in every different direction.  There are friends to see, camps to go to, parties to attend, 4-H to prepare for, jobs to do....multiplied by five.  I feel like a pinball flipper that just tries to keep them all in play, while simultaneously gardening and working full time.  

My days generally start before the sun is up and, with kids insisting that they stay up later since it is summer, the days end much, much later than they should.  My hands have achieved their "permadirt" status with dirt ground into the calluses and blisters from living in the garden.  There will be no end in site to the amount of produce to be picked, blanched, frozen, processed, canned, pickled.  And while each crop harvested is wonderful, it carries with it a boat load of work involved.  Throw into that a few vacations, a few parties, a few 4-H events and the summer is essentially over before my brain has wrapped around the fact that it is June.

That's not to say that I would change any of it. 

Despite the fact that most days start out with coffee and ibuprofen just to get sore joints and aching muscles up and functioning, despite the fact that I have been seeing roughly 20 out of 24 hours of each day for the last few weeks and seeing precious little of my bed and pillow.....I wouldn't change any of it.  There usually comes a moment in each crazy, hectic day when something small happens - a cold beer gets pulled from the fridge to be enjoyed for a few minutes on the porch, a kid learns to ride a bicycle,  a rainbow shows up after a storm, a fledgling bird suddenly takes wing, one of the cats comes to rub up against you and purrs while you're weeding....little things that implant themselves in my brain and are the fodder for my mid-winter delusionment.

I initially started this post as justification as to why I haven't written since the middle of May, but then again....there just hasn't been time....and I have been having too much fun.