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.