Where Are We, Death Valley?

Whew! Not to kill you guys with two blogs in one day, but I just have to mention the temperatures here. Today was Dallas/Fort Worth's 33rd consecutive day of 100 degrees F or more. No rain for a couple of weeks prior to that or during those 33 days. A place up the road burned wildly from what's believed to be an errant cigarette butt tossed from a car. It's that dry here.
But it's also hot. Last few days, very hot. Last week it was 104-106. You know, hotter than it ever gets here but bearable. Yesterday hit 110. Today, according to the radio, hit 112. It will drop to 108 by 7 PM, and then down to 100 or so by midnight. That is not sittin' on a porch swing weather by any means.
Tomorrow might hit 113, which is, I think, the highest temp ever recorded here in the Fort Worth area, and about what Death Valley does during August. We are not supposed to be anywhere near Death Valley hot. We're north Texas, a central state and several hundred miles from the most northern Mexican border. So if we're hitting 112, it's hot.
And you know what? Not having air conditioning in the car, well, you really feel it. I've done two showers and changed three shirts today. My badly insulated house is at 84 degrees while the thermostat is set at 70. And I almost need a sweater in here after working outside for 20 minutes. Can't wait to see the electric bill. Fortunately, I'm in a co-op, so that while they'll charge me $500 for the month, they'll also send me $25 in co-op earnings. Perfect.
Tomorrow Madeleina are going to take my truck out from under the carport and let it sit in the sun. Then we're gonna fry an egg on the hood and she's gonna narrate and make that her new video on Youtube.com, under madeleinag. It ought to be good.
Next nine days look to be more of the same though a little cooler. From up to 113 tomorrow to down to 103 (highs for the day) a week from Friday. Nice and sunny though.
I'm not sure it's good to be sucking down all this superheated smog, you know? Just sayin'...
I am giving the goats and Boots a lot of water with ice in it. Everybody seems to like that. And I'm putting Boots' chicken legs in the fridge to cool them before I serve him (two pounds of chicken daily....sorry, chickens!).
I knew it was going to be hot today when I stepped from my house to go to my car for smokes at 8 AM and the temperature, in the shade, was 94. By 1 PM it was 102, and when I just came back from driving to town, at about 6 PM, it was still 106. That's in the shade. No sun whatsoever, on a porch surrounded by plants. So maybe the 112 was a little less than the real temp.
Ah, well, the good thing is that when it cools to 85 by 4 AM, and the house cools to the 70 degrees the AC is set for, well, it feels so icy cold that I put a blanket on and go into the best damned sleeps I've had since I left New York in the winter of 2002.