The Three H's have arrived



Ironweed, aka wild butterfly weed

The dreaded three H’s—hazy, hot and humid—have taken over Roundtop today. Those three words are like curses to me. I can imagine a whole range of curse sayings about them: "may you live where it’s hazy, hot and humid" being one that comes to mind today.

Overnight, the mountain didn’t cool down even a little bit. That alone is unusual. More typical is that sometime after midnight, even the hottest days start to give up in the face of darkness. Not so last night. It was one of those fortunately rare days when I never turned off the air conditioner and was glad to have one to make the inside bearable. The dogs didn’t get an evening walk until it was dark, and even then we all returned to the cabin hot and sticky and ready for water.

This time around the worst of the heat will break sometime on Thursday, so it’s only 36 hours or so that I will have to suffer. The frightening part is that it is only early July, so there’s a full two months ahead where I have to face at least the threat of the three H’s. That’s another reason I dislike summer. Too many days of the three H’s and too many days when those three H’s might reappear at any moment.

I am ready for another winter.