Hope you all had a happy 4th of July, wherever you were!

The Earth has passed its summer solstice since my last post. The rainy season continued, but in June, it changed from previous years. There has been a lot of rain lately. Rain all along the East Coast. Drought and record-setting heat and wildfires in the West. The jet stream, it seems, has an unusual northward kink that has moist air piled up over the East Coast.

Flooding throughout Lee County in low roads and ground-floor structures in low areas, last week and early this week.

Our house in Colorado Springs was in the mandatory evacuation area for the Black Forest wildfire, for a few days. That fire was probably started by humans -- they are still investigating. It started at 83 and Shoup and swept north and east, wherever the wind drove it. It burned for nine days. It burned 511 homes. Two people were overcome in their garage while loading the car for a hasty evacuation - not hasty enough - their bodies were found still in the garage. That means the investigators will not rest until they have exhausted every means of finding out how exactly this started. Meanwhile, fires burned all over Colorado, California, New Mexico and Arizona. Some still do. Arizona and Nevada and inland California suffer 115-to-120-degree heat in addition. Even Wyoming, Utah and Idaho are in the hundreds, and they, too, have wildfires. July2, 2013 article about the heat wave


Meanwhile, planning for everything that starts in Fall proceeds.