Yep! Spending two to three hours a day out in nature has now been validated as a healty exercise that reduces blood pressure, keeps aging in a slower pace and prevents some of the common pains altogether that comes with age progression.
Yesterday, with the heat indexes at 108 and the air temp at 95 with humidity and dew points through the roof, I packed the cooler with lunch and a snack and headed toward the lake. I have found a perfect picnic table that reminds me why I have always liked lake houses and beach houses. While eating my lunch, there was a cool breeze blowing across the area coming in off the lake. It was delightful and I ate my lunch in a comfortable ambient temperature. Summer doesn't start until today but the last weeks of June always rings the door bell of summer early here in Texas.
By 1:30 I had pointed the car toward home and spent the rest of the day (the most unbearable part) in the cool of air conditioning. Australians survive the heat by closing up the house during the day and opening it wide in the evening. Now that a sample of what summer feels like again, I go out early and come in early. Come on September!!
The developing storms in the afternoon developed as advertised. They went north of us and south of us. The city of Greenville, north east of the metroplex got hit hard with wind damage and heavy rain leaning toward 4-inches as the storms trained over the same area for hours. Then, during the evening around sunset, a few developing storms grazed the Metroplex in the sector where I live. However, there was not as much lightening, nor strong winds and the rain was gentle and still wet. My trees are growing at an alarming rate where I am going to have to give them away to someone who needs a tree are cut the back to where they become a bush rather than a tree. I don't want to do that to my trees.They have reduced that direct sun heating of brick that sends the thermometer to the 120 mark. That is the main reason why I have trees in pots on the porch. Now, my neighbor has the same.
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| My view during lunch |
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| Piles of wood chips from all the damage to such majestic trees |
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| Pile after pile of these wood chips look like ant hills |
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