Hot-Cha-Cha

Did you ever yell just for the sheer exuberance of being alive? At the school where I work, we have been holding "Summer Camp" and sometimes the kids will just shout for joy on the scorching playground! One especially droll little girl will yell "Hot-cha-cha!" and "The heat never bothered me anyway," which I thought was a very clever riff on Frozen for a third-grader. 

Sometimes the shouts are just wordless: "OooooWeeeeeHeeeeeee" and "YeeeeeeeeeeeeeHeeeeeeeeeeee." Sometimes they almost manage a yodel or two. My father could yodel beautifully, and whistle beautifully.

I wonder if my hollering for joy days are over? Oh, I holler still. "OW, my poor knees!" and "For the love of pickles, the LIGHT is GREEN, so GO!" But those aren't joyous shouts! 

But hot weather or not, errands still must be run! Early is best, of course, which means I'm always lagging and running them in the worst part of the day. My husband hasn't been too strong lately, but has wanted to eat out, so we went to the Cracker Barrel one day and Chick Fil-A the next. I love the bunting and the porch at "The Barrel," and for some reason, the fast food places have the nicest landscaping in town, as you can see in the Chick Fil-A drive-thru pics. 

The CFA manager has misting fans rigged up for his outdoor staff, and I was glad to see it. Those kids work so hard. The first place I saw misting fans was in dairy sheds in Tucson. I think they ought to be all over but they are so durned expensive.

I like to divert and drive through some nice areas on the way home from errands, if we haven't been away from the pets for too long. This past week we stopped along one of the main irrigation ditches, the California Lateral as it's called, and took a video and some photos. Most of the year, these ditches are dry, but during growing season, they have water periodically. The homes in the deepest part of the valley have "water rights," which means they have the right to some of the water that flows along the ditches. These are the homes with the biggest trees, best trees, and sometimes even lawns.

The ditches are "attractive menaces" as they say in the insurance trade. Young people are drawn to them, as they are to the river (the Rio Grande). The Rio Grande here isn't very dangerous (you can splash right across it), but the ditches are. It's the power of the water when the "gates" or little doors are winched open to let water flow along a set route that's dangerous. The water, not that deep, is deep enough to push a person against the open gate and trap their heads underwater. The pressure of the water doesn't allow them to stand up. 

If you click on the image below, a short video should play, showing the scary water! I think Blogger did something awful to the quality of the video, but as they say, Blogger is "free and worth every penny." 

And speaking of errands, I have some to do today! One of them is to GO BUY SMOKE BALLS. Yes, even being in my 60s does not stop me from wanting to "shoot off" a few (quiet, no popping) fireworks on the Fourth! So I need to get some smoke balls before all the best colors are gone. Have a lovely weekend, I hope, and see you around the blogs!

Kind regards,

Olde Dame Holly