OT: What the heck happened to the weather in Austin, Texas in July? Whatever! I'll take it.

The view out of my dining room doors. End of July.

Here in central Texas, for the last five or so years, we've been in droughts of all kinds. Severe droughts. Persistent droughts. Moderate droughts. And, just the plain ole Abnormally Dry kind of drought. By the first of July it's typical for high pressure systems to start hitting the area and locking in triple digit temperatures on an almost daily basis. With heat indexes as high as 114°.  In one recent July 28 days out of the month saw us in the triple digits --- that's 28 out of 31 days. Brutal. Not so much on most of the populace because we've become proficient at air conditioning the heck out of anything you can live in, work in or ride around in. But the heat and lack of moisture is murder on the vegetation/landscaping and also on the animals that live all around us --- but without the benefit of air conditioning. 

By this time every year we've been hearing dire warnings almost daily about the Hill  Country lakes being dangerously low. And they are a major source of the area's drinking water. Restrictions on watering are put into place and fines are levied against those who insist on watering their lawns more than once a week ---  on the day allotted to them. Most of us follow the rules and as a result the luscious green lawns of yesteryear (oh the luscious lawns of the 1970s) will, by this date each year, give up the ghost to turn brown and crunchy underfoot. Like a finely textured sepia desert.

If I were to have shown the image at the top of the blog in any of the previous half dozen August months I would quickly be pilloried by angry conservationists (and rightly so) and perhaps even turned into the authorities as a irrigation criminal. A water scofflaw. But not this year...

We have just gone through the coolest July in 20 years. Twenty Freakin Years! It rained on more days than we had days with sun shine. We had a full week of sub-90° temperatures combined with day after day of soaking rain. In areas to the West of Austin there were flash floods and much tragedy this July. Lives were lost. Properties gone. Houses and cars swept away. But we dodged that here. In my area we had mostly days of long, continuous rain but nothing too dramatic. Nothing unmanageable. 

And right now I can point to the yard over on the South side of the house and say, "See how green this all is? I haven't used a lawn sprinkler since the middle of June!!!!" And that may not seem like a big deal to folks who live in more moderate and wetter areas. But to us? It's almost like fantasy. 

Our major lake is within five feet of being at 100% full. It's amazing. And even this week, in the Dog Days of August, we've been close to 100° but not quite there yet. Not unbearable. Not subjected to the withering mercilessness of abnormal heat. It's amazing to me. And so far the high pressure systems have protected Texas from the smoke of the Canadian and US West coast wildfires. 

Someone asked us where we were going to go on vacation this Summer. B. and I both said, simultaneously, "This is the best Summer in Austin in decades. We're staying right here. We'll be at the pool, over at the club, about a mile and a half from the house. And the rest of the time we'll hit all the new restaurants we read about but which were too crowded to visit before everyone else left to go someplace hotter on vacation..." 

The electric bill for the month of July? To air condition several thousand square feet of house plus an office and studio? $119. Doing our part to save the environment. One Summer at a time.

Succulent gardens rim the house. Amazing. 

Even the secret pathway to downtown coffee is lush and green.