I know it’s hard to believe all these things are related but trust me, at least they aren’t completely unrelated.
We’ve got a fig tree in the back yard. This is its third summer bearing fruit, and what a haul we’ve got! We’ve picked at least eight pounds of figs so far, and it looks to be only about half done. Andrea’s already made a few batches of fig chutney, which proved very popular last year — hopefully she’ll post the recipe.
She’s pregnant again and the baby is due January 29th. When I got home from work one day this week, there were three jars of pickled eggs on the counter, still hot from the canning pot. I made a passing joke that she’s already exhibiting strong nesting tendencies, and she doesn’t see it. Let’s go over this again: Canning; five pounds of fig chutney; a dozen pickled eggs; and today she cracked open a jar of pickled asparagus. What do you think?
Now, how this relates to the heat — yesterday the external temperature sensor in my car ranged between 102 and 105 degrees when I drove home at 5:00 PM. I got in the house and noticed later the air was running constantly. The temperature was set to 78, but it was actually 80. It didn’t manage to cool down to 78 inside until after 10:00 PM! It was probably due to both the outside heat and the heat and humidity from canning. If we have to do any more canning this summer I may set up the turkey frier outside so we don’t heat up the house with it.
This morning, I went on a ride. It was 78 when we rode out at 7 AM, and when we got back at 10, it was a balmy 85 and actually felt pretty good compared to the upper 90’s we’ve had lately.
I’m not a climate scientist and can’t tell you for sure about global warming, but I CAN tell you it’s too hot and humid here!