It's Hot, Hot, Hot

Yesterday got up to 102 degrees and today at 1:00 pm, it's already 102.

It's just too hot to do much outside, so I think we'll watch a movie and maybe I'll read my book a while.  I am enjoying Pillars of the Earth.  They started the mini-series on Netflix, but after only two episodes, I can't find any more.

I feel so sorry for the poor little Bluebird babies stuck in their nest boxes, which are right in the sun.  You have to place the boxes far enough from a tree so that nothing can  climb down from the tree and get the birds.  One of the boxes get some shade from a tree that is far enough away.  I think we will try to relocate the other two boxes after they are vacated this year. 

We've put water out for the foxes and now we have a baby raccoon, so of course they have  to get water as well.  We haven't had any rain for weeks now, so everything is extremely dry.  Our beautiful green grass is scorched and dry.  We put a mister up for the birds and they really enjoy it.  We feel sorry for all the animals.  Our little pond is getting low also.  If we don't get some rain soon, it will dry up.

We did manage to wash the motor home this morning though.  It's a good day to get wet. 

I made a new batch of soap last night. It has olive oil, coconut oil and lard.  It's a creamy light yellow in color and seems to have a nice texture. I found some oil scents at Walmart for only $2 so I put some Apple Cinnamon fragrance in the soap.  I was afraid it would mess up the "trace" of the soap, so I was a little leery, but it turned out okay and has a nice fragrance.  I'm anxious for it to harden enough to cut (and yes I peeked again).  I think I may try another batch later today and add some vanilla fragrance.  I hate that I make this nice soap and have to wait 6 weeks to use it.

I read somewhere of some uses for homemade lye soap.  One thing is it's supposed to be good to wash off the oils from poison ivy.  Al is a magnet for poison ivy and is allergic to it, so I have encouraged him to bathe with it every time.  One other use is supposed to help night time leg cramps.  Al also has a problem with that.  Very often he is awakened from a sound sleep with a bad leg cramp. Supposedly if you put a bag of soap under your bottom sheet, it will stop leg cramps.  Well, I thought it couldn't hurt so we have a big lump of soap under the sheets!  I don't know if it works, but Al hasn't had a night time leg cramp since we put the soap there!  Coincidence?  I don't know?