This...

The weather is hot, hot and hotter. And for the last few days the heat is punctuated by downpours and thunderstorms. The humans are not enjoying this weather much, considering we are without air conditioning. The house becomes nearly unlivable by late afternoon and we are forced to eat out or find a place to swim. The plants, however, are LOVING the weather. Observe:


Stargazer Lily's, my pride and joy. And the banana peppers are outweighing the plants. I've yet to have any idea what we are going to do with them.


The other produce however, I know just what to do with that...

Eat it as fast as possible. Yum. At least now, no matter what happens, we can't say we didn't get ANY tomatoes out of the garden.

Other things are enjoying the hot sticky weather as well. I found this little guy under my laundry basket in the basement. No idea how he got there, but he was safely delivered to the pond after a short stint in Kate's bug box for observation.
A small, shiny red salamander, I squealed pretty good when I found him, but I didn't stomp him into the tile, so he got off pretty easy. If you read here often you'll have found that most things of the wildlife variety are pretty safe with me, at least as opposed to my husband who's reactions are usually more along the lines of "kill 'em all and check if they are dangerous later."