Best-Laid Plans of Weather Forecasters

 I'm sure the armchair analyses are fairly universal:  our weather forecasters screwed up royally. We never saw nor felt that predicted 95-degree heat with all that sunshine yesterday.  At 5 p.m. when I pulled into my driveway after a trip to find blue skies and sunshine (all the way to Clark Fork before the rain stopped), I looked at the in-car thermometer.  It had suddenly bounced from 67 degrees to 69. 

We might have hit 70 after that cuz the sun was finally shining after a day of thunder and lightning and socked-in rain. Nobody was complaining, though,  so the weather folks got an easy pass on their Friday prediction.  Oh, by mid-afternoon, some of us had eventually changed from the lightest wardrobe possible to the usual.  That was after it was evident we'd never see 95 on June 29, 2013.  We enjoyed the unplanned day of reasonably comfortable temperatures and soothing rain.  Today, however, I think we'll be moving into the blast furnace.  Right now, however, a nice breeze is keeping the outside air pretty pleasant.  Once again, I'll get out there and do my morning chores before the heat comes on.  Supposed to be 80 by noon and 90 by about 1 p.m.  This time I'll believe it. The garden plots will love this weather, and the veggies and flowers are already doing mighty fine compared to any June standard I can ever remember.  Over by the barn, that manure-pile corn is stretching higher and higher and the tassels are showing off like it's mid-August.  Some of the manure-pile squash even has yellow blossoms. Great growing weather, for sure.  And, in the midst of it all, New Big Blue stands ready and waiting for folks to climb up the ladder and step in for refreshment. We also have new-old motor home guests expected to show up via bicycles by sometime tomorrow.  They're on a journey from the West Coast to the East Coast, pedaling across the northern United States. They'll use Sandpoint and the Lovestead as a rest stop.  We've never met them, but when I think back on some of our other visitors over the years---the 9 bikers from The Bush School in Seattle in 1975 on their round-the-world journey and the Aussies who stayed for a week two years ago---it doesn't take much time to get to know these visitors as they pass through.  One of those Bush School bikers lives in Vermont, so I'm gonna give these folks information about where she resides----just in case they're going that way. Twould be neat for our biking visitors 38 years apart to meet each other.  I'm sure they'd have a story or two to share.   In the meantime, I'll be setting up fans in the motor home and tidying up a bit for company to come.  Happy Sunday to all.  Stay cool.