I hate Summer

Winter's bad here, you know it, you cannot do anything cuz of the snow. Summer's the same for me, I cannot do anything outside due to the humidity and insects. This weekend I am pretty much stuck in the house because everytime I go out there I get attacked by horselfies and ants. Every time. My horsefly welts are swollen up like sanddollars and just this morning I went out there for a moment and a horsefly bit my hand and now it's hard to type.


My fire ant bites from last week are starting to fade from an angry red circle with hard brown bumps in the middle to simply a red circle. But another ant bit me on that same ankle yesterday, causing me to come running into the house whining/shrieking in pain, going right to the fridge to apply more ointment. And last night I rubbed baking soda on it as well, I was in so much pain. Fire ant bites are way worse, the pain can go on for days not only hours.

Yesterday I was determined to clean up the poop in my pasture, like every Saturday, but on four separate occasions I thought, "I cannot do this. They're gonna find my body out here." The heat and humidity were so bad I was watering the grass around me with sweat dripping down at a high rate. It was running in streams down my face into my mouth and eyes, and dropping in splashes onto my glasses. I kept telling myself "Just go slow" but I already was. I was panting, my body was trying another way to cool down. I have not sweat so much since I tried hot-room yoga years ago.

I'm naturally a sweaty person - even in Winter I cannot wear solid colored blouses to work or my sweat will show, but in Summer humidity I suffer more than normal.

I walked out to my pasture this week in the evening and it was as if it was on fire - I was met with a solid wall of white "smoke"  - all the valleys around here are "burning" with humidity. This is not a nice place to live for a wimpy Seattleite.

Yesterday at 1pm the sky turned black and we had another raging storm - the skies dumped down and the thunder was non-stop. I love it when the thunder rolls together into one long sound.

So all that moisture is now seeping upwards even after the rain - it's misery.

It's "only" 30 degrees out - 86F. Not too much for a dry heat, but this is the opposite of dry. I had a dream this week that I was lost in the mountains of Arizona, wandering around in the heat, I couldn't find my horse trailer and my horse was in it.

No AC in Germany: Can you imagine in this weather, sitting in an office 9-10 hours per day, and having no AC? I brought a thermometer and I took some photos. One day last week I was in a meeting with 50 or so people on the top floor, the one with a wall of south-facing windows. It kept getting hotter and hotter in there til it was like a sauna. Sweat was beading up on the face of the guy next to me. Germans don't go for AC - they think it's environmentally irresponsible, and they also get ill when exposed to artificially cold air.

Some of our conference rooms have AC but if I turn it on, someone inevitably turns it off, complaining of "the draft." However when 50 people have to sit through a 3 hour training session, the only room big enough is the one on the top floor with all the sunny windows and not even a single fan to help. I had my thermometer on the floor so the reading shows the floor-level temp - not the human body-level temp. Another day I took the temp by the bookshelf in the room.

A colleague invited me to go bowling and I had to decline, "It's too hot to recreate." Isn't it odd that I declined an indoor event due to weather?  Later she invited me to a beer garden and I also had to decline. I cannot imagine sitting outside for fun right now. I looked up, "Things to do to beat the heat" and sadly the suggestions were things like "Go to a movie." In America that's a good idea, not here. I went to a pet store yesterday to get some fish, and when I walked into the shop I was blasted with a wave of heat and animal smells. It was an oven in there. They certainly save money not having to turn their aquarium heaters on in Summer! I was very quick about my shopping yesterday.

At home I have a stand-up box AC unit that helps. My husband was telling a neighbor the other day, "No, she never gets sick from it. She dries her hair on it!" (I do not......unless my hair is soaked with sweat!)

Right now I'm sitting in front of it, cooling the burning bite on my left hand occasionally.

BTW, can you see how German windows do not work well with AC units? I've put towels all around it. When I looked in the instructions for my AC, it says, "Cut a hole in the wall of your house to vent the hot air out."  This may be another reason Germans do not have AC units in their homes - they don't usually own their own homes, and they aren't allowed to cut holes in the wall. Next week we get a new backdoor and I'm going to have the carpenter cut a hole in the new door immediately.

I cannot go outside and enjoy my Sunday, just like yesterday. I wanted to actually ride my horse this week. I don't see how that is gonna happen.

On a less grouchy note, here is a building I drive by everyday on my way to work. I love the ingenuity  - do you see it?

UPDATE
J agreed to go for a training walk with me and Mara and since it was raining I said yes. Now I cannot sit in the chair to type this because in our 20 minute walk, I was bitten by a horsefly on the back of my thigh (to match the red sanddollar on the other thigh), my right calf, and right behind my ear. They HURT.

Mara tried to play that game again, balking at the top of that grassy slope and ignoring my drumming heels. J got tired of that and reached over and grabbed her leadrope and tugged it and she went forward. Then she stopped again after a few paces and I did my best but she refused to budge. J said MARA komm!! and glared at her. Then he came back to us, gave her halter a tug and she followed again. A few more times and he didn't have to help, she gave up. At the bottom we entered the woods and went only a few steps before J said "Wanna try again?" at which point a horsefly bit my calf and it hurt so bad I said "Let's just go home" in a whining voice but by the time we got to the top of that hill J turned around again, and we followed. She didn't require any urging at all the second time, so perhaps she's improving, or perhaps having J there is enough. Trying this on my own will require a different saddle. I felt like I was riding her neck the entire time, and wobbling back and forth. This horse definitely needs the confidence of her rider, and she is totally using my saddle issues as a "no-go." I am very thankful to my man for helping again when we need it most.