Quite Cloudy

A norther is on the way and it will greatly moderate the heat we have experienced over the past week. It is a preview of what is to come, with greater and greater frequency as August fades into September. I like seasonal change. I rather enjoy the seasonal temperature roller coaster. 

I have actually begun to stock the foods I want to rely on this winter. I'm looking for easy storage and long shelf life, and solid nutrition, and easy preparation. Nothing complicated. There will be fish in this diet but not much else in the way of "meat". Unless I decide to buy beef jerky. I might do that. Grains! Cereals! Nuts! Dried fruit! Powdered whole milk! High protein pasta! I have plenty of rice and lentils, plenty of spices and seasonings, plenty of olive oil and canola oil and sesame oil. Plenty of flour and corn meal. Plenty of Asian chili paste! Canned tomatoes and tomato sauce! Canned mushrooms! And so on. Oh, yes, canned red beans, for these make a wonderful vegetarian chili. And so on. I want a well-stocked survivalist pantry. Oh yes, dehydrated potatoes! And so on. Pretend it is WWIII, wheee, for it might well beeee! 

Changes Are Coming

 The first significant front of the year approaches early, much cooler Monday and Tuesday. Today it is mostly cloudy and change is indeed in the air. I still work outdoors in the early morning. Seems like there is always something to do. Rain today would not surprise me, but tomorrow rain is more likely. 

The Heat Is Real

 Real enough, at least. Change, too, is in the air. I can feel it. 

The Heat Continues

 August is normally quite hot here. 

August

 The heat is in "full swing". June and July were really not so bad but I knew that August would be a killer. And so it is. Dry air continues, we continue to have a bit of a breeze, and mornings are not bad at all, and days are becoming noticeably shorter. I remember reading Raymond Lully years ago, and I recall that he made much of what he called "equilibrium", imagining that an equilibrium state was necessarily so precarious that an act of will and focused thought could disturb it. Of course that is not necessarily the case. Most of what we see is very stable. On the other hand the effect of a small disturbance can sometimes be amplified over time but then the results are generally quite unpredictable. Most of the systems that appear so stable are actually only metastable. The solar system is only metastable. The possibility of a chaotic excursion is always there. If you think in terms of a trajectory in phase space, it takes time for a chaotic departure from a pseudo-stable state to develop. But when it does, watch out!