The Heat is On
The high today on our hilltop is projected to be 96 degrees. Our entire day yesterday was spent driving through triple-digit temperatures. It was 97 in Salt Lake City at the base of the Wasatch Mountains. It was 113 in Las Vegas as we drove through, needing to detour onto Las Vegas Boulevard for five miles due to replacing of Rt. 15, and it was even 108 degrees as we went through San Bernardino. In other words, it is August, normally the hottest month of the year in the continental United States and this year is not disappointing in that regard. I just read that Death Valley had the hottest month on record anywhere in the world for as long as they have been recording temperatures, as high as 130 degrees. When it tells me it will be 96 on my hilltop, it seems that when I’m driving around town it gets hotter by as much as 5 degrees, so I won’t be surprised it it cracks the three-digit level.
When we got home last night the house was exactly where I had left it. Both zones were reading 75 degrees with the air conditioning on. I have now replaced both air conditioning units on either end of the house with the northern one getting changed out just last year. That, along with out four Big Ass ceiling fans provide the cooling for the house. i do not minimize the ceiling fans in the least because having air moving around in the heat is extremely effective at making it all seem cooler, whether it is or not. In fact, with one principal evidence one way or the other, I would argue that the fans are as important as the air conditioning, so they are both set on automatic to crank up when the temperature gets to a specified level. In fact, I do track the air temperature that governs the operation of the nest thermostats and the air temperature up at fan level that governs the Big Ass fan operation. The difference in the fan thermostats being higher up than the Nests makes them read hotter and thus sometimes sets off the fans before the air conditioning comes on. Moving air around on a hot day is a time-honored way of making the heat feel less oppressive. Ceiling fans turning over ever so steadily overhead in the tropics is a time-honored image of what life is like in the warmer climates. You sort of expect a sweaty Humphrey Bogart to come around the corner at any second.
The ideal temperature for man to comfortably exist is 70 degrees. He can tolerate up to 120 for short periods of time and as low as 20 degrees for short periods. However, the comfort zone for humans is mostly between 50-90 degrees with anything lower or higher being uncomfortable and requiring some adjustment, either through added covering or temperature prophylactics. Everyone has their own theories on how best to address extreme cold or heat. The neck ends up being a common point of adjustment. There are numerous warm weather ways to cool down using some contraption that hangs around the neck and provides some cooling relief. It can be as simple as a water-soaked rag, allowing for evaporative relief from the heat, to mechanical fans and refrigerants that try to use the neck as control room for the rest of the body, the theory being that if you can cool down the control center, the rest will handle the heat better. That makes some sense in that presumably the most dangerous aspect of extreme heat is when the brain gets too hot and the one-way colloid of the brain gel gets turned into the figurative fried or boiled egg. But the neck also gets a lot of attention in the cold as well with scarves being a popular way to keep the rest of you feeling better about the colder temperatures. They say you lose 80% of your heat through your head and neck, so a scarf and a hat seem logical ways to contain as much heat as possible. We know the major internal organs of the body produce most of our body heat, and buried deep inside of us we can assume they suffer the least temperature range whereas the biggest organ, the skin, is out there interfacing with the weather as best it can, giving up bits and pieces of itself if it must to keep those vital organs in the right temperature zone.
Almost everyone will tell you that they either run hot or they run cold, the typical point of differentiation becoming most evident in the bedroom at night. You are either huddling under the covers for warmth or kicking the covers off to cool down. Sometimes you can go through several cycles of each in a given night is body temperature regulation is a challenge for you. We jump in swimming pools to cool down and into hot tubs to warm up. If you run a joint or ligament you Artie told to alternately apply cold to bring down inflammation and heat to increase blood flow and tissue repair. We sweat to give our bodies the benefit of the cooling effect of evaporating perspiration. But our bodies can get fooled into perspiring in the winter only to find that we get chilled by the dampness. Its all very confusing, but I think if we record it properly, we would find that our bodies spend an inordinate amount of time trying to regulate themselves. The same is true for our homes. To me, nothing is more important than a properly functioning HVAC system in a home. It’s is worthy of lots of attention and maintenance because nothing can render a home uninhabitable faster or more than inadequate heating or cooling. It is often suggested that it is easier to correct excess cold through over-dressing for warmth where its hard to get down lower than the naked skin and one has to rely of water immersion or some such cooling activity to help as the temperature rises.
When I returned home yesterday, I noticed that the two flowering Fuscia plants that I had situated in the big red pots at the entrance of the driveway had gone to their maker and were now dried up twigs. It was not for lack of water since I have a drip feed on each that gives them some water every day. What got to them was being in the hot sun every day. So, I made a trip to the nursery and picked out two ponytail palms that I dutifully placed in the pots and gave them a start-up drink of water to get them going in the right direction. I’m pretty sure that palms like these will appreciate a full day of sunlight and heat much more than a coastal flowering plant like a fuscia does. My reach for flowing plants and a splash of color keeps driving me to make some bad plant choices in the garden. I think that the Dr. Seuss-like aspect of the shape and look of the ponytail palms will make them good substitutes for color and they will bear up much better in the heat.
It’s August and the heat is on. Right now its cool and comfortable in my living room with the air conditioning and the Big Ass fan doing their jobs. Without all of that it would be a lot less pleasant, but hey, why worry about bad stuff until it happens…and by then maybe it will be cooler.