The past few days have been scorchers. It’s been well above 90 degrees and that’s not really normal for Germany…but thinking about the last few years and what the weather has been like, it’s hard to define “normal weather” anymore. The first few weeks of July we had lows in the 50s and highs in the 60s during the day. It was a bit cool for summer but at least the dog was enjoying it. And some days it would still manage to creep up to 70 which was pretty nice. It actually probably would have been quite a bit warmer but it was rather cloudy and raining at least once a day so the temps were staying low.

Ayla has been spending a lot of time in front of the new air conditioner and I really wish the Canine Cooler beds were here already. I would definitely be sticking one of those in the freezer trunk every morning when we head out on our walk so she would have another item to cool herself down with a bit. She usually lays on the tile floor in the kitchen but even that isn’t as cool as it usually would be – everything is just warm. We’ve been feeding her ice cubes all the time because she’s just not too interested in the frosty paws right now but she gets tired of the ice also…and now we have nice little puddles that we randomly walk into around the kitchen which is great fun…

I hope any of you experiencing heat waves are doing your best to stay cool! It’s had quite an impact on all the animals as well as us. Our two cats are also feeling it and don’t generally come downstairs during the day because the dog is around so they don’t get to enjoy the a/c unit. And yesterday when I was driving through Frankfurt, a black bird (Amsel) actually flew into my windshield. I mean I know they aren’t intelligent birds by any means but wow. Speaking of blackbirds, I have to report that we’ve had even more babies born lately and have now lost 2 more baby blackbirds to Ayla. We scooted one out the front gate of the farm but apparently the other two only got noticed by Ayla. We thought they’d already found their way up into the grape vines because we hadn’t seen them at all. All I know is that next year all their current nests will be gone and hopefully they won’t decide to rebuild. Having those birds raising their babies here is just too high stress when they just out of their nests long before they can fly. They seriously remind us of a modern Do-do bird. It’s really no wonder that they have such low survival rates each year.