Lazy days at Falling Downs

It's simply too hot to work.

I can hear the Farm Manager mumbling, ya it's too friggin hot to work around here in January...

But seriously...

It's too hot to work. We've been in the grip of a heat wave. If I don't get the hounds out for their walk before nine in the morning it's too late.

It's hell on them. They'll run ahead from one shady spot to the next and then lie there waiting for me.

When it gets too hot to work, we turn to planning and pondering.

Right now the pine trees are right up top on my pondering schedule. There's seven of them on the west side of the drive. The very last, the most northerly one, has seen all its needles turn brown.

Does this mean the tree is dead?

I've heard that pines will drop all their needles once in a while and then come back in full glory the next year, so I don't want to jump the gun in turning it into firewood.

And a couple of the elms a little further down aren't looking too prosperous either.

Now they'd make way richer firewood than the pine... oh my God, I think I'm on that slippery slope where pondering turns into planning...

Thank goodness it's way too hot to work.