A couple of days ago I complained that WordPress had eaten my post but not the images I’d uploaded for the post.

Many of you were nice enough to try to shed some light on what might have happened.

• Hugh, from Hugh’s News and Views, suggested that the post was in quarantine pending a review by WordPress. Hugh’s a brilliant guy who knows just about everything about blogging but I didn’t write anything nasty enough to be censored. However, I checked and guess what? What he meant (which I misinterpreted) is that, if your site has been infected by malware, it will be quarantined until the malware is snuffed. Generally you will receive an email if this happens but not always. Especially if you have multiple email addresses like I do. So, thanks once again Hugh!
• A few bloggers suggested that I may not have saved the post before publishing it. That could well have been true.
• Yvonne at Priorhouse told me to turn on two factor log in asap. An excellent idea!
• Anon, blogging over at Anonymole – apocryphal alligators, suggested that I had two versions of the post open and saved the wrong draft. Also possible. I’m generally doing two things at once.

But instead of guessing, I have put a question into the Happiness Engineers. Thanks everyone for your help!

Okay guys, I’ve saved this post three times! So I’ll add one last thing – an image gallery of my friend’s artwork for your amusement. My favorite collage is Pep up your parts! What do you think it was an ad for?

Pressing publish and hoping I’m not sending y’all a blank post.

Today’s another hot day here in Northern California. It won’t be as hot as earlier this week, the weatherman claims, but it’s already 98 degrees (F). So do I believe him? We’ll see.

But I did get out early enough to take a few Thursday doors snaps – the doors to this utility box are on the other side.

But these are the doors for this utility box. Check out other doors at Dan Antion’s place!

Meanwhile I’ve been going through a huge pile of home improvement books that I found stuffed in a cabinet we rarely use. Most of them were published by Reader’s Digest, Sunset Magazine, Better Homes and Gardens and Time/Life books back in their heydays (fifty years ago). They cover just about anything you’d need to know to build and maintain a house (and garden.) Of course, changing light bulbs these days is a struggle for us. So they won’t be going back in the cabinet. I’m not sure anyone will want a book on solar heating and cooling that was published in 1978. But I doubt the basics of electricity and plumbing have changed that much.

I did find an interesting article on installing a deer proof fence.

It turns out that deer shy away from baffles (see lower left of image). So if you don’t want deer in your yard, just build a maze! There’s another interesting idea for gopher proofing a yard. Let me know if you’d like me to post it.

The heat has done in Penito. Alas.

Whelp, it looks like old Charlie will finally get to be the king. Sigh, for the next several days, I’m sure it’s all we’ll hear about.

Soon Penito will be finished blossoming and who knows what will happen next.

At least the bees have been showing him some love.

We’re heading into a potentially deadly heat wave which always causes our power company, the notorious PG&E, to fly into conniptions. Turn off unnecessary lights! Set your AC to 78 degrees! Don’t run major appliances between 4 and 8 at night. The grid is straining, the grid is straining. Oh my!

So we may lose power at any time. Thankfully I have plenty of books and a basement which is generally twenty degrees cooler than the upstairs. Hope you are all managing to stay cool during these hopefully final hot days of summer.

It continues to be toasty here with no sign of rain on the horizon. In such weather I tend to stay indoors until the sun starts to set which is thankfully earlier and earlier. But it’s not easy to get pictures of Penito and child in the shadows of the giant pine trees that line our property and block the setting sun.

This shot was taken at about 2:30 this afternoon. As you can see, lots more blossoms! I tried to capture the bee who was checking things out but he spotted me and took offense. Luckily I managed to escape his ire.

Mother Penito is now up to my eyebrows.

It’s hard to get a good shot in the blazing sun but, as the blossoms cascade up the stalk, the ones left behind close. They still cling to the mother but they will not reopen. Once the blossoms reach the tip, all of them will close. The bereft stalk will struggle to stay erect, and then, lay down to rest for at least a year.

After a moderate start (temperature-wise), August has started to heat up. I shouldn’t complain as the temps will only get into the lower 90s and it’s not supposed to last long but I don’t do well in the heat. However, my strange plant seems to love it.

The mother plant is now up to my shoulder – approximately five feet tall.

Over the weekend they started to bend over as if getting ready to strike.

And then this morning:

The first blossoms.

Update at 4:30: Well, it got to almost 100 miserable degrees here and isn’t cooling down any time soon. Supposedly tomorrow a bit of a cool down but we’ll see!

Not much to say as August slips away. So I’ll just share a few pics of Penito and baby