My life in appalachia - Burnt Slap Up

Was it hot at your house yesterday? It was hot in Brasstown-as you can see 103.5 at just after 4pm. I tried to find out if it was a record breaking temperature for our area-but finally gave up and decided it was just hot and thats all there was too it.

We desperately need rain-and I know folks down south have had more rain than they need-makes me wish we could swap out somehow. We’ve been watering the garden here at our house every evening-but the big garden we share with Pap and Granny is too big to water-and it’s about burnt slap up. Granny thinks it’ll rain next week and the big garden will be ok-I hope she’s right.

Charles Fletcher let me know it was 105 at 3:30pm in Cleveland TN yesterday.

How hot was it at your place?

Tipper

Appalachia Through My Eyes – A series of photographs from my life in Southern Appalachia.

 

 

Similar Posts

44 Comments

  1. It’s very hot and dry here in south Arkansas. Last summer was also dry. Everybody seems to be having problems–fires in Colorado, storms on east coast, floods in Florida, heat and drought other places. Here is a poem I found written in 1908 (author unknown):
    The days are long and hot and dreary,
    It’s dry and the sun is never weary.
    The withering crop still clings to its hold,
    But the dry wind, as in the days of old
    … Is wreaking destruction with every gust
    And enveloped all in a cloud of dust.
    Then the rains came and ended this poem.

  2. We are over in Morganton, and I can tell you it was HOT yesterday. Most of the readouts said 9 or 99, but it was hotter than that. We ha a ball anyway, and will be going back for 4 more days of fun at the Red White and Bluegrass festival.
    Hope you have a great 4th of July.

  3. Have been having triple digits here in east Texas til the last few days and now we’re having a cool spell, back in the 90’s.

  4. Pat-I’ve never heard of corn twisting but it does curl up during the hottest part of the day and open back up during the cool and damp of the evening. Since the cool and damp has retreated I guess it just stays curled up. A little rain would bring it back.

  5. It was so hot here in Franklin that the wife and I stayed in the creek all day and seen a couple of trout panting. 🙂

  6. 94 in the shade here on White Oak-I know, I know, we’re really lucky compared to other folks, but we consider 85 a scorcher ’round here. With no air-conditioning we are burnt slap up!

  7. We had 107.4 on Thursday. 105 today. It’s bone dry!
    I wanted to ask you, have you ever heard of a winter potato? Yesterday when digging our potatoes, the blacksmith hit a big rock. Oh he said it’s a winter potato. My parents never gardened, so this was a first for me! LOL
    Keep cool!

  8. Hey. It is so hot here in Granite Falls that the neighbor’s dog, that normally chases me up the drive way just layed in the shade and nodded his head as i drove by.

  9. Officially 102 at Tri Cities Airport outside of Johnson City, and a record breaker, but down the road where I live it was 104. My poor garden is burning up, but I do water some things every other night and those few things are hanging on. There is no way I could water everything.
    On our local news a farmer said the corn is twisting. I have never heard of that before, have you?

  10. Hot Tipper, just hot. Ain’t supposed to be this hot in the mountains. It ain’t natural. Hotter than a blister.

  11. It reached about a hundred on my car thermometer yesterday in Lenoir; today as we came down from the Bolick Pottery’s Heritage Days, the same thermometer read 89 at 11:00 am. The humidity seems to be quite high also, so many Granny is right that we might get some rain. I am thankful that we have been spared from the horrible fires out West, especially in CO.

  12. I don’t remember it being this hot and dry except in the desert. Last winter when the weather was so mild I was happy but I think it is time to pay tbe fiddler.

  13. Picked up some food at Burger King yesterday afternoon. Since I don’t use the A/C when I’m just tooling around town, the food was hotter when I got home with it than it was when I picked it up. That said, it was only 94 here. Plus, it was cloudy from about 5 o’clock on, and we had a little rain in the evening.

  14. Wow, after reading how hot is has been in so many other places, I should be grateful for the high of 93 we reached on our mountain west of Sylva…we worked all day in that heat splitting wood, and it felt so hot I figured the fire to burn the chips and bark might be able to start itself, but no, it couldn’t. I did keep a big bucket of water close by though. And at the end of the, a nice foot soak in the cold creek…now that was nice!
    Try to stay cool, and I sure hope your granny was right and rain is coming!

  15. 83 degrees in Honolulu yesterday with cooling North East trade winds blowing 10-15 MPH. Best weather on the planet.

  16. 108 in Aiken SC and dry withing scorching breeze. I left to go to my brother’s early yesterday morning and went by a pretty good looking corn field on the way, about 7:30 am. Returning at 5:30 pm, I could not believe that, as you so appropriately say, it had “burnt slap up…” during the day. They say no relief for about a week.

  17. Got to 103 in Greenville, SC yesterday; forecast calls for
    105 today… These times I wish
    I had moved to Alaska when I had the chance. My quarter Cherokee East Tennessee Grandma always said, “You kin always put on e’nuff stuff to git warm, if you got e’nuff, but no way you can take e’nuff off to git cool.”

  18. Yes, Tipper, the official high here in Pelham, AL was 105 yesterday, but it was even hotter in some places in the area. Weather Underground said 108. This is supposed to continue for the next few days. The high for July 4 is predicted to be a crisp, cool 97.

  19. I think it was about 92 here in west central Florida yesterday. We live about 16 miles due east of Tampa and it does get hotter the further inland you go. Debby brought 12+ inches of rain to our immediate vicinity this last week so our garden drowned. It was about gone anyway. We needed the rain but were sure glad when it was over. Marylou in Dover, Florida

  20. It was 103 yesterday. But, you know, it always seems to get super hot around the 4th. Not very good weather unless your name is Lucifer!
    By the way, what is that contraption in the picture, a flux capacitor? About the most complicated device we have around here is a wind-up alarm clock.

  21. I am leaving South Florida by next year to come back to NC, but one thing that is nice about the Jupiter area is that weather is great. We are 3 miles from the Gulfstream on the East Coast and the effect of the water is somewhat moderating. People talk about Florida being hot, and it is hot inland, but the highest temperature we have ever recorded at the airport is 99. At 9:35 this morning, it was 82 on its way to a predicted high of 92. The good and bad news is that everything grows like crazy, including lawns, all year, so mowing is a 52-week-a-year activity.

  22. Tipper–You should have asked your readers for localisms giving similes for heat. Maybe I can get started.
    *Hot as the hinges of Hades.
    *Hot as two-dollar pistol.
    *Hot as molten steel.
    I know a couple of others I had regularly as a boy, but they won’t pass muster or the rectitudinous eyes of the erstwhile Brasstown censor.
    Jim Casada

  23. Tipper,
    Well, the eggs are hard-boiled if’n you aren’t right there with yore hand under the “drop-slot”!
    Then yore shore to have a cool pail to put’em in or they scramble in the shell by the time yore in the kitchen door…
    103 on our hill…
    but felt a lot hotter…Where’s that “hurrycane rain” when you need it…LOL
    Even all us old folks cain’t remember it being this hot, over this much of the country at one time this early in summer…???

  24. Tipper,
    As you know I’m not too far from
    you and I agree, it’s just hot!
    But my beans needed pickin’ and I
    was in the garden just after 6 am
    yesterday. Didn’t take long to run
    me out, went back and got another
    bushel after the sun went down. I
    was drenchin’ wet!
    Hope you all have a nice time in
    Cashiers today…Ken

  25. 106 here in Frederick. Last night a major rainstorm came through. No damage here however the county just south of us (Montgomery County, Md.) had major damage. Many trees down and 200,000 electric customers without power and may be so for days. Water restriction in effect there because of power outages at power stations. Our garden really got watered. We have had bell peppers and beans will be ready to pick soon.

  26. most of the country is having record breaking heat and down here in Florida we are normal, it was 94 yesterday and the seven day forecast is mid 90’s, can’t figure out what is going on.

  27. It’s been triple digits here in Louisville for three days and predicting many more. I think the news said the heat index was 115 yesterday while excessive heat warnings were issued. Our 100 acres of corn was the best crop ever until the past few weeks. It, like me, has just wilted. I borrowed several water hose to attach to my three and waterd my garden last night. The gang went to the Quaker State races today. I told them they would burn slap dab up!

  28. My little garden is experimental. So far no fertilizer, nor dust or spray and no water, except a little when I set out plants. I been getting some bell peppers and squash. I’m trying the dried squash you recommended. Some I rolled in self rising corn meal mix and fried in enough oil to float them. My wife and son just suck them up. When I ask them if they want any and they tell me no, but when it gets to frying and the smell starts to waft through the house, it’s “can I have just a few pieces.” I like them too but ain’t got a belly full yet.

  29. Lordy!, Lordy! Th’ birds got pot holders to pull worms out of th’ ground…Corn popped in th’ field, th’ cow thought it wuz a’snowin’ and froze t’ death..
    That’s HOT on Kelly’s Creek!

  30. Carol.. I have a suggestion for water for the garden, when you shower put the plug in the tub and save that water, grab buckets and use it to water the garden. we also would put a bucket under the sink and put a pvc pipe straight down to a bucket to save dishwater and even the bathroom sink. Gray water is not harmful to plants and the soap is great for keeping bugs away.
    Our temps yesterday were at 104 according to the bank’s gauge, our home digital registered 103.9 it’s in the shade also. Forecast is for 106 but that has changed upwards 4 times .. just know too hot to be doing anything outside!!!

  31. Yesterday was the first really hot day we’ve had this year. One guy said he saw 108 on the way to work yesterday afternoon. I don’t have a thermometer at home. At the place I work, half has a range of 40 degrees to -20, The other half, where I have to be, has very little heat and no AC. It gets so hot you can’t breath. There is about 200 acres of pavement surrounding the place that traps the heat so it don’t cool much at night. The Catawba River, just down the mountain, provides plenty of humidity. There are fans but they blow hot air. Like a convection oven. I have to move around a lot in my particular job, so nobody notices if I sneak over to the cold side for a while.
    Anything over 70 is starting to get uncomfortable to me and over 80 is hot. So I’m in for it for 3 or 4 months, I reckon.
    We had a couple of downpours last week so my tiny garden is OK, for now.

  32. 105 in Muncie In. we had a severe thunderstorm latter in day but did not last long enough to do any healing to the earth. there was a lot of trees down and power outages all around. the elements spoke loud and clear they were in charge.

  33. Milledgeville registered 108 degrees Friday! On Georgia’s weather map at the 6 p. m. news, Milledgeville was the hottest spot in all of Georgia–but most all the places were in the three-digit number. Even my beloved mountain area was up there above the 100’s, as you indicated by the Brasstown temperature. And we’re soooo dry, too! No rain here in awhile.

  34. Our little digital weather station was reading 108.7 at 3:45pm yesterday. I think that the “official” temp was 103F in Roanoke with a heat index of 114F.
    We had a horrible storm last night and much of the area is without power. I think that it is the scariest storm that I have ever been in. We are lucky in that we have power. We did lose the top out of a beautiful oak tree behind our house.
    I am very worried about everyone today who does not have power. The temp prediction for today is 102F.

  35. It was a steaming 100 over on this side of the mountains (west of Franklin). So hot, being outside was like trying to breathe through straws stuffed with cotton. I was wonderin about ya’lls garden. I do hope it survives.

  36. Good Morning,
    The highest here (middle TN) was 109.9. The sensor is under the front porch in the shade. We cannot water our garden because we use a welll and are afraid it would dry up. It has not in thirty years,but we do not remember it being this dry. Also we conserve when we can—no car washing and full loads of laundry & dishes. I enjoy reading your posts,Tipper.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *