OK--today was ridiculous.
Marie absolutely MUST get out of the house at least once a week for outdoors recreation. Off we went about 11:00 A.M. toward the San Jacinto Wildlife Area through San Timoteo Canyon. It was already a toasty 111* as we left the house, and got to 113* as we entered the Area. No doves sighted at all, and the relative lack of sunflowers growing or gone to seed might account for that. There was quite a bit of water in the ponds and marshes, though--and the intermittent Mystic Lake (an oxbow of the San Jacinto River) was about half full. Few ducks were on scene, some pairs stay year-round but the early migrators (bluewing teal) haven't shown yet. There were some egrets hanging around, and some curlews feeding in a pond being water-filled at the area's north end. I'm guessing that due to the heat, critters didn't feel much like sloshing around. In that respect they had better sense than we did.
We spent a couple hours at the Area, and Marie had a little excitement when some sort of bee-looking fly decided to take shade and comfort in her ear canal. We flooded her ear with water, evicting the lodger--and it took refuge in her hair. Marie remained excited until I got ahold of the miscreant and crunched him in my fingers as a warning to other squatters considering similar options.
We took leave of SJWA about 2:30 and headed toward Perris to scrounge up some chow. YE GODS, it was hot--118* on the Jeep dashboard gauge. In Perris, the temp climbed to 121* parked in the shade with A/C on full blast while we ate. Me--"Honey, snap a picture of that and post it to Facebook. No one will believe this otherwise." She did, "Marie Paine" as subscriber name.
We chowed down, made a few stops and side trips while enroute home. The temp never dipped below 112*, and we arrived home about 4:45. Tomorrow isupposed to be a few degrees hotter. Can't wait.