Buoyant with the notion that it was going to get cooler yesterday, I spent the late morning tackling some of the jobs I had been ‘leaving ’til after’. I heaved over water troughs and scrubbed the green out of them, refilling them with clear cold water and a little cider vinegar. I got the tractor out and cleaned the Shush Sisters’ Pigsty, scooping all the muck and straw into the tractor bucket. I picked and chopped everyones lunch. The animals lunch that is. I pulled down another few bales of hay, loaded up the wheelbarrow and fed the cows under the trees. I added a clip to my step pushing just a little harder. Starting job after job. Around the middle of the day it became apparent that it was not cooling down at all in fact it was hotting up, and half way through a task I realised that the light was not sparkly – I was seeing stars. The shovel was not heavy – it was my chest that was heavy. The thermometer was reading 104 and I was feeling a bit unwell. The air I was dragging into my lungs was hot. Really hot.
But I was sick of it. I had had it with the heat. I had put off too many jobs for too long because of the heat and that was that. I was going to get this finished. 
By the time I finally let myself go inside I was having trouble walking, I had stopped sweating and my head was pounding. I felt too nauseous even to drink. I lay down in front of a fan and fell completely and immediately asleep. I never thought this would happen to me. I do not succumb to the weather.
When John got home a few hours later he got such a fright to find me lying down in the middle of the afternoon that he poked me to see if I was alive.
I had narrowly avoided sunstroke I think. My body had started to boil. I told you that heat is a great weight loss program. The heat sat at 104 all the rest of the day. It was another very hot day. 
Awake now, I decided to sit down for a wee while to recover and cruise some of my favourite blogs and see what was what. That is when I discovered that I have become invisible. I looked at my weeks numbers. Hundreds of my readers have dissappeared and most of the comments I had been making throughout the week on your pages were not showing. And most of the blogs I am following are no longer showing on the reader or in my email. Am I in your spam folder? Have I dropped off your reader? Have you dropped off mine? Am I really here? Hullo!! Has there been a catastrophe, should I listen to the news? What is happening? Has WordPress got sunstroke too? Ah well. I will find you.
Good morning. I blame my narrow excape from sunstroke on being brought up at the beach. I forget how insidious the humid heat on the prairies really is. Yes, I was wearing my wide brimmed wedding hat. Yes, I had been drinking water. No, I had not gone back inside out of the heat. You know what they say about mad dogs and Englishmen going out in the midday sun. Ah well.
In New Zealand, just outside of a town called Rotorua, is a secret hot pool. Rotorua is known for its geothermal activity, its hot water, mud pools and tourism. This hot pool is not commercial or fancied up, it looks like a big clear deep puddle. It belongs to the locals. To find it you have to drive down some side roads and under bridges, park, then walk a wee way back into the bush. It is a wide warm pool of water. Fed by two streams. One hot and one cold. I used to visit it often when I was driving and I never once saw another person there. I would hang my dress in a tree, leave my sandals on the bank and just walk straight into the water. Early Autumn was the best time for this. At the far end of the pool the two streams enter very close to each other and I discovered that if you floated in the warm water close to where the streams flowed into the pool, holding onto this big rock, that an arm of cold water would curl around your body as you lay floating in the heat.
The sensation of the cold stream moving through the hot stream, delaying its passage for just a moment as it washed over your shoulders and down to your waist and away, is so hard to describe. I have tried for years to find the right words. The water became animate in a way. If you were able to colour the streams then you would watch a transparent deep teal column of colour swirl in. Flicking its bluegreen tail like a fat eel, mixing the colours for a moment. I used to say it was a welcome chill from the embrace of a long dead lover. Someone you miss terribly and always will. Their touch makes you flinch it is so cold and so incongruous and from another world but you want to feel it just a little longer. My skin shivers at the memory.
Yesterday in the evening I felt a cool stream of air, just like this cold water. It sliced cleanly in through the heat, brushing up against my overheated body, then moving past, followed by more and then more. The stream of cool air widened as it gathered confidence. I stood on the verandah in the dark and breathed in the blessed coolness like a starving woman. Then I walked around the house opening all the windows and doors and positioning the fans to suck more of this glorious bluegreen air into the house.
Today I will finish those tasks I started yesterday. You have a lovely day. You can Leave your Hat on, but come in out of the beating sun if it is still at your place.
Please check your spam folder and see if I am in there. Set me free.
celi
Today.. a year ago.. the bees swarm. This was my second post ever. Not destined for the book I think. But well worth checking out if you are interested in capturing a swarm of bees.
The Kitchen's Garden 
148 responses to “I never thought it would happen to me”
Celi, the symptoms you describe aren’t “almost” a heat stroke; I think they’re classic. Please take breaks from the sun/heat and stay hydrated. You are still coming to my mailbox just fine, although I’ve had weird glitches with emails in the last couple of days. I loved your description of the natural spring; so poetic! Do take care of yourself. I’ve come to depend on these daily missives from the farmy!
I’ve worried about you so in this heat. In fact someone asked me if I had air conditioning on my last post, and I thought about you right then, realizing I could never do what you do…or even sleep without the air on a day to day basis in this heat. I’m so glad you are okay, but please don’t do that again! So, yes indeedy, your last comment to me was in my spam folder. You’ve been freed from prison, now. I’m not sure why you were there, but this happened to Barb at Profiteroles and Ponytails, too. My stats and comments are down as well, not that they are ever huge. Maybe everyone was on vacation someplace cool this past week! Take care. They say you have a cold wave coming in later today.
The comment difficulty is addressed to Akismet rather than WordPress a recurring issue–particularly on weekends. Also if you have more than one link attached to your profile, it might get caught in Spam.The Reader issues–sometimes if you stay logged in, it does not refresh–so try refreshing the page or logging out and back in. Also check the setting on Blogs I Follow (Dashboard/Home) and Reading and Discussion settings (Dashboard/Settings/Reading or Discussion). of course it will all change tomorrow–feels a lot like Facebook.
Thank you Alice. I shall log out more often and I shall check my settings! Good tips.. c
“The sensation of the cold stream moving through…. ”
Your writing is just beautiful!
That is so scary! I’m glad you’re OK. And sometimes I forget to check my spam for a few days and find several comments, so that may indeed be where you are.
I often think to myself as I read your blog religiously–this woman works sooooo hard what would happen to the farmy if she ever became ill. Celi you must take better care of yourself for ALL our sakes !
Celi……I did the same thing a few days ago……just to let you know I felt “off”
for a few days. I went to bed at 8Pm and slept for 12 hours last night which is
unheard of for me. I hope that is the last of that lesson and I hope even more
that I have LEARNED ….I can be a slow learner. I don’t drink the sugary drinks
either but I do keep Emergen-C a dietary supplement that comes in little packets
to mix in water. It has 1,000 mg of vtiamin C and electolytes, B vitamins etc.
I will be adding this to my water proactively rather than in hindsight.You can
find them in any grocery. Made by Alacer Corp.
We got rain and it has cooled..sending a huge rain cloud to you. I bet you
wouldn’t mind if it “rained on your parade” today.
All best
Nanster
Well, tut tut, you woman, you need to take care of yourself.. whatever would your little farmy friends do if you got sick for, well, even for one day?? What a fright for your hubs to see you laying there! Oh my goodness.. your description of the hot pools and the color of the cold stream drew such a vivid painting in my mind.. Stunning.. xo Smidge
ps.. I did find your comments to my posts in my spam.. but everything else appears as it should in my email.. My stats are down, but I assumed that was because it was summer and people are out having fun.. as they should be 😀
Still here. You aren’t in my spam folders on the Hoofprintsinmygarden blog or Aspen Meadows. Be careful in the heat.
You were in the initial stages of heat stroke. The key was when you stopped sweating. I think you got inside just in time. I grew up near the beach, but in a hot, humid climate. I had more than one episode of heat stroke or near heat stroke. The key to remember is 1) there is no warning, and 2) it has nothing to do with the sun. The worst episode I had came on a cloudy day. If it is hot, and you are perspiring, it’s hot enough to become dehydrated and overheated. I’m glad you are okay.
My worst episode ended with me in a McDonald’s and the manager desperately pleading with me to let him call me an ambulance. Dying in his restaurant would have been bad for business. I was 15, and in the best shape of my life.
Yes I can see how they would think a dying teenager in McD’s might not be the best marketing ploy!! c
Oh, and for everyone’s information, the “Blog Reader” isn’t automatically updating. People who get notified by email get notified, but I’ve had to click on “settings” and off again in order to get the list of blogs to update. WordPress again.
Thanks Bill, this is something i should do too!
Oh my dear Celi! You are so in tune with every one of your animals and can intuit their droopiness before they even feel it, I think! Now please care for you…that old heatstroke can sure sneak up on a person. I hope this tremendous heat leaves you soon. It’s shockingly brutal! You’re not in my Spam folder and since my own problem with it, I check daily. I have trouble with my Reader all the time, and refresh it habitually, just to see if I can better manage. I don’t really know what the problems are about, but I do suggest you notify WP, who will in turn send you to Akismet and once you fill out a form describing your problem, they seem to work on it. It was a bit frustrating, but I’m concerned for you that “waiting it out” won’t resolve the issue. Blessings on your day, Celi…you could use a cool breeze!! Debra
Celie, PLEASE look after yourself better. No more carrying on regardless. Neither the farmy nor your bloggy friends can do without you. You are still around on my blog – comments and replies still there. But I was half way through this reply when everything shut down with a bang. It took so long to re-load that I’ve forgotten what I was saying!
Don;t you hate that! c
If I didn’t know you better I might say, “What a clever attention getter.” But I do, so I know this cannot be the case. I ask you to please do what you would tell a small child to do during this heat wave.
I understand your dilemma; if you take a day or two off, you will only have that much more work to do when you get back to it. So why bother taking the time off in the first place??? Where’s that lanky teen when you need him?
Good advice to do what you would tell a child to do! very good advice ronnie.. c
Glad you escaped the sunstroke Cecilia, I have a very hard time with hot days too. I take after my mum, she can’t stand the heat, her face goes red and she gets pounding headaches and I am just the same.
I am really sorry I missed quite a few of your posts, with our trip and all the visitors and work this summer I wish I had 48 hours aday..You know I often reread your post about time management and have a paper than says “do it once do it fast” on my fridge..
I have been reading about your trip and it sounds stunning, absolutely amazing and I am so grateful to you for letting us see some of it through your posts! c