With a humidity level at 40 and heat at 33-degrees some drastic action was required. All right, nothing drastic about snipping parsley and chives, plucking ripe cherry tomatoes from the garden, but pleasurable. They were meant for a potato salad for dinner tonight. And the closing argument coping with the heat will be a small seedless watermelon.

Didn't take long for the heat to gather this morning, given that this will be the fourth straight day of such debilitating heat so far this week. And Environment Canada warns the heat front won't break until after Thursday. As good a time as any to divest Jack and Jill of some of their haircoat. Looks as though they'll require trimming every two weeks. That's how fast their hair grows. They weren't thrilled, but behaved fairly well as the grooming proceeded. At this time of year hair-snipping takes place outside.

So with my husband sitting on the glider and me on a recliner the process took place under the shelter of the deck gazebo, using an assortment of scissor-sizes. The canopy overhead didn't eliminate the prevailing heat, just cut out the sun. First Jillie, then Jackie. He was enormously interested in what I was doing with his sister, but when it came to his turn his enthusiasm waned somewhat. It took just over an hour of patience on their part and mine to finish the job.

My husband had, despite my protests, taken a floor fan out to the deck, and it's surprising how useful it was, helping to cool me and the puppies throughout their grooming. And then we made off for a ravine walk. Cooler in the forest, and since there has been a windy atmosphere along with the heat, that too helped. It helped also to keep the mosquito population down; in fact we were hardly aware of any. Which helped to make the woodland hike more tolerable

When we arrived back home an hour later it was time to really cool off the puppies. Bath time. Neither of them have expressed any fondness for water, unlike Button, our little waterdog. First Jillie, then Jackie was bathed, each of them alarmed at the indignity of being popped into a tub of water, when they're accustomed to lifting their dainty little paws high to keep dry on the morning grass which an overnight inversion has left infused with dew.

When Jillie was being bathed, Jackie expressed concern over what might be happening with his sister. When my husband was drying each off from their bath the other was busy leaping, yelping, attempting to console one another. Once they were both bathed and dried, they began a mad chase through the house after one another, obviously feeling reinvigorated and refreshed from their baths.

In this heat they'll follow us out of doors, but have no wish to be outside without us. While we're out with them, they'll romp about madly dashing after one another, wrestling, boxing, challenging each other. But stay out there and have their fun without us as an audience? Forget it.