Both of my daughters caught their first fish this year. When my son caught his first we had it mounted and celebrated. I was sort of expecting a similar ritual with the girls but it didn’t quite work out as I had planned.

My youngest caught a trout and immediately made me set out getting a bucket and “saving it”. It survived and we put it in our koi pond where it made all of the other inhabitants its bitches (those who weren’t eaten). I had to segregate it from the general population in a separate barrel where it lived out its days until it got too hot. I didn’t even get a picture of her with the fish.

The older daughter was late in coming and I sure was glad to see her pole take a dip. It was a surf perch and not too bad of a catch. I got pictures and started to take the hook out when the darned thing started giving birth and dropping its babies all over the pier. I didn’t even know that they did this. Katie didn’t talk to me for about 2 hours.

Fortunately, she’s a chip off the old block, now she brags that she is the only one in our family to catch “five fish at once.”

We are planning future trips and it looks like it will be a great summer.

Did summer sneak up on you? We were spoiled by what felt like below average temps through most of May and now it feels like the high 90′s have ambushed us like a coconut throwing monkey in a palm tree!

This is the first year we’ve been ahead of the heat wave. We spent the weekend prepping our air conditioning units, cleaning the coils, clearing the area and we checked our attic for leaks in the vents. Living in Bakersfield where temps can easily soar above 105 in the summer and there are no breezes of which to speak, it goes without saying that you are going to be dealing with air conditioning and working overtime to pay for the electricity bill.

Currently, we live in a newer home with decent insulation, dual pane windows and as much energy efficiency as one can expect from your average home builder. Since we don’t have a custom home we didn’t have a whole lot of say in the matter. Our air conditioning intake units are positioned on the side of the house where they are in the summer sun for at least 8 hours a day; that means our units are working harder to cool hot air. If they had just been placed on the opposite side of the house they would have had shade the majority of the day.

Our plan is to install A/C misters similar to the products at www.coolnsave.com or AC Mister. Next step is to put a reflective solar shade above the units to block the blistering summer sun.

We are fortunate that our house has a great north/south exposure, but the next step is to do some solar screens on the exterior and possibly one to two awnings (both for aesthetics and shade) as well.

We don’t have any hard proof (read: too lazy to research this) of climate changes in Bakersfield, just long term Bako-residency memories, but it sure seems like grandma and grandma used to say, “at least it’s a DRY heat” and we’re not convinced that’s entirely the case for 100% of the summer anymore.

Eventually, we might make a move toward the expense of a solar attic fan or a whole house fan and evaporative cooling system which would greatly reduce our air conditioning use as long as we experience dry heat. If the humidity creeps up evap coolers aren’t of much use around here as most people know.

For more energy saving tips check out this great article by Mr. Electricity.