This year, 2023, has been honestly one of the absolute worst summers I've ever dealt with in Arizona since I've lived here. Coming from Colorado, I was accustomed to almost daily thunderstorms, some tornado activity, hail storms, and heat, but Arizona is a whole different world.
Since moving out here in 2019 I've had plenty of time to 'acclimate' if there's even such a thing. Regularly, our summers are in the 100-110 range, especially midyear when its at its peak. Working outside has to be done early or with frequent breaks to avoid the worst of it, and places like Phoenix, AZ are sweltering pavement ovens. While I'm grateful to live away from the worst of it, it doesn't make the summers any more tolerable.
Most years, after things really heat up in July/August, we start to see our typical monsoon season with vivid lightning storms and buckets of rain. The rain makes a big impact in our desert climate and the wildlife and plants rely on this year's worth of rain to relieve the heat, even slightly. The same goes for our own garden and our flock. This year, however, has been starkly different to any of the others we've had in the near past and on record. With this year being an El Nino year, it means boiling summers with little rain, and (hopefully) lots of percipitation this fall and winter. What that translates to -- an entire summer with no relief for anyone, in one of the hottest climates. My poor husband working in attics and rooftops has been dying from the heat, the animals are suffering, we are struggling to keep our garden alive despite best efforts, and trying to keep the house cool is honestly the biggest struggle we've faced in our old house with minimal insulation.
The chickens particularly have been suffering, which is the main reason I'm writing this post today. This year alone, we have lost half our flock to nothing other than the heat. Despite trying to rehydrate them with electrolytes, and move them to shade, give them airflow, give them plenty of sources of water to drink from, the stifling heat has taken its toll this year. Its enormously depressing to lose so many of our animals simply because we can't fight the climate. We finally were able to install some misters and continue to flood the backyard, which has helped significantly, but I'm worried that with the summer not even over yet, we may continue to have more losses. One of the projects we are going to look into more in the coming year is to give them a larger, more adequate shelter but this year we just couldn't achieve that fast enough. Because of this, unfortunately for the rest of the year I'll have to take down some of our egg sales from the website until next spring. We do have 11 more chicks (and a couple roosters) coming soon this October, and this will help us get back up to speed quickly for next year!
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