Keeping things cool this summer 7.10.20

Sitting in the house with the ac set to a mild 75f I dare not go outside after 9am. Opening the door the heat and humidity smacks you in the face in the middle of the Texas summer. Every morning and night the sprinklers are on to try to prolong the bermuda grass' luscious green look, but I fear what my water bill and electric bill is every month. The dogs themselves are not impressed with the summer weather and go outside and quickly want to come back into the coolness of the house even if it means in their crates. At dusk it is much more tolerable and there are small wading pools around the yard that they gladly will plop themselves into after a few rounds of throwing the ball. I give my dogs options to cool themselves down, while i sit on my covered deck with fans usually drinking an ice cold Modelo with lime. Sometimes the dogs will try to encourage me to step into the sunlight to run and play with them, but I'd rather go stick my head in the deep freeze that contains about 400lbs of raw dog food. Yes I feed raw, and have done for about 5 years now. It's been great for the dogs and for my yard because I don't have to pick up mounds and mounds of dog crap. With the raw, it's small nuggets, and for 5 German Shepherds that is saying something. After a few days, it dries out and when I mow the lawn POOF, it's a dog crap dust cloud! I digress, back to cooling down the dogs. Small wading pools, a good ac system and take cues from your dog especially the older guys, they are the truly special ones. The young ones I don't worry about so much, but they will tell you when they've had enough of the hell like summer heat. Sometimes I'll freeze water bottles with water in them and drop the whole bottle in the outside buckets. Keeps the water cool as long as they don't use the frozen bottle as a toy, but either way as long as they are having fun and staying cool that's all that matters. Only three months left of this sweltering moist heat where you can see the heat waves emanating from the earth like someone lost in the desert hallucinating a mirage in the distance.