Heat loss

.
Instead of showing the usual JHDP's cute cats, today I give you our hard reality for Camera-Critters Sunday.

Israel in summer means hot, sunny, and no rain.
But this summer has been abnormally hot.
And this last week has been brutally hot.
.
The farm animals are suffering just like the rest of us.
.

A report in Ynet (Yediot Aharonot) explains that the extreme heat makes it hard for cows to conceive and this lowers their milk production. By over 20%, in fact!

.

The cows get misted with water and have fans blowing on them, but still, as one dairy farmer says, "It's like going around in a leather jacket in the heat of summer."

A million chickens died on the first day of the unprecedented heat wave alone, last Sunday.

Poor chickens.

.

Even if the farmers spray the roofs and try to cool the coops, the water runs in above-ground pipes and comes in hot, even the chickens' drinking water.

(Even my water comes boiling into my cold water tap now in my hot little house. )

.

Exacerbating the problem is the reduced water allotment that the government gives the farmers. Israel has been in drought for years and we are running out of water.

.

The current heatwave is also ripening many fruits before their time.

Like peaches, plums, nectarines, grapes, watermelons.

.

Also, there are not enough foreign workers (mainly Thais) to pick the fruit.

Imagine working in the field in the sun or in a hothouse the whole day.

.

Sadly, thousands of tons of fruit are being tossed, wasted.

.

Let's hope it will cool down soon, in Israel and in all the affected countries.

.