Yet I am surprised by how green everything growing seems to be especially the bamboo everywhere, its prolific and my weeds just keep coming and coming too so there must be more water than the “experts” know about I think. Last week we remarked how the dry river bed was full and flowing again and apparently the barrage at Vinça has been opened to let water out as it is very full. I shall have a look when I go up there in a couple of weeks time as it runs alongside the main road.
Weeds can and do grow in the most inhospitable surroundings.
My wild patch of glorious weeds is rampaging and the bees and other insects are obviously enjoying it… but every other “cultivated” plant is dying/crisping in this dry heat.
Our local stream is down to a trickle and the fosses are dry.
Obviously there are differences across all the departments… but it is worrying
I have these horrible furry prickly leaved green ground weeds that keep popping up, never seen them before so obviously an indiginous species here. My goodness do they irritate the skin and each time I have brushed against them, I get a red rash on the skin. The thistles here are mutants too, never seen such long thorns on the leaves so have to chop each branch at a time, let dry and then get rid of. Makes the ordinary scottish type of thistle seem friendly.
thankfully, my wild patch hasn’t produced any nasties… not yet.
If you’ve something with irritates the skin… it might well be something which is worth reporting/checking on.
There are certain wild plants which are being controlled/removed… due to danger etc
just a thought
The Pig keeps coming in with those leaves attached like velcro to his fur, they dry out to a chamois leather texture so they are hard to get off.
Those are the ones, I found them stuck to my teeshirt the other day and also to some cotton gardening gloves. Velcro is right!
Yes,same here. Again, the maps given by SudOuest are very misleading. Taking Aude (11) which is shown as all RED is in fact not. Only a very small part of Aude is Red. bordering PO with a Med coastal strip being Orange since the 3rd July and the rest (about 90%) is fine. I reported a few days ago that our reservoirs are continuing to fill and there is plenty of water flowing into them if you look. I was up near Vinça a few weeks ago and it looked quite high. Confusion can be caused because once you go to orange or red, the arrêté runs until the 31st October of that year and even if things improve it’s usually not downgraded.
So far in the 63, we’ve been lucky, as we had a bucket-ton of rain in the spring. That being said, I dug out about 1m3 of earth from what looks like an old spring in our wood last weekend, and it was all dry, so there’s not much humidity to be found in the ground.
As the article says…
The Geological and Mining Research Bureau (BRGM), responsible for monitoring groundwater, the main drinking water reserves, is due to publish the full figures on Wednesday afternoon.
But according to data collected by the Info-secheresse.fr site, as of July 10, 2023, the level of groundwater in mainland France is very low in 18 departments.
It is low in 13 departments and moderately low in 26 others.
Take a photo and post here - then we can let you know what it is and how to manage it.
Over the last couple of months we’ve been very lucky this year (unlike last) with several big storms in the evening or at night. We had to lower the water in our swimming pool a couple of times because the storms dumped so much water.
My challenge (one I’m sure some of you would love) is that while OH is convalescing I’m i/c mowing. Normally in July that wouldn’t be a problem, but this year our grass is still growing so fast I could be mowing every day. We’ve rewilded great chunks of the field and just cut paths through. But that still leaves lawns to be mowed in front of the house, around the gite and a great slope of a bank by the side of the chemin down to the gite. In this heat I would be happy mowing at 10pm but everyone seems to pack up at 8pm, when it’s still too hot. I mowed with the battery hand Stilh at 7.30am this morning, but the grass is long and wet so it kept jamming - at least I can turn it on its back and unblock it.
For those of you who are still mowing, in this heat how are you managing?
Around here… folk are amenable to stuff being done “outside normal hours” and this extremely hot weather is one such time…
Speak with your neighbours and/or anyone who’d likely be affected by your “noise” and I reckon they’d say get on with it (more or less) … 
I know that our farmers are going at all hours of the night (yes, very very late… )
I agree. And when the big harvesters are going I feel I can get away with it.
Interestingly, we have no neighbours, but we sit on the side of a valley and you’d be astonished how far noise/voices travel.
check if your address is concerned by Water Restrictions…
Tap in the name of your commune… or your postcode… and you can see at a glance what (if any) restrictions apply…
Huge rainstorm due here at 18.00.
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let’s hope you get some water, but not tooo much of a storm
Torrential downpour.
More rain, clear at the moment but more forecast.
Not the dangerous stuff though.
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Started here a bit at 7ish, now torrential with continuous lightning.
We had flickering lights & a brief power cut earlier.
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I could see lightening to the north of us during the night.
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Thanks Stella, useful to know. Not surprised given how much rain we’ve had and how green everything is, no restrictions. 
En crise - quelle surprise! €1500 fine if caught using water outside.