It continues to be very hot and dry.  We had almost an inch of rain out of an isolated thunderstorm, but that was jus over a week ago.  Any benefit from the moisture is gone.  In the natural grassland areas, only the weeds seem to be hanging in there.  Soil is hard and dry.  Pine trees are stressed and experiencing a "mast" season, as it relates to production of pine cones.  We've never seen so many dropping.  The town we live in continues to have watering restrictions and we are in a stage two fire ban.  This means there were no fireworks or barbecue s for July 4th.  Flowers around our home are surviving only because of light hand watering.  We installed a couple rain barrels to capture rain coming off the roof.  Those have been helpful, but when they are empty with no rain in the forecast, the captured precipitation disappears quickly.