Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 5, 2015 17:02:13 GMT
It is October 5th and still dryer than a Women's Christian Temperance Union meeting. Lot of cedar elms are dying. Deer a year old and younger have no idea that grass can also be green. Bluebonnets would be coming up at this time. Even the weeds have called it quits.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 9, 2015 14:07:25 GMT
October 9th, still no rain. In August most of the TV weatherpeople (who know almost as much about weather as the people standing on corners with cardboard signs asking for money for beer and cigarettes) were saying there would be above average rain this fall.
I wonder what day they were talking about.
|
|
|
|
Post by bluemingidiot on Oct 13, 2015 2:15:55 GMT
October 12th, Johnson City was 98° and Llano was 100°. No rain in the 7-day forecast.
|
|
|
|
Post by here to stay on Oct 13, 2015 2:26:25 GMT
We had a bit here in northern California and expect a bit more in a couple of days. Also there is dew most mornings. Doesn't sound like much but it is a change from zero rain. So hang in there. I feel in my bones it's going to be at least average rain this winter. It just needs to make it over the mountains.
|
|
|
|
Post by bluemingidiot on Oct 15, 2015 3:01:46 GMT
Another record high today.
Used to wonder what Hell was like, now I think I know. Hell is when you are surrounded by prickly pear cactus and juniper trees full of pollen. Everything is so thick that you can't move and only can see a short distance. The temperature is always 100°. You can hear water falling, children playing and a distant orchestra, but it is all very faint. You holler for hours, maybe days, but eventually you realize no one can hear you. Hours or days later you get the idea that you can cut and dig your way out. After just a few minutes you are full of thorns and stickers. Every movement is painful. There is no breeze, it is hard to breathe. You work for years, maybe eons, but the sounds never get closer.
Or at least that is the way my day has gone. Through God's mercy I spent the last 30 minutes in an airconditioned home pulling glochids from all parts of my body. Gloves, boots, long pants, shirts, jackets only work for a little while.
Cholla and prickly pear are the only cacti to have the tiny spines called glochids. (That would be good word for 'hangman'). I don't know how many grains of sand are on earth, nor do I know how many stars are in the sky, but I know both don't equal the number of glochids.
The land is like my life, sometimes I see the differences from what things used to be and have hope. Other times I see how much remains to be cleared out and get discouraged.
Drought is so very bittersweet. When it rains, everything is green and healthy, but grass and weeds are the healthiest, so one is always mowing and sniffing up exhaust fumes. One of the grasses that grows well is sticker grass. It sticks to one's shoes and is deposited inside the house and my feet find them on the way to the bathroom at night. Some stick to pants or socks. I stuff all my dirty clothes in the washer where the stickers transfer from outside pants to inside pants, or to underwear, or to towels.
Rain also brings us the hordes from the insect world, not the least of which are fire ants and mosquitos. Rain brings greater humidity which means the mornings are warmer and the days more uncomfortable. Finally, rain brings mud, and we all know how much fun mud is. Mud is brown goo. Goo is not good.
I wonder if people in southeastern Alaska or the Pacific nortwest ever pray for dry weather like people in Texas pray for rain? And I wonder if God ever thinks to Himself, "If you don't like it, why don't you just move?" |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2015 7:18:06 GMT
I wonder if people in southeastern Alaska or the Pacific nortwest ever pray for dry weather like people in Texas pray for rain? You asked "I wonder if people in southeastern Alaska or the Pacific nortwest ever pray for dry weather like people in Texas pray for rain?" No. Certainly not for the past 5 years at least. Perhaps you haven't heard about what's been happening with the climate conditions in the west from California all the way up to Alaska during the past few years. Each year has been hotter and drier than the year before that, culminating in spring to autumn wildfires, drought conditions, diminished reservoirs and water restrictions along the entire western regions of North America during the past few years. The conditions have been progressively more pronounced each year. For the past couple of years for sure during the late spring through summer months there have been a lot of people in the west were praying for rain and cooler temperatures. I know that most of us in California, PNW, BC, Yukon and southern Alaska certainly were. Now we are all hoping for rain and lots and lots of snow in the mountains to get some snowpack up on all those totally bare mountains so there won't be a much worse and more extensive drought and wildfires next summer. Unfortunately with El Nino coming it's not looking like we'll all be getting the snow we need. That picture you posted of your place above. That's what many regions in Washington and British Columbia looked like for 4 months this past summer. . |
|
|
|
Post by bluemingidiot on Oct 17, 2015 14:34:32 GMT
Thank you. My place still looks like that. Be nice if you folks could share.
|
|
|
|
Post by here to stay on Oct 17, 2015 15:05:52 GMT
We have rain this morning. Enough that it was noisy.
Hold on. I feel in my bones we are going to have a rainy winter.
|
|
|
|
Post by bluemingidiot on Oct 20, 2015 18:02:30 GMT
October 20th, still no rain. Haven't seen a scorpion in over a month which is unusual. Today I pried a rock out of the ground and there was an intact, dried-out scorpion. When it is too hot and dry for scorpions that's not all bad. Rain can be high maintenance.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2015 2:16:45 GMT
Oct. 20 Warmer than normal, calling for weather change this weekend giving us rain.
Rockpile |
|
|
|
Post by manygoatsnmore on Oct 21, 2015 3:21:50 GMT
We're short on rain still here. The new rain year started October 1st...we're already over an inch short on rain (normally get about 3" in October), and it's warmer so far, than any year since they've been keeping records - this from the Portland, OR news stations. Of course, last year we had a warm October, but very wet - 6", which is twice what is normal.
|
|
|
|
Post by barefootfarmer on Oct 21, 2015 3:30:41 GMT
Just a couple of nights ago we had thunderstorms in the very wee hours of the morning over here in Hillsboro. And just enough rain to make the goats (at the farm) in the field grumpy- they were used to a barn. I'd like a compromise of sorts- hot weather like we had this summer but with enough rain to keep the wild fires from occurring.
|
|
|
|
Post by manygoatsnmore on Oct 21, 2015 3:43:09 GMT
Just a couple of nights ago we had thunderstorms in the very wee hours of the morning over here in Hillsboro. And just enough rain to make the goats (at the farm) in the field grumpy- they were used to a barn. I'd like a compromise of sorts- hot weather like we had this summer but with enough rain to keep the wild fires from occurring. We had the same thunderstorms a couple hours after you got them...and only the briefest of cloudbursts. I'd love another summer hot enough to ripen melons...but agree that we don't need another dry summer like this year's. I really, really hope we get some snow this winter. Looking at the mountains and only seeing rock instead of snow is just wrong! |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2015 3:44:05 GMT
More than that, it's plain weird. In over 65 years of living in the west and always being accustomed to seeing the Cascades and the Pacific Coast Ranges to the north always having snow covered glaciers on their high peaks year round, this is the first time in my life that I've seen so many bare rock mountains with not a speck of snow on them anywhere. Sure there's been a few late summers when some of them had a few patches of bare rock, but never completely bare all over like now. Even Mt. Baker which has historically always been completely covered with glaciers and snow now has a few very large bare rocky patches on it's western face. I'm curious to know what Ranier is like now.
.
|
|
|
|
Post by manygoatsnmore on Oct 25, 2015 4:32:37 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by manygoatsnmore on Oct 25, 2015 4:37:55 GMT
@anastasia, check out the webcams in the park to see what Rainier looks like now. I found a bunch of webcams, but of course, it's dark right now so I couldn't see if there were much rock showing. I grew up with a beautiful view of both St Helens and Rainier - really miss that view. I"m in a valley here, and have to drive a bit to get to a good viewpoint.
|
|
|
|
Post by paquebot on Oct 25, 2015 6:49:20 GMT
Hasn't been a thing happening that hasn't happened before. It's just that weather conditions seem to have a strange effect on human short-term memory. At same time, weather has long been a subject of opening a conversation. It's sort of a way of asking about a person's well-being. Thus far there have been no records set this year for low or high temperature or rainfall. They weren't something to worry about years ago. The forecast was what one could see but not foresee. Lots of hay ruined because we could not see beyond the next ridge. On 30 Jan 1951, we just knew that it was going to be cold but nobody dreamed of -52ºF. Then there were the two consecutive Christmas days in the early 1980s with record highs and lows. And a deer season in the 1990s when there were jokes of hunters looking for blaze orange Bermuda shorts. I think that it was the following year that many deer survived due to frozen firing pins and I was ready to shoot any deer just so I could warm my hands in its blood.
Point is that everything we're seeing now has been here before. Unless it affected you in one way or other at the time, it was just another day. For years I have heard the same thing from people trying to be funny. "Everyone's talking about the weather but nobody is doing anything about it."
Martin
|
|
|
|
Post by bluemingidiot on Oct 25, 2015 22:59:43 GMT
4.2" rain yesterday and a balmy 66° today. Thank you for asking.
Can't wait for cenchrus insertus, fire ants, mosquitos and scorpions to show back up.
|
|
|
|
Post by manygoatsnmore on Oct 26, 2015 8:18:43 GMT
Boy, you're really not a glass half full kind of fellow, are ya?  |
|
|
|
Post by bluemingidiot on Oct 26, 2015 14:25:22 GMT
No. I'm sort of a "stay thirsty" kind of fellow.
|
|
|
|
Post by here to stay on Oct 26, 2015 14:27:24 GMT
Yesterday was a soaker- light rain but constant. Has time to get into the ground rather than run off. There's more due tomorrow.
It's weird to have to look at the weather report to plan work again. It's been awhile.
|
|
|
|
Post by bluemingidiot on Oct 28, 2015 17:03:28 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by barefootfarmer on Oct 28, 2015 17:26:39 GMT
bluemingidiot, If that was ever my view, I'd say it was high time to relocate. Today I'm heading out to fit my smaller livestock with arm flotation devices so they don't drown.
|
|
|
|
Post by bluemingidiot on Oct 28, 2015 18:06:10 GMT
Probably should, but then again we don't have much in the way of liver flukes, barber pole worm, ticks and foot rot. And I ain't all that fond of mud neither. But every man chooses his own poison.
|
|
|
|
Post by barefootfarmer on Oct 28, 2015 18:53:41 GMT
My ducks have taken care of any liver flukes, if there ever were any here. No ticks, or barber pole worm either. Foot rot....none yet, knock on some soggy wood. Mud however, well that's a different story. I quickly learned where it's best not to put rubber during the rainy months. Even being careful about stocking density and staying off the low areas it is true that I feel the Mud Boogeyman breathing down my neck most Novembers through April. Did I mention- all that rain keeps it green? Mud is kind of a different shade of green...
|
|
|
|
Post by countrymom22 on Oct 29, 2015 1:45:30 GMT
After a long stretch of perfect autumn weather we are finally getting a good, drenching rain. We really need it as I think we were about 7" low for this time of year. We should get between 2-3" by morning. I'm really grateful that it's falling during the week and we should have a great weekend.
I hope everyone affected by Patricia is drying out and safe.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2015 6:06:46 GMT
I guess those are new flowers that came up after the bit of rain you got? What kind of flowers are they? They look a bit like white crocuses to me but I imagine you being in Texas they're something I'm not familiar with. Anyway, whatever they are that's cool to see new growth come up so quickly after the rain. They sure do stand out against everything else that is so obviously parched. . |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2015 6:09:56 GMT
@anastasia, check out the webcams in the park to see what Rainier looks like now. I found a bunch of webcams, but of course, it's dark right now so I couldn't see if there were much rock showing. I grew up with a beautiful view of both St Helens and Rainier - really miss that view. I"m in a valley here, and have to drive a bit to get to a good viewpoint. Thanks MGM, I never thought of that. I'll try to find those webcams online. . |
|
|
|
Post by bluemingidiot on Oct 29, 2015 13:09:11 GMT
@anastasia, You are correct that they came up right after the rain. They are rain lilies.  |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 19, 2015 21:16:51 GMT
Just received 6.5 inches of rain over the course of just 6 hours. And it was not a steady rain. There was one downpour of just over 2 inches of rain in about 30 minutes. Flood warnings all over the place. I think what is left of my garden survived though.
There seems to be a little bit more rain in the immediate future, but it should not last very long.
I am glad that I mowed the other day. The ground is like a wet sponge and will probably remain so for about a week.
|
|
