Musings

The weather celebrated this final day of September (if you’ll allow me to personify the climate) with a brilliant and clear sky, slight breeze, and general superbness. I could not sit inside any longer and just look out at it, so I took a long meander around the place, checking on the apples, wandering the beach, and generally poking my nose here and there. I also pruned back some dead branches (pruning saw plus dead apple limb over limb removal equals warmth while sawing, just as Aldo Leopold—I think—observed).

The Marquette station predicts a low of 24°F in some places, but hopefully not here. Still, that’s the end of tomatoes and other fragile veggies in peoples’ gardens. I’m trusting that it will improve the apples!

The apples are so heavy on the boughs (no culling, heavy spring bloom that set well) that some limbs are snapping. Cr-ack! The deer should be gathering soon to enjoy this bounty. Meanwhile, I gotta get the picker-basket-thing and nab a few of the rosy high fruits, the better for applesauce!

Posted at 6:01 PM | 1 Comment »

Look at that little hook over the last few days. That’s feet and feet of water across a good-sized reservoir, from all this rain we’ve been having, across the upper Chattahoochee Basin—and beyond!

You can check the level here, and see if has kept rising! (I expect it to for a few more days….)

Of course, the courts have ruled against Georgia/Atlanta relying on Lake Lanier as its water source (Georgia is appealing this), and in favor of Alabama and Florida receiving more of the flow downstream, so we may be watching another metric, rather than Lake Lanier’s levels, within a decade….

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on This much!

The tomato plants are doing their darnedest to soak up all this rain. As a result the wee tomatoes are splitting their skins, like this pear tomato specimen.

Finally, the rains are clearing and I have seen patches of dry blacktop in the street!

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Clearing!

*

No lie. It’s still raining.

And the creeks are rising.

The neighbor is a Real Plant Person, and has a rain gauge, which seems to be a material culture marker of Real Plant People in this society.

She reported this evening, while the precip was still coming down, that as of maybe about 6 pm, we, here in this neighborhood, have gotten over 14 inches of rain since this weather pattern set in almost a week ago.

It is no wonder there is flooding—and the kind of dramatic flooding that makes the national evening network news….

Another neighbor, whose house is at the bottom of the swoop of our short street (high on the ends, lower in the middle), said that in twenty years she had never seen water swirling down the storm drains so high.

* If it were not so wet out, this is how far along the poke berries are, but this picture is from this day several years back.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on More rain

Our recent wild weather patterns have moved us from the drought I wrote of over and over last winter (and before), and now we’re in a weather pattern of rain, partial clearing, followed by more rain.

Some of the rain’s been pretty hard, so rivers are flooding, and so are apartments, etc. We’re glad to be far enough up the hill, so we watch the runoff billowing past along the curb.

I am chafing at not walking, at being cooped up. Well, I have a book to finish before tomorrow, so…I. Must. Apply. Myself.

Posted at 4:08 PM | 2 Comments »

So, I set off for a solo walk, yes, to the usual destination: Piedmont Park and the active oval. I figure the active oval is better than pavement, better on the legs, ankles, feet, and knees. Hips, too.

So, I made the bend and was looking south, and for the first time realized that the sky was a looming grey—an unbroken cloud sitting down over midtown and downtown.

Oops.

So, I made a head’s-up call to The Guru, alerting him that I wasn’t sure of the weather. Hmm, he said, checking the radar.

I made a second circuit, and dialed again (no dialing, actually, only “touching”)….

“Help,” I said. I’m paraphrasing.

Our timing was good. I only caught a few sprinkles before I settled into the dry car.

I confess, this happened yesterday. In the picture you see the accumulated rainfall, because the ground is saturated. This does not bode well.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Precipitation saga

View toward the street.

View from opposite direction….

All the rain last night transformed the majestic pokeweed (aka poke salad, Phytolacca americana) specimen that’s growing right next to the oak stump from a looming canopy above to the tragic fallen biomass, shown right. I assume the weight of the water shattered the main branching junction, but perhaps it was windy enough that that was a factor (wind, shiver…)….

You may remember (okay, vaguely) this photo (follow the link) from early April of the young shoot part of this plant’s history….

We all pretty much agreed that this had to be the largest pokeweed plant we’ve seen. The stem is big enough to merit being referred to as a trunk, I think. I ought to get out and measure it….

The birds have been stealing the berries as they get ripe from the tips of the clusters inward (upward?—no longer!). The downside of feeding the birds is that they scatter the seeds, and, voila!, next year we may have a huge crop of pokeweed in this neighborhood!

Posted at 6:54 PM | 1 Comment »

Yeah, we call this a canna lily, but apparently it’s not really a lily (Lilium family), but is related botanically to ginger and bananas…and canna is from the Celtic word for cane/reed.

Rain off and on all day, and I neglected to scoot out for a walk during any of the breaks. Thus, I bring you a photo from the other day, when it was sunny and pleasant….

In fact, right now we’re under a red blob on the weather maps and it’s pouring….

Should you be interested in real content, visit Terminus 2.0, where Rebecca writes about speaking to Jimmy Carter today…. Carter likes the word “vituperative*.”

* Apple dictionary = “bitter and abusive.” Good word.

Posted at 6:23 PM | Comments Off on Spotting pretty petals

As near as I can tell, this is a golden rain tree (Koelreuteria paniculata), an Asian import favored by some landscapers due to these glorious flowers.

This week we’ve watched various contractors prepare Piedmont Park for this weekend’s event: the Atlanta Arts Festival (no pets). In fact, you can see one of the white tents that are now ubiquitous at such events at the far left of this photo….

I hope the weather smooths out; this morning we walked among intermittent drops, and it’s still overcast.

Posted at 2:20 PM | Comments Off on Rain and rain tree

Even at something like 8:30 this morning, the ground fog made the terrain quite pretty. You can also see the surface ups-and-downs since The Farmer (also of Chelsea) bush-hogged the miscellaneous woody growth and milkweeds that were infiltrating the good grass.

We also heard through the gardener grapevine that this morning some low spots around Newberry had frost overnight. Yes, in August.

* No, not really….

Posted at 10:22 PM | 1 Comment »