Where’s the rake?
Saturday, 14 November 2009
We’ve lost track of the number of autumns we’ve seen this year. It’s especially nice to be home while the leaves* are gloriously colored!
*Ginko biloba in this case…although this sample is not bilobate!
Musings
Oregon Trail
Monday, 26 October 2009
I was going to try to get the Guru to make a wee graphic for today that on the left had the letters “CAL” with one of those red circles with the slanty cross-bar, and on the right the letters “NO CAL,” but then I saw the redwoods and, pffft!, I changed my mind!
We did in fact cross Oregon today, as well as not a few miles of Washington, and, whew, we’re in the Governator’s fair state!
Great sunset over a marina-forest of masts and fishing-boat superstructures. Let’s hope the rain will be inland, or “behind” us, tomorrow.
Elevation drop
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
We couldn’t decide whether this was a marine layer or the air is crappy.
Translation: we have reached sea level!
Monitoring
Wednesday, 7 October 2009
I’ve been watching this corner of the field with particular care, to monitor the changing colors. We have had more moderate temps since the hard frost last week, so the maples have yet to develop many leaves in the dark reds and maroons. See?
Mud run
Tuesday, 6 October 2009
Rain plus back roads equals muddy running boards. Note: even after we went through the automatic car wash (coin machines were broken at the U-wash), the mud remained. The hose at the house took care of it, though!
First hard frost
Thursday, 1 October 2009
We knew last night it was coming, and daylight brought us a view of white—the first hard frost, harbinger of oranges and reds in the maple leaves, and of the end of the vegetable gardens.
Too cool to swim
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
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!
This much!
Thursday, 24 September 2009
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….
Clearing!
Tuesday, 22 September 2009
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!