Remember the great big nasty record-breaking drought I whined about last year?
It's almost gone.
And, if you take into account the nearly five inches of rain we had over Thursday and Friday, then it really feels like it's nearly over.
The creeks and rivers that I have to cross to get anywhere around town are out of their banks, many city parks are near flooding, and the River Walk down along the river has water up over the sidewalk.
And my lawn, that hasn't been green in a year, is at least 6" high.
By the way, if I could find a way to make money out of chickweed and henbit, I'd be rich.
The big riding mower is out of commission. That stupid thing never seems to start up well after the winter and I have trouble with it on a good day. It really needs a tune up and Hubby really needs to look into it, but he's so swamped with his book project right now that I gave up on the mower getting in running condition. However, they're calling for more rain on Tuesday, and I don't see anyone giving me a herd of sheep to mow my lawn the easy way, so I got out the push-mower and went to work.
The push-mower, by the way, was used twice at the end of the year and we bought it when Sears was trying to get rid of mowers. It's wonderful. I love the fact that it starts right up and roars to life without me having to dislocate a shoulder yanking on the starter.
However.
My yard is big, and my house sits on a hill. And it took two hours to mow the entire front yard.
I am trashed.
Showing posts with label Drought. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Drought. Show all posts
Monday, April 07, 2008
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Why I Love My Basement
If you haven't been living under a rock, you may have heard that we've had some pretty nasty weather down here in my beloved South. It has been, in a word, wild.
Due to Super Tuesday, the schools in our district were closed for students, but faculty and staff reported for an in-service. As far as in-service days go, this one was actually quite worthwhile as we had a very detailed presentation on gang awareness as well as some information on new special education laws. However, many of us were heard to mutter "Glad the kids aren't here as the weather will probably get nasty." We will remember our earlier run-in with bad weather in January, and I don't think any of us wanted to get stuck at school with our kids during a tornado. The fact of the matter was that it's just been too warm for February. We hit a record high of 72 degrees on Tuesday, and when it's that high this time of year, you know that cold weather is just around the corner. And when cold fronts and warm air hit, you get bad weather.
And man, did we get bad weather.
I was trying to watch the hockey game that evening when it started up. First, lots of wind. Lots and lots of wind. Then lightning, thunder, and heavy, heavy rain. I have a NOAA weather radio and it was beeping alerts every few minutes. The hockey game I was trying to watch had lost the audio and was intoning that computerized voice that told all of us that bad weather was on the way. (By the way, watching a hockey game without audio is a bit weird.) Around 8:30 I started moving some valuables down to the basement because it was making even me nervous. A few minutes later the sirens went off, so I tucked two cats under my arms and took them downstairs, ran up and got another cat, and then headed down there myself, closing the door behind me.
As an aside, when I had to buy a house down here Mr. Bluebird wasn't able to come down and help. His only request was I get a house with a finished basement because he thought this area had too many tornadoes. That I did, thank goodness.
I spent about 45 minutes down there before the warning expired and I was able to let the cats, who were really annoyed, back upstairs. I didn't, however, move anything else up as I had a feeling we weren't done.
We weren't.
Around midnight the second wave of storms woke me up. It was pounding and the lightning was flashing like a strobe light. I looked out the window and thought, for a moment, that it was foggy outside as I couldn't see the houses across the street clearly. It took me a minute to realize that it wasn't fog, it was just really heavy, heavy rain. I went out to the living room to turn on the news to see if we were under a warning when the sirens went off again. (I also managed to buy a house that has a tornado siren at the end of the street - when these things go off, we hear them.)
Grabbed cats and hustled everyone downstairs where I stayed until about one in the morning.
This last round was really bad. The hail was bouncing all over my deck before I headed to the basement and the sirens went on and on and on. Usually they'll sound off about 4 times before they stop, but this time I could hear them going on for a significantly longer time.
Of course, by the time it had all passed I was wide awake. I tried to go back to sleep but I was still awake an hour later when Mr. Bluebird arrived home from his trip back from Ohio. He'd dodged supercells the whole way home, hunkering down in gas stations and truck stops when it got so bad he couldn't drive.
The next day at school the kids were dragging. Many of them told me they'd spent the night sleeping in basements, their closets, or bathrooms. Shreck Boy was exhausted. He'd spent the night in the basement after the roof of their house began to lose shingles and the rain started to come in. Some kids told me about huge trees coming down in their yards, trampolines slinging through the neighborhood and ending up blocks away, and barns crashing down. The western edge of our county got hit really hard by a thunderstorm that destroyed one house and damaged at least 13 more. The tornadoes that ripped through the state, amazingly, rose back up in the air before they got very far within the county and we were spared a lot of the damage other counties are facing.
Last year, during the height of the drought, we didn't have one single tornado warning. This year, so far, we've had the sirens go off three times.
And it's February. Tornado season doesn't really begin until March.
Kind of makes me appreciate the basement.
Due to Super Tuesday, the schools in our district were closed for students, but faculty and staff reported for an in-service. As far as in-service days go, this one was actually quite worthwhile as we had a very detailed presentation on gang awareness as well as some information on new special education laws. However, many of us were heard to mutter "Glad the kids aren't here as the weather will probably get nasty." We will remember our earlier run-in with bad weather in January, and I don't think any of us wanted to get stuck at school with our kids during a tornado. The fact of the matter was that it's just been too warm for February. We hit a record high of 72 degrees on Tuesday, and when it's that high this time of year, you know that cold weather is just around the corner. And when cold fronts and warm air hit, you get bad weather.
And man, did we get bad weather.
I was trying to watch the hockey game that evening when it started up. First, lots of wind. Lots and lots of wind. Then lightning, thunder, and heavy, heavy rain. I have a NOAA weather radio and it was beeping alerts every few minutes. The hockey game I was trying to watch had lost the audio and was intoning that computerized voice that told all of us that bad weather was on the way. (By the way, watching a hockey game without audio is a bit weird.) Around 8:30 I started moving some valuables down to the basement because it was making even me nervous. A few minutes later the sirens went off, so I tucked two cats under my arms and took them downstairs, ran up and got another cat, and then headed down there myself, closing the door behind me.
As an aside, when I had to buy a house down here Mr. Bluebird wasn't able to come down and help. His only request was I get a house with a finished basement because he thought this area had too many tornadoes. That I did, thank goodness.
I spent about 45 minutes down there before the warning expired and I was able to let the cats, who were really annoyed, back upstairs. I didn't, however, move anything else up as I had a feeling we weren't done.
We weren't.
Around midnight the second wave of storms woke me up. It was pounding and the lightning was flashing like a strobe light. I looked out the window and thought, for a moment, that it was foggy outside as I couldn't see the houses across the street clearly. It took me a minute to realize that it wasn't fog, it was just really heavy, heavy rain. I went out to the living room to turn on the news to see if we were under a warning when the sirens went off again. (I also managed to buy a house that has a tornado siren at the end of the street - when these things go off, we hear them.)
Grabbed cats and hustled everyone downstairs where I stayed until about one in the morning.
This last round was really bad. The hail was bouncing all over my deck before I headed to the basement and the sirens went on and on and on. Usually they'll sound off about 4 times before they stop, but this time I could hear them going on for a significantly longer time.
Of course, by the time it had all passed I was wide awake. I tried to go back to sleep but I was still awake an hour later when Mr. Bluebird arrived home from his trip back from Ohio. He'd dodged supercells the whole way home, hunkering down in gas stations and truck stops when it got so bad he couldn't drive.
The next day at school the kids were dragging. Many of them told me they'd spent the night sleeping in basements, their closets, or bathrooms. Shreck Boy was exhausted. He'd spent the night in the basement after the roof of their house began to lose shingles and the rain started to come in. Some kids told me about huge trees coming down in their yards, trampolines slinging through the neighborhood and ending up blocks away, and barns crashing down. The western edge of our county got hit really hard by a thunderstorm that destroyed one house and damaged at least 13 more. The tornadoes that ripped through the state, amazingly, rose back up in the air before they got very far within the county and we were spared a lot of the damage other counties are facing.
Last year, during the height of the drought, we didn't have one single tornado warning. This year, so far, we've had the sirens go off three times.
And it's February. Tornado season doesn't really begin until March.
Kind of makes me appreciate the basement.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Quote of the Day
From Momma Bluebird who is staying in a Red Cross Evacuation Shelter somewhere in San Diego.
"It's not bad, kind of like a slumber party with 1200 other people."
At least she can see the humor in the chaos. She's still at the shelter she made it to on Sunday night. The National Guard came in to drop off cots for everyone and in the process split the gym into a family side and a senior citizen side (from news reports this shelter has a significant number of seniors). She said that made it a lot nicer without toys and kids all over the place. She reports that the school is clean, and they have plenty of good food to eat. She is spending most of her time in the shade of a tree with Kitty in her kennel, knitting. Knowing her, she'll be starting a knitting group her shortly.
Her house, according to the Former Fire Chief Neighbor, is still standing along with the others on the street....as long as the wind doesn't change direction and the fire roars back on its tracks.
To all my readers who's sent their prayers and support - you guys are the best. Thanks so much!!! And if you feel so inclined, drop a donation to the Red Cross as they do a fantastic job in situations like this!
"It's not bad, kind of like a slumber party with 1200 other people."
At least she can see the humor in the chaos. She's still at the shelter she made it to on Sunday night. The National Guard came in to drop off cots for everyone and in the process split the gym into a family side and a senior citizen side (from news reports this shelter has a significant number of seniors). She said that made it a lot nicer without toys and kids all over the place. She reports that the school is clean, and they have plenty of good food to eat. She is spending most of her time in the shade of a tree with Kitty in her kennel, knitting. Knowing her, she'll be starting a knitting group her shortly.
Her house, according to the Former Fire Chief Neighbor, is still standing along with the others on the street....as long as the wind doesn't change direction and the fire roars back on its tracks.
To all my readers who's sent their prayers and support - you guys are the best. Thanks so much!!! And if you feel so inclined, drop a donation to the Red Cross as they do a fantastic job in situations like this!
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Crunchy, crunchy grass
I grew up in Southern California, the Land of Perpetual Drought, so I know a little about dry weather. To this day, fifteen years since I left The Golden State, I still am somewhat obsessive about wasting water. You spend a childhood having things such as "don't wash your car unless you're parked on grass", and "don't run the water while you brush your teeth", yammered at you all the time, you tend to have the habit of conservation somewhat ingrained.
However, I've never seen anything like the drought we're undergoing right now in My Beloved South. Southern California, after all, is brown most of the year. It's part of the landscape and it has its own desperate beauty. Here, however, we're used to green most of the year - green trees, green lawns, full green flowering shrubs, you name it. We're used to mowing the lawn at least once a week and sometimes complaining that we can't get it done in between rainy days and thunderstorms.
We haven't mowed our lawn in six weeks. Hubby gets out and weed wacks a bit here and there because weeds apparently can survive anything, but our mower has been used maybe three times since spring. The grass crunches. Even the crabgrass is looking stressed and I'm under the assumption that nothing can kill crabgrass (because I've tried just about everything). This is a a somewhat blurry picture of my lawn, or what's left of it. I don't have a decent digital camera so rely on my cell phone camera which is a pain to use in the sun - I can't see what I'm taking pictures of!!
I've also taken a picture looking down the street and you can tell that all the lawns are in bad shape. From the pictures you can't tell how bad the trees are faring, but it isn't pretty. Many of them are losing leaves and what leaves they have left are starting to get brown and burned looking on the edges. According to the folks at the National Weather Service we have had no rain for the month of August. None. The result of this is, according to the news, higher electric rates because most of our power comes from the TVA which is primarily hydroelectric. The rivers are down and aren't generating the amount of power we need, especially since we're breaking records left and right with triple digit temperatures for days on end.
Many cities and communities are starting to go with water restrictions. The drinking water itself is tasting really muddy and musty right now because the warm weather and slow moving river water (where most of the communities get their drinking water) is perfect for algae to bloom, so it's going gangbusters. The result is nasty. It's safe to drink but tastes pretty repulsive.
As a teacher, especially one who gets to teach about weather, this is one of those situations that I can pull into a quick 2-3 minute lesson. We don't teach weather much until later in the year (right now I'm working on matter), but when the kids are talking about how hot it is and how the water tastes icky and how people are dying in Memphis because of the heat, well, that's a teachable moment. After all, these kids are getting onto school buses at 2:15 in the afternoon when the outside temperature is at least 100 degrees...I don't want to even imagine what the temperature is inside the buses. This is some science they can relate to.
And in the meantime, I'm going to stomp around and whine and complain because all my efforts at gardening are just burning up. The begonia below is croaking despite being tenderly watered nearly every other day...but the days on end of this heat is not something this plant is obviously used to. Poor thing.
However, I've never seen anything like the drought we're undergoing right now in My Beloved South. Southern California, after all, is brown most of the year. It's part of the landscape and it has its own desperate beauty. Here, however, we're used to green most of the year - green trees, green lawns, full green flowering shrubs, you name it. We're used to mowing the lawn at least once a week and sometimes complaining that we can't get it done in between rainy days and thunderstorms.
We haven't mowed our lawn in six weeks. Hubby gets out and weed wacks a bit here and there because weeds apparently can survive anything, but our mower has been used maybe three times since spring. The grass crunches. Even the crabgrass is looking stressed and I'm under the assumption that nothing can kill crabgrass (because I've tried just about everything). This is a a somewhat blurry picture of my lawn, or what's left of it. I don't have a decent digital camera so rely on my cell phone camera which is a pain to use in the sun - I can't see what I'm taking pictures of!!
I've also taken a picture looking down the street and you can tell that all the lawns are in bad shape. From the pictures you can't tell how bad the trees are faring, but it isn't pretty. Many of them are losing leaves and what leaves they have left are starting to get brown and burned looking on the edges. According to the folks at the National Weather Service we have had no rain for the month of August. None. The result of this is, according to the news, higher electric rates because most of our power comes from the TVA which is primarily hydroelectric. The rivers are down and aren't generating the amount of power we need, especially since we're breaking records left and right with triple digit temperatures for days on end.Many cities and communities are starting to go with water restrictions. The drinking water itself is tasting really muddy and musty right now because the warm weather and slow moving river water (where most of the communities get their drinking water) is perfect for algae to bloom, so it's going gangbusters. The result is nasty. It's safe to drink but tastes pretty repulsive.
As a teacher, especially one who gets to teach about weather, this is one of those situations that I can pull into a quick 2-3 minute lesson. We don't teach weather much until later in the year (right now I'm working on matter), but when the kids are talking about how hot it is and how the water tastes icky and how people are dying in Memphis because of the heat, well, that's a teachable moment. After all, these kids are getting onto school buses at 2:15 in the afternoon when the outside temperature is at least 100 degrees...I don't want to even imagine what the temperature is inside the buses. This is some science they can relate to.
And in the meantime, I'm going to stomp around and whine and complain because all my efforts at gardening are just burning up. The begonia below is croaking despite being tenderly watered nearly every other day...but the days on end of this heat is not something this plant is obviously used to. Poor thing.
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