Heatwave Pause

After a March-month of weeks running mid-70’s, high-70’s, 80’s, 90’s, 80’s – in other words unseasonably warm weather – we got a break. Rain. Not much, but cooler enough today that you can feel it’s snowing up at Kirkwood. And enough rain to wash the pollen (some) out of the driveway, off the truck, and off the umbrellas that have been giving us cover during the explosive heat eruption of the oak trees leafing-out. Getting ready for the real summer.

Cold enough to hit the low 40’s tonight, so we lit-up the wood stacked in the fireplace.

Update: Picked up two and a half inches yesterday! That brings us to 92.5% of “normal” – or whatever that is in this crazy territory…

80.2°F

Just going to get warmer this week, into the mid 80’s, maybe more. We’re just barely ahead on rain numbers – and one of the ski resorts says they’re closing unless/until we get more snow – like a storm next week, maybe…

Meanwhile the oaks are erupting in bud and leaf, and the pollen is everywhere on everything – and the black Chevy truck is a pale tint of greenish-yellow. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Heatwave

66.0°F

Having a very mild week after a couple weeks’ rain and darkness, so much that my solar-powered electric gate batteries failed – but at least crapped-out in the open position. I need to get a deep-cycle marine battery to store-up the electrons instead of the little 7-volt pair that I was told to get, it’s just not enough except during Summertime…

Xmas Lights

Happy December! This year and going forward we decided to simplify the whole Christmas lighting experience, and eschew the getting-up-on-ladders/fall-and-break-something risk. This also simplifies the 500-staples/carpal-tunnel-stapler-syndrome – so that the deck railings don’t appear as if attacked by dozens of woodpeckers (which we do have).

In exchange we bought us some colored LED bulbs at Home Depot for the pergola party lights, and a remote-controlled outdoor dimmer so as to mute the light output instead of lighting-up the whole damn night sky. In the new year we will put away the colored lights and restore the plain bulbs – and continue with the dimmer.

Rainy November

But no snow yet, as a series of storms sweep in out of the Pacific Ocean, up from SoCal, and down from the PacNorWet. So far this month we’re at 7.36-inches, ahead of averages by 5.70″… but a dry December/January will erase all that!

45.6°F – Rain Today 1.12 in.

UPDATE: And…five and a half hours later, a whispy rainbow – and the temperature remains pegged about 47.1°F. Brrrr! Big Coat season is here.

Happy November – Boo!

Halloween is over (as usual no trick-or-treaters), Daylight Savings is back, and a storm is-a-coming.

Vote NO ON 50! Greaseball Newsome is attempting to erase the Rural vote in California, and re-draw districts to join the very liberal urban/suburban majorities with lesser populated counties – people with vastly different priorities and cultures that are completely at odds.

66° slightly cloudy

Fall has been very relaxed and mild so far, with only a few above-average temps – not the abrupt collapse into winter after an extended Summer.

Now we are told to expect a bunch of rainfall – like between one and two inches, so yesterday we hooked-up the aerator/spreader and filled it chock-full with grass seed and fertilized, and dragged it around the field.

Today we battened-down the hatches, tied-up the umbrellas, covered the log-pile, and the mower is back in the shed. It’s not going to be real cold but I built a fire ready-to-go in the fireplace.

See, Anomaly!

We awoke to the pa-ting of falling water in the down-spout, sometime around quarter-to-six. I got up to turn on the coffee maker and opened the slider to embrace the September rain. Eventually we collected about a quarter inch, and it ended about 10:00AM at 63-degrees, with a high of 76.5°F at 3:00PM.

Tomorrow will open at around the same 64-degrees, then ratchet up to the mid-80’s, and continue on up through the weekend – and into a week of low 90’s. There’s some suggestion is that it’s gonna be a long Fall and warm Winter…