Author: Cat C L

How cold was it? We hit a low of 20.5 last night. We were lucky this morning to find we only had one pipe that broke. It was a pipe for the rain water. But of course its still broken, and its spraying water. We turned off the pump attached to it but its still slightly spraying. We had an insulated grocery bag that was falling apart. So we cut the lid off, then cut the bag open so that we could cover the break. I’d rather have it covered since tonight we are supposed to get back down into cold again. The last thing I really need is for this pipe to continue to break – that would be a really bad idea. I’m hoping that with DH helping me, and hopefully remembering more information we can get this break fixed. 

I hope this will work. Really hope.

Tonight, Monday night we are due for a low of 28, then we will warm up above freezing for the nights.

I  did a dance competition at the end of September, then a couple of weeks later we left for a cruise. We got back from the cruise the end of October, and a couple of days later my other half took ill. He’s been ill since then and unfortunately the garden has been on the back burner.

Its now mid December. We had a cool night, almost freezing the other week. But last night we had our first official freeze. Yesterday, Saturday Dec. 17 we had a high of 75 degrees. Though the low didn’t hit until this morning, we bottomed out at 23.5 degrees – a 50 degree drop. And this lovely cold is due to stick around a couple of days. Today, Dec 18 we hope to hit the mid 30’s, but then drop slightly lower for the night. Yes, we are bundled up and prepared to stay home the next couple of days.

Welcome to Texas weather.

Yes, we got rain. We got about an inch of rain in about 15 minutes. No joke. It just poured. And the forecast says more is on the way for tomorrow. Its a cold front coming in. We should also see our temperatures drop. Today we had a high of almost 84. The high tomorrow should only be about 73. Our nights will be cooler too, high 50’s for the night temperature.

So I’m guessing fall has come. But at least with this weather the plants should be happy.

Well the weather has been warm, but cooling. How’s that you ask. Well we’ve had some days lately that have been in the low 90’s, but more like the mid to high 80’s. We did have one day that got warm, mid 90’s. But later this week we’re supposed to be down into cool. We haven’t had rain in a while, and that is due back in a few days too. Mainly thunderstorms, not slow and steady. But if we get rain, we’ll just take what we get. We did have some nice weather and all the areas have gotten green. Lawns have looked nice. But then when hot weather hit they got a bit dry.

But to give you an idea tomorrow Friday Sept. 23 should be 90, but by Monday it should be a high of 68. And the rain should start either tomorrow night or Saturday. But again, its supposed to be showers so more sporadic rain not really wide spread. But then again, who knows. We’ll see what the weather and rain gods have in store for us.

According to the farmers almanac emails I am getting it is time to start planting again. Time for bush beans, beets, broccoli, cucumber, kale, squash, and tomato seeds to be planted. Since the weather has been nice I will plant on clearing some areas and getting some seeds in. Last week we had help from Pat and Pat did put some seeds in the ground. We were lucky enough to get some rain this week so the ground is well watered. Its also been warm, mid 80’s, and some sun. I’d say this is good weather for planting. It also helps that we may be in for some (40-50%) chance of rain next week. So I’m thinking this is a good weekend to put some seed in the ground.

We’ve had lovely weather lately. A few clouds drifting by, high humidity, but overall okay weather. Today we have Pat up helping out. Its been the same – warm, clouds, high humidity. Then all of the sudden the sky just poured. The fun part, it looked like it was raining out the front door, but the back yard had a bare sprinkle. That’s our weather.

We did get rain in the back yard. The front yard went from some sun with light rain to pouring, can’t see the neighbor across the way rain. Their house was just an outline it was raining so hard. Finally the back yard got wind and rain. It even blew a couple of buckets over. The wind gauge topped at about 25mph wind. So its rather strange weather. But it dumped rain, and is moving on, I think.

From what I can tell, in its short brief rain fall, this cloud dropped about a third of an inch. But who knows if this is all or if we’ll get some more. At least the plants are happy.

We came to a grand total of 9.7 inches of rain last week. The good and bad – the temperatures have cooled down and stayed cool, and we are due for more rain.

First the temperatures. Before the rain, we had hit our highest yearly temp here at the house – 102. Now our high temps are in the 80’s, and at least one day we barely hit 80. The nights have been nice hovering around 70 or just below. So the weather has been wet rainy, but easier to deal with. Granted the humidity is pretty bad – when its almost 80 and raining, the word humid just doesn’t seem to do it justice.

They say for the next 10 days we still have some chance of rain. The forecast is all over the place – some sites say low chance of rain, maybe 25%, other say days of rain, days of no rain. Looking out the window right now it is dark dreary and looks like rain is possible. Maybe we’ll just get light rain, not heavy showers. We’ll find out.

With all this rain gardens are getting lovely and green. Oddly though I think either the deer are getting possessive of areas or some are beginning to think about rutting. I haven’t seen any horns developing, but the family groups are getting larger. Instead of seeing 3-4 deer together, we’re seeing over a dozen at a time – grown adults and spotted fawns. Either way, the rut is coming.

As I mentioned previously I get emails from Old Farmer’s Almanac. They send me planting reminders. Well, I’m beginning to get those reminder to start planting. So we now begin our second growing season here in Austin.

The current one I just received says to sow under cover or indoors:

• broccoli
• brussels sprouts
• kale
• leek

and I can plant garlic outdoors.

I guess I better go find kale seeds and get them in the ground.

Wow! This week so far we’ve had over 8 inches of rain here at the house. Today should be a day of reprieve, no rain scheduled for today. But that’s good, we need a day to dry out. And the weather services says today is our day for drying out as tomorrow we’re back to large rain chances.

So how much rain did we have?

Since about 4 this morning (4AM) we’ve gotten rain. Just after 4 it began raining, and by 9AM we have about 2-1/4 inches of rain. Now, at 4pm, we are at 3.6 inches of rain. We get a little, then we get drenching down pours. That’s the story of our rain. This rain is due to continue, so I guess we’ll continue getting flooding. The news has mentioned that Louisiana has been getting rain, they have flooding. Well, we may not have their level of flooding, but we are already getting notices of flooded streets here in the area. And of course they say another week of rain is due for us.

We’ll see how bad it gets.

But the plants are watered. That’s the good news.