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Rain, blowing rain, thunder, lightning, and if you’re in a different area of Texas, tornadoes. Its a weather wild ride. Yesterday was lovely, nice weather comfortable, high of 80.

As of right now (almost noon), Travis county has a severe thunderstorm watch until 3pm. Even though I’m in Hays, Travis county line is less than a mile from here.

As a side note, I took our puppies (boys) outside for their potty break during a rain break. Our tv dish has lost a part. I’ll keep that part safe and sound, but its actually blown so hart a part came down. We’ve had wind gusts up to 30 mph.

But the good news is most of the storm is well north of us. So that’s nice. And we won’t be looking at this storm for much longer today. It should be gone within a couple of hours. But if you are north of Austin, you probably will have this storm for a while. And the radar looks like areas in Mississippi and Louisiana will be dealing with this for a while.

But we still need the rain.

For the past two days we’ve had rain. Nothing fancy, just bouts of rain. We’ve had just about 3/4 inches today, and had about 1/2 inches yesterday. So not a lot of rain, but a nice rain. And we’ve needed it.

Its also left us cooler. Today was all of 67 degrees. But in good old Texas fashion, tomorrow is supposed to be 83.

Yup, gotta love Texas weather.

What can you say about Texas weather? I’m not sure fickle quick describes it well enough. Temperamental, capricious, erratic might be good descriptions. In the space of one week we went from a low of 23 to a high of 82 (almost 83). And we’ve stayed at some warm temperatures since.

They warned us about a storm coming in the other night. Some storm! They warned of severe thunderstorms that were to last through the night. None of it happened. We got a light rain that gave us all of 0.20 inches of rain. It was a big to-do about nothing.

But now we are scheduled to be moderate, mid/upper 50’s to upper 60’s during the day, with the evenings in the mid 40’s.

Quite ironically I had put in seed just before the cold snap of last week. Some of the seed attempted to sprout, but not much of it. The little sprouts froze and died in the cold. Since we’ve begun having moderate temperatures what seed didn’t sprout before, has begun sprouting. Just for fun I put in additional seed to make sure something will sprout. Even though we still plan to move, I figure the new owners might enjoy a decent harvest. If it takes us longer to move out than expected, maybe I’ll enjoy the harvest.

We’ll see what happens.

We hit a low of 23 last night. That’s cold. Today we should warm up to mid 40’s, and get below freezing again tonight. Hopefully tonight will be more like 28, not 23. But we are in for another cold night again.

Tomorrow should be a high of 56 and a low of 47. If that happens the cold from will have moved on. Let’s hope it does.

We hit a low last night of 25 degrees. Today we got to a high of 35. Yes we warmed up by ten degrees, but it still rates as cold. And tonight we are supposed to get even colder. Tomorrow night we will be warmer, just below freezing. But at least Wednesday high should be in the 40’s.

But by weekend, granted a few days away, it’s supposed to get into the mid-70’s. Quite a temperature difference from where we are now. But this is the way of Texas weather. Though, who’s to say if this is normal or just an oddball weather pattern.

But because the weather affects my asthma, I have been staying in during this cold spell. Its grey outside, with flat clouds, no real wind to speak of as I look outside right now. But it is cold. Good weather for hot soup.

Its almost 8pm and the cold is coming. We did hit a high of 44.6 and we are already down to 35. We are heading down to 28 tonight. Tomorrow night is may get down to 27, with a low of 29 the following night.

And of course by Wednesday we could get back up to 52 during the day, with a possible 70 the following day. So it looks like a short lived cold spell. Hopefully its the last cold spell we should expect. Its a bit late for this kind of cold, but then again climate change is change, even if you don’t have any idea what to go with.

I’ll keep you posted with this weather.

Just when the trees are blooming, the peas are coming up, and everything is turning green we are getting a cold snap. This weekend we are due for lows of 29-26, a definite cold snap. I don’t expect my plants to be happy. We will be spending this weekend covering the citrus trees, bringing in some pots, and generally planning for this strangely timed cold snap.

Then again, who knows. The weather pattern may change and it may not show up. Maybe we’ll stay in 60’s. But at this point it is a definite wait and see.

Welcome to the crazy weather in Texas.

Today was a nice warm 62. Yesterday we hit a high of 87 degrees. The 5 and 10 day forecasts say we will stay warmish, though not up to the mid 80’s. With this weather, growing season has definitely begun.

Today we pulled off the covers we had over some of the citrus trees, the Meyer lemons. Well, some of those trees have blossoms on them. These plants are all in pots and that’s part of the reason I had covered them for the season. But with the warm weather we’ve been having I felt it was time to uncover them. I also began setting up the watering system and watered plants. The 5 day forecast says we might get some rain, so uncovering pots and letting them get more water will probably be good for the plants.

I also took the opportunity to water the seeds I had put in the other week. At this point some of the seed is actually starting to sprout. The peas and beans are coming up and are recognizable. As for other seed, some of them are just starting to sprout, just tiny, barely 1/4 inch up, but they are beginning to sprout. I wasn’t sure if they would since the seed was old and the weather undecided.

I’m actually kind of excited about this. Even though I may be moving, and not be here long enough to harvest what I’ve planted, I’m still glad I’ve planted seeds. I know the apple trees have blossoms, and I’ve actually been noticing some bees in the yard. Hopefully the bees have been pollinating those blossoms. I may not still be here when they become apples, but I’m still glad to see them growing. Hopefully the next owners will enjoy the garden and the fruit trees.

I’m already thinking about what I want to plant in the new garden.

So don’t worry, Cats Garden will continue in one form or another.

We definitely got some cold around here. Last Friday some areas got snow and other cold weather. But since then its been warming, yet foggy and overcast. The kind of fog that doesn’t burn off much. This morning it was foggy, with fog weather alerts. But now, getting on to evening time, its still very much overcast, cool – 55 degrees, and damp. But the fog, overcast, and damp seem to be hanging on. The weather forecast calls for some clearing skies tomorrow, partly cloudy is the official term. And by Thursday we should climb into the low 70’s.

But the interesting part is that seed I put in recently, remember that? Well some of the seed is starting to sprout. So the cold we had didn’t seem to have that much affect on it. Now the fruit trees, mainly the apples, still have flowers. But I’m not too sure if those blossoms are going to get pollinated, I haven’t seen many bees, but its been such a warm winter they could be pollinated and we could get fruit. I think that’s a wait and see.

One concern that has been mentioned is because its been so warm of a winter, how much problem will we have with bugs. The chance is that it will be a bad bug spring and summer. But again, that’s a wait and see.

But trees are getting buds, so spring is trying to arrive.

We definitely got a cold front last night. We got down to 31 last night. Its taken until 2pm to make it up to 35. I doubt we’ll get much warmer. Some areas of Austin have gotten snow and some graupel mixtures (think ice over snowflakes). Not the best weather out there, but a definite cold snap.

With luck we’ll stay above freezing this evening but that remains to be seen. And hopefully it will stay above freezing tomorrow. If not, it could get ugly outside in the morning. But here, we haven’t had any rain, no precipitation of any kind. So here I’m not so worried about the weather. But in other sections of Austin it could get ugly.

I’m not sure how my seed will fair, but if we have to I will put in more seed. Such is life and Austin weather.

UPDATE: Its 3pm and we are now getting ice pellets. So I don’t expect us to get any good weather until tomorrow.