Today was a normal Tuesday. We did Pilates and massage this morning, then came home. That got us home a bit before 3pm. Well, it was sunny, bright, needed sun glasses and sunscreen. In an hour and a half it is now thunder, lightning, and rain clouds. It turned dark outside, an I can see rain in the not to distant horizon. We’ve gone from a temperature of 95, dropping to 79. We’ll see if we get rain, but conditions definitely changed quickly. Even if we don’t get rain here, its definitely around us. Welcome to Texas weather.
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Heat index warnings in effect
“
… ELEVATED HEAT INDEX VALUES EXPECTED THIS WEEK…
HEAT INDEX VALUES WILL BE BETWEEN 102 TO 107 DEGREES THIS AFTERNOON. THE ELEVATED HEAT INDEX VALUES WILL CONTINUE THROUGH AT LEAST THURSDAY AS TEMPERATURES IN THE LOWER TO MIDDLE 90S COMBINE WITH DEW POINT VALUES IN THE MIDDLE TO UPPER 70S.”
This is the warning from weather.com for our area. They aren’t kidding either. I had to walk out to the mail box and even at 9AM it was mid 70’s with high humidity. Right now, 11:30 AM its 81 degrees with 79% humidity. And we will hit our high of warmer temperature later today. The air is still, not much breeze, and it is overcast. Those clouds seems to be holding in the warmth and the humidity. And later it will just get more oppressive than it is now. Not my favorite weather. Not one of those things I love about Texas. But it is early summer in Austin. It won’t get cooler for months.
And no rain in the forecast. But we might hit a high of 98 by Saturday. We’ll wait and see.
Summer is starting
This week we are due for highs in the 90’s. I guess summer is upon us. Though we haven’t had rain the past few days, they keep saying “spots” of thunderstorms. It was clear earlier, but now we have clouds, so who knows.
I think we’ve picked the last of the blueberries, but the blackberries are still producing as are the strawberries. Today there was a cantaloupe with a small hole from maybe a squirrel. We took it inside, cut it open, and had some. It was actually fairly good. And we’ve been picking apples here and there. Those are definitely good. Today for dinner we are having that cut cantaloupe, the last of the blueberries, some strawberries, some blackberries, and apple from the yard in a fruit salad. It looks good, I’m happy to say. I’m cooking a squash from the yard for a veggies, and I have some of those potatoes from the yard cooking with the chicken. Sounds good to me.
This is why we have a garden. Fresh fruit and veggies, no pesticides, we know what’s in them, and I can’t pick them any fresher. Its good stuff.
First potato harvest
Yes we have potatoes. We had planted potatoes in bags. They are a thick felt feeling material, so they could easily dry out. With all the rain we have had, they didn’t dry out. We did 3 bags. This is the first bag where the tops have dried up so I took a chance and dug in. It may not look like a lot of potatoes, but since this is the first time I’ve been able to harvest any, I consider it a success. The last time I planted potatoes, the squirrels got them. This time we made a cage to put around the bags to keep the squirrels out. It worked. I expect we’ll harvest more potatoes in the coming weeks.
I only recently realized that we could have grown them in the pots differently. I recently saw a method where you start the potatoes in a half filled pot and as the potato grows you add additional dirt. From what I gather, this will give you more potatoes as they fill the pot with more potatoes. I just put the starts on top and let them grow. When I harvested the potatoes, I only had to dig about half way down. So the bottom of the pot was just dirt, but from mid way up we had potatoes to harvest. Since the package I purchased had 3 types of potatoes, 3 different colors, we harvested three colors of potatoes.
I’m so tickled. They grew. Even if some are little, they appear edible. I’m tickled!
Rain again
It had been a fairly clear day, with light puffy clouds. Until about 20 minutes ago. In fifteen minutes it dumped half an inch of rain. It came with lightning and thunder, some seemed rather close. And now it seems to be gone. That’s not to say it may not come back,
Current rain update
Last night we topped out at .89 by midnight. Today had been light clouds, fair weather. But that was not to last. Just before 7pm we had rain. Not too much thank heavens, but another .29 inches. The current rain fall for the week is just over 5 inches. That’s a lot of rain for this time of year in this location. I think even some of the plants are getting a bit water logged. Not much we can do about it.
And summer is still coming.
Another evening, another storm
Yes, we are back in flood warnings. In less than an hour we already have crossed 3/4 inches of rain. How much more rain we will get between now and morning we will find out. There’s been lightning, even though I haven’t heard much thunder. But I’m sure we’ll get more rain than just this. I’ll let you know tomorrow.
Another day…
another inch and a quarter of rain. Yes, early this morning we got 1.25 inches of rain. Where we are not flooding due to we are on high ground, roads around us are closed due to flooding. And the bad news – possible rain this evening and more rain Friday and Saturday.
Rain dancers, either slow down or take a break.
Sorry for the bad color
Apples are ready for picking. At least some of them are. They are so ripe you barely handle them and they come right off the tree.
The Gorilla tape plum didn’t produce many fruits, but one had ripen and fallen. We picked it up and sampled it. It was good! I am definitely hopeful for next year’s harvest. It may be that the trees just needed a couple of years to grow.
Another night, another rain fall
Yes its Memorial Day and we had rain this morning. Around 7AM we got just over an inch of rain – 1.18 inches. Then the day become blue skies, humid but nice skies. Though to be fair we’re down to about 50% humidity, so its not as hot and sticky as it can get. But they are saying more rain this week. We’ll see. And yes, the plants are happy.
This is what the boys had fun doing when it wasn’t raining. Chipping and shredding the limbs from the cleaned out trees. The trees are happy too.