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Still cold

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Just a fun update. Last night my little four legged love needed a potty break – at 2:20am. I checked the temperature just for grins. It read 13 degrees.

Today, the high we made was 32 – whoopppiiieee we made it up to freezing.

It is now past 11:30pm and we have dropped to 23. The forecast says we will drop to 18 and I believe it. We might drop lower than that, but we’ll wait and see.

The only good thing – no precipitation. So at least the roads are dry. The wind on the other hand makes it bitter out there. And of course the air is bone dry.

The funny part is that by Monday we will be back up to 60 degrees. By Thursday, we should reach the 70’s. Welcome to December in central Texas.

The cold cometh

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When I got up this morning, it was a balmy 54, and warmed up to 57. It was warm enough to walk my dog wearing a light polar fleece jacket. We did a good walk, saw other dogs and walkers out there.

Now, about 3 hours later, we’ve dropped to 40, and it was 42 just a few minutes ago. The cold has hit.

Just for reference, here in central Texas the things I’ve done to get ready for the cold.

  • Outside faucets are covered, and hoses have been disconnected and the water drained as best as I can.
  • In ground plants I care about (lemon tree, etc.) have been covered.
  • Potted plants have been moved up to the house (up against it on the patio) and covered.
  • I will start an indoor water dripping shortly (before we hit freezing).
  • Wood is piled on the patio (I have a holder for it there) so I can build a fire in the fireplace.
  • I have candles set out in the kitchen (that’s the main area next to the living area).
  • I have gotten extra blankets out on the bed.
  • I even have a spare battery pack charged for my cell phone.
  • I have a small heater by the one water line that froze last time in the garage (it was by the water softener).
  • I have spare water, a case of bottled water.

As a single person in a house I am the only one here to take care of these things. And so I will.

The last time this area got a swath of cold like this we had power outages. So this time I am doing all I can just in case that happens again. I hope we don’t have that, but I’d rather be prepared than not. At least this time we are not expecting any rain, snow, freezing rain, etc. The roads are dry, though it is cloudy, they are not predicting any precipitation. We are expecting to hit a low of about 17 degrees tonight.

Let’s hope I’m prepared.

**UPDATE**: It is now 9pm and it is 16 outside.

12-22-2022 cold front

They are now saying 14 for a low, but I won’t be surprised if we dip below that. There have been some power outages. Luckily we still have power. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Sorry, it’s been a while

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I know its been a while since my last post. But we’re almost to the end of the year and we have serious weather conditions on the way. We’ve had some fair weather, its been kind of usual. We had some cool weather, even had a short freeze, but nothing unusual.

Until now.

Today is Wednesday Dec 21, 2022. Today we’ve had a high of 48, and the other day we had a high of maybe 54 with a low of about 48. Tomorrow, Thursday we should, so they say, hit 54 then drop down to a low of 14. We have a record freeze coming in over the next few days. Friday we are looking at a high of 31 and a low of 19. Saturday, Christmas Eve will be 38 and 21. And Christmas day should be 46 and 29. It isn’t until Tuesday that we get out of freezing temperatures. Luckily we don’t expect any rain, so it should just be cold not icy, and not snowy.

But other areas, Denver for example are already in the cold, with nights in the minus temperatures. Seattle has had snow. They are calling it Winter Storm Elliot and saying it could be a “bomb cyclone”. I’m not quite sure what that is. But it is expected to bring cold weather to a wide swath of area.

As expected I’ve turned off water, covered outside faucets, drained water lines, moved and covered plants. I’ve put firewood up on the deck and in the holder on the deck, and I’ve even put a heater in the garage to help keep the water softener line from freezing (that happened before).

It feel awkward having this happen just before Christmas, but I think I have most everything I can think of under control. It makes me glad I’m not going anywhere for Christmas.

Sorry weather

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You would think its October, the weather is cooling down, it should be lovely. Well – only sorta. Yes we’ve cooled down, but considering our summer heat cool is the 80’s (yes, in October). Today we had a nice 82 here at the house, with a light sprinkle early. This evening we have a cold front and have dropped down to 59 degrees. We did actually get just over half an inch of rain, 0.57 inches by my gauge. And with it a tornado watch on until midnight. Such in October 2022 in central Texas.

First frost is usually Nov 10, and at this rate I’m not sure if it will be on time. But I’m betting it might be a bit late. Though, who knows, it might happen. but we’ll see.

Autumn 2022

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We’ve finally come into fall here in Central Texas. Its cooled down, for Texas. We now have highs in the mid 80’s, so we are out of the 90’s and triple digits. And the nights are finally cooling down, in the high 50-low 60’s. That’s quite a difference from what summer was, but its still not as cool as other places may be.

As for the garden, changes are afoot. I’ve been considering letting go of the garden beds I have and changing to elevated garden beds. I picked up an elevated garden bed from Home Depot recently, and a friend assembled it for me. While I was looking at them, I found one type of elevated garden bed that was for herbs. What was nice was it had pre-installed sections. Mine does not. But I was thinking I could use fabric pots inside the bed I have. I tried it out and found that I could probably put 8 fabric pots inside the bed easily. Doing that might make it easier. Its something I may give a try. It would allow me to put lettuce in one pot, carrots in another, peppers in another – kind of like square foot gardening, but in fabric pots.

The beds I have work, but I have some issues.They are on the ground, so there’s a lot of bending involved in taking care of them. Since the person that helped me install them didn’t put down weed cloth well, I tend to get a lot of grass growing inside the beds. That’s a constant problem. Also, the beds I have tend to be too much for me, I’m only growing for one person. I don’t need to grow 6 bell pepper plants for just me. One cucumber plant can be more than I need. And I will tell you that with the change in the weather my bell pepper plant (Wonder) is producing prolifically. I have an abundance of bell peppers this year – from one plant.

My cucumber plant looked bad, so I had cut it back quite a bit over a month ago. Well it is now producing well. The nice weather has helped that too.

But gardening is going on still. My pea plants never sprouted, so I think I just need new seed. Or I may try some different seeds that I have. With this nice weather it may be worth a shot.

Wish me luck. My garden continues.

Its cooling down

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Its not quite fall/autumn yet but the weather is cooling down. Its not a big cool down, especially if you lived in a different area, but for Texas its a cool down. By cool down the days are in the high 80’s with some low 90’s thrown in for good measure. The nights are now in the low 70’s with some high 60’s in the offing. Getting down that low would be nice.

But for the garden it means that things are now growing. Plants are springing back to life. My tomato plant, its been babied all summer, is now showing new shoots and even flowers. Maybe I’ll even get some tomatoes. Some areas of Central Texas have gotten some rain, and they have mentioned even better success with their gardening.

As for rain, here at the house we’ve had a little. Nothing much to speak of, but some. I say some as areas north and south of here, and even east and west of here have gotten rain. But here its been little bits – half an inch here, a tenth of an inch there, more like dribs and drabs instead of a good rain fall. Such is life here!

But nonetheless we are on a cooling trend. After this long hot summer, and the slight rain we’ve had here even my lawn is filling back in (yeah!). I’ve planted a few seeds, beans, peas, some swiss chard and at least the beans are coming up. I do have to admit I am using some older seed and that may be the problem. I may end up going and getting newer seed and seeing if that will sprout. But it is good to see the plants perking up, and seeds sprouting.

Maybe I’ll get something from my garden this year after all. I can hope.

It rained

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Where some areas got more rain than they could want, mainly in the form of flooding, here at this location, we got 1.58 inches of rain. I admit that most of the rain came in one quick downpour. We got an initial inch of rain in about one hour mid afternoon. Here we even had some periods of power fluctuations. Luckily we didn’t have the power go all the way out, but I was concerned about that happening.

For a while it was just a slow rain. Here there doesn’t seem to be any flooding, but other areas may have gotten more rain than we did. Earlier today news had said that the Dallas area had flooding. So I wouldn’t be surprised if some areas in Travis Co. have gotten enough rain to flood. I’m sure some areas in the greater Austin are have flooded, and I’m sure tomorrow’s news will give reports of any.

But more rain is still expected come early morning, probably before sunrise. The forecast suggests thunderstorms may begin around 4AM. We shall see. But I admit its nice to finally get some rain. We do need it.

Rain!

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It may not sound like much, but it is what we got. We got a touch of rain overnight, only 0.06″ of rain. Not even a tenth of rain, but it is what it is.

But this afternoon we actually got additional rain. Grand total for today was all of 0.42 inches of rain. That may not be much for rain, but its what we got. And since we are in such dire need of rain we will take it! And be thankful for what we got. Some areas may have gotten more than we did, but at least we got some measurable rain.

I’m sure the yard will be happy and thankful for it.

YEAH!!!

Rain?

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After hitting a high of 99.9 degrees earlier, we have now dropped down to 78 (in less than 1 hour), and the humidity has risen from mid 33% to now 79%. Will we get rain? I’m not sure. But it has been windy and the skies are dark with clouds. So there is hope in our hearts that rain is on the way. As it is only about 3:30pm it is possible. I will update if it happens.

Is this the end of Summer?

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Its still hot by any standard – mid 90’s here. But today they say will be the hottest day of the week, 99 degrees. We’ll see if it passes the triple digit mark.

The rest of the week is forecast to be a bit cooler, still hot but definitely cooler. For example tomorrow should be 95/71, then Friday 90/72. That mean in two days it could be 10 degrees cooler than today. We just have to make it through today.

Hopefully with this change in weather my yard and garden will begin returning to life. One of the websites around here, Austin Organic Gardeners, gives a weekly suggestion of what you can plant – both direct sow and transplant. And its begun making suggestions again. So hopefully this means it will be time to get our gardens back growing things.

Let’s hope!