rain

Cold is coming

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We started this morning with a nice mid 50’s. It was overcast but okay weather. That was this morning.

Now, 7pm we have dropped just below 40 and we expect it to continue dropping.

I stopped at the grocery story today after exercise. It was packed with people. I often go to the grocery store after exercise. It makes sense since one grocery store is about 3 doors down, the other grocery store is on the way home. Either way, it makes sense to go to the grocery store after exercise. What this means is I know how busy it usually would be today, at these grocery stores. Well, today was definitely different. If you didn’t get a basket out in the parking lot, they were hard to come by. Some items were out, clean shelves.

And there were a lot of people in the stores. Instead of maybe 2 people in line, there were 6-8. Carts were full, some with what I thought were strange items. One couple had a card loaded with large 2 liter soda bottle, and I mean loaded. They were stacked upright, then stacked upside down in between the upright bottles. And it was a full cart. Small cartons of milk were all gone. I was lucky enough to snag a medium size bottle, but I saw one guy trying to carry 4 large gallon size jugs of milk. Some canned goods were sold out too.

I’m sure now at this time of night, even thought the stores would normally be open, I’m sure they are pretty cleaned out and empty.

I’ve even heard schools are closed both Thursday and Friday. The new forecast says a low of 26 tonight. Tomorrow will be a high of 29 with a low of 17. Then Friday it will be a high of 36 with a low of 19. Since we have rain already, albeit light precipitation, it will probably turn into ice. They are expecting freezing rain tonight.

Earlier today, before I left for exercise I covered plants, turned off water, and covered the hose bibs. Since yesterday we got over an inch of rain, I’m not worried about the plants needing watering. Hopefully everything will make it through this cold. We’ll see.

Cold front

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The forecast has been warning about a cold front for a number of days now. Well, today we hit a high of 81 here at the house. Less than an hour ago it was 79, now its 68. I’ve been watching the temperature since we moved plants to the center of the back patio but I wanted to cover them at 75. Well, I watched the temp and was able to cover them when I wanted to. I really wanted to co er them before it got too cold.

Tonight’s forecast is all of 29, and I bet we hit it. It might be early in the morning when we hit that, but it means we will be in for a cold night. And on top of that we expect wind, so it will be cold outside.Tomorrow, Thursday we expect a high of 39, and a low of 25. So it will be cold tomorrow no matter how you look at it. Friday is expected to get up to 49 with a low of 26.

Outside right now the clouds are coming in and the air is still, but the temperature keeps slowly dropping. I guess the only good news is here we have no forecast of precipitation. But the Austin area is under a winter weather advisory.

Basically it says we should expect precipitation of minor sleet/snow, possibly ice but probably not measurable. But they are also saying wind gusts to 35 mph. And we’re expecting it to begin around 3AM Thursday and go until 6AM Friday. But exactly where this will hit remains to be seen.

Rain?

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I’m not sure I would actually call it rain. Its been more of a mist. Yesterday was cold and humid, think 38 degrees and 99% humidity. I know my weather station never showed the temperature get to 40 during the day.

It slowly warmed up over night. Now, at 7:45pm it’s 58 degrees and still 99% humidity. But it is not rain, nothing is really coming down. My weather station shows we’ve had measurable precipitation of 0.16 inches for the day. That’s why I say its more mist than actual rain coming down. Its left things wet, but nothing coming down from the sky, an umbrella would not have been helpful today.

Tomorrow, Sunday we should warm up to 61, and be 50’s to 60’s next week. Monday night, might get down to almost freezing, we’ll see.

I have lost a few annual. The petunias and the geraniums are pretty much frozen. But those plants I put up y the house are doing well – the lemongrass, lemon tree, etc.

Still cold

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Its been a cool day. We hit a high of about 52, at least that was the highest I saw. I took that time to get my dog out for a walk. I saw three other people out walking their dogs too. Its now about 8:30pm and its down to 45 with a light cold rain falling outside. They are saying a low of 36 tonight, with a low of 37 tomorrow night. Looking at the radar, the rain won’t last for long. But it will be a cold night. And there is no rain in the forecast for tomorrow.

The next chance of rain won’t be until about New Year. Of course, that is always subject to change. Especially since it is a week away.

Another cool down

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The weather forecasts have been warning of another cool down. Yesterday, Friday, we had some lovely warm weather. And that is warm weather we’ve had for a few days. But today, its cool and wet. It now just after 2pm, and its 49 degrees outside. Early this morning, I don’t know what time but it was dark, a storm rolled in. We actually had thunder, I’m not sure about lightning, and only a small amount of rain. As of now, 2pm, we’ve only had 0.38 inches of rain. That’s really not much. And the rain came in a slow drizzle type of rain.

But it will be cool to cold the next few days. The low for tonight is forecast to be 36. Tomorrow, Sunday our high is forecast for 49, with a low of 35. None of that should affect many plants. I say many as basil is notorious for dying in cool to cold weather. I don’t trust basil in anything below 40 personally.

But by Monday our high will be back up to 60, with a low of 37. Then we stay in the 60-70’s for highs, with lows mainly in the 50’s. Next Saturday is Christmas and we’re forecast for 76, with a low of 56. Even New Year’s day (the start of 2022) it looks like a high of 66, with a low of 49.

Welcome to this year’s winter in central Texas. At least the start of winter. The rest of the season remains to be seen what transpires.

The cold comes

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We have a cold front coming. It will bring cold weather and rain. Here where I live they are looking for 2-3/4 inches of rain. We’ll see what happens. Today was a nice mid 70, but tomorrow we may make a high in the middle of the day in the low 50’s.The actual high for the day will be around midnight, then the temperatures will just do a slow drop. The nights for the next few days, those will be the mid to low 40’s. That’s how cold we will get.

Since this is Central Texas, we’ll actually have to wait and see what actually happens. But it does look like we have some cold weather on the way. But … by next week it may be back up to the high 70’s-low 80’s.

I don’t expect the garden to like this weather. I actually expect we’ll lose some plants. But that’s the way it goes. And that’s what is supposed to happen. At least it should mean my peas will be happy and start producing. So that is something to look forward to.

One sad note. I lost one of my dogs. My Clifford passed away a couple of days ago. Its now just me and Linus. We’re figuring out how to make our new normal something we can both deal with. And Linus is not entirely taking well to being an only child. He doesn’t know how to sleep alone. I’ve actually had to begin sleeping with him, not something I actually enjoy. But for the love of my dog, I will do what it takes. He’s my child, my fur baby.

Rain

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Last night a storm blew through. The rain didn’t start until after nightfall, it began well after 9pm. It was accompanied by quite a lightning show. Here where I live we also had to deal with short power outages. By short, they lasted less than a minute. But they were long enough to turn all the lights off, reset the tv, reset the microwave clock, etc.

The first power outage happened around 10pm. I had checked the weather gauge just before the power went out, logged it, and we had already had 0.55 inches of rain. Within minutes we had another power outage. The outages were pretty close together. But they did cause the rain gauge to reset itself.

By morning the weather station had recorded 3.75 inches of additional rain. We didn’t seem to have any more power outages throughout the night, at least not here where I live.

So last night’s storm left us with about 4.3 inches of rain, give or take a bit (0.55 + 3.75). We might get some more today, but once this passes we should be free of the rain. But we will be getting a definite cool front. As that matter goes, we should make a high of 85 today, yet drop to a high of 79 tomorrow, then by Sunday be a high of 69 and a low of 43.

It shouldn’t be cold enough to harm plants growing, but it might stop a few of them from doing much. But typical Texas weather, by mid next week we will be back up to around 80 degrees.

Rain

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By my last check of the rain gauge last night, we had 3.35 inches of rain. This morning we had clocked an additional 0.83. So our total for last night is over 4 inches of rain.

Today, we haven’t had any rain. Right now, in the early evening, the sky outside is blue and lovely. Tonight we are not due for rain, though that is always subject to change. But tomorrow we have about a 40% chance of rain. Friday and Saturday we have 84 and 90 percent chance of rain. So we will have wet days ahead. By Sunday the chance of rain will fall to about 25%.

The nice thing of course with this chance of rain, is that our temperatures will fall also. Friday our high will be just below 80, with the lows in the mid 60’s. Hopefully this means we have begun the cooler days and nights of Autumn.

And with that cool down we begin the next growing season. Welcome to the growing reality of Central Texas.

Its raining

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Rain has begun. In just less than an hour we already have just shy of 2 inches and it is pouring. It is lightning and thunder, and rain.

It began with fat big droplets of rain. I went out to check the noise and it was hot, humid and the rain was beginning.

Now, its down to 71 degrees and its still raining. In the time I’ve been writing this we’ve crossed into 2.16 inches of rain, and its still pouring out there. It is quite a storm out there. And we are due for rain for the next few days.

Its a good thing rain, lightning, and thunder doesn’t bother the dogs.

It has been raining now an hour and we’ve just crossed the 2.5 inch mark of rain.

Fall is here

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Autumn has begun. Hallelujah! The weather is changing, at least for central Texas. The sun is still shining, but at least the temperatures are changing. We finally have cooler weather. Bearing in mind this is Texas, it means our daytime temperatures are in the mid to high 80’s. Okay, that may not be cool temperatures if you like in say the north East, or northern part of the USA, but here, that’s a cool down. Autumn also means our night time temperatures are lower, mid 50’s. Again this in central Texas so you have to bear in mind our summer temperatures are much warmer than that.

But in honor of autumn I have begun cool weather crops. Last week I put in peas, carrots, bok choy, beets, and some lettuce. The peas have already sprouted.

We have rain in the forecast this week, and the new seeds will enjoy it I’m sure.

I”m also working on eliminating some of the grass in my back yard.

Because my yard slopes slightly, I need to know how it slopes and where it slopes. I don’t want to eliminate the slope. The entire property drains from the front yard down and out the back yard. Since any water will drain out the back, past the metal fence to the greenbelt, I don’t really want to lose that drainage ability. I need to keep the drainage intact.

At first I was thinking I would just put mulch in the back yard, but I reconsidered that. If I attempt to put mulch down, when we get a hard rain, something this area gets, the mulch will just wash away. So just mulch is not what I want to do. But I am considering the possibility of rock and mulch, or just using rock. Rock would have the advantage of allowing water to flow though to the greenbelt area behind.

Once I decide what I want to do, and what I want where, etc., then I have to decide how to actually do the work. Rock may need, probably will have to be, ordered and delivered. The mulch is yet to be determined. How much mulch will I need, should it be more like bark chips, etc.? That will depend on the actual design of what I choose to do.

One of the “designs” I am considering is to put mulch on the sides of the yard by the wood fence. But I need to make sure that will not cause the wood fence to rot quickly. I could mulch areas where things like trees are planted. Then put rock in between the mulched areas. But in order to keep the mulch from moving and being washed away, would it make sense to put rock in the area by the metal and wood fence, for drainage?

So why do I want to make changes to what I have, you ask. Well part of the reason is where the raised beds are makes mowing behind them impossible. They are just too close to the metal fence in the back. I have the same problem with some of the areas where plants are by the wooden fence lines.

The back two rectangular areas are the raised beds. The metal fence is behind it. The two shorter sides have wood fencing.

This is not to scale but it gives you an idea of what I mean by the area behind the raised beds is too narrow to mow. I measured it and that strip is all of 23″. That makes mowing behind it difficult. It usually has to be weed whacked. Such is the problem.

Yes, I could pull out all the beds, move out all the dirt, then replace everything. That would be a lot of work. And I’m not sure its really worth it. Of course, who wants to really have to worry about mowing such a narrow strip?

I think leaving the beds where they are and either putting rock or something else that doesn’t need to be mowed, and will allow water to drain out of it will make much more sense. I’ve even considered the fake mulch mats back there. Just something that will keep grass from growing, and allow water to drain. I don’t need to grow anything back there. I only walk back there to work in the beds, pull veggies, weed the beds, etc.

So my search for what to do continues.