Weather Watching Summer 2013

Thankfully, the heavy rains missed our area this time. Sorry others are being hit hard.

Sally, it's really ridiculous how increased income after WWII expanded (with the help of advertising) our idea of what we need to "keep up with the Joneses" and actually upped both the expenses and work for the upkeep.

When we built our house in the early seventies DH wanted to make it larger and I talked him out of it (plus the cost would have been more than he expected.) Who wants more to clean and care for? I agree, SallyG.

coleup, how exciting for him! too bad the spotlight (as always) goes to some cutee girl haha.

Yes, excellent points Sally Darius and Greenhousegal!
One of the reasons I have
"always wanted to live in a greenhouse"
is that I can just hose it all down!
lol

Close to an inch of rain.. Power out for several hours. Funny to still have to call in outages,,,aren't Smart meters supposed to know that? Heard the transformer blow. Basement dry.

I'm not sure you really do have to call it in anymore. It's just that they'd never convince many people NOT to call.

Spotty storms- rain 4x here today but missed the heavy stuff.

Radio said TOrnado Watch until Tuesday. AHAH they've given up and started just blanketing us with tornado watch, haha

Weird, but down here we never got any of the 'scary stuff' that was predicted. I think we got a bit of rain some time during the night last night -- it seemed a bit damp when DH left the house this morning, but otherwise it's really held off. I was expecting to get rained out and not be able to finish up my yard work when I got home from work yesterday, but the Good Lord watched over me and kept the sun shining! =) (at least down this'a way). :) Now, if it can just stay non-raining long enough for Orkin to do their stuff tomorrow, I'll be happy! =)

We have been getting some rain but not nearly what everyone around us is. The plants are loving it, you can practically watch the newer ones grow.

Over 13" for the month of June. Sheesh!! My son picked a bad time to hike part of the Appalachian trail. I pick him up later this afternoon, a day early. Anxious to hear how he slogged through.

More of the same today in the forecast. Warm, humid, heavy rain, storms. "yawning"!

13 jan?? wow I thought he had a lot, at 7.7 for BWI area.
Jan have you read or listened to A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson? If not you should.

Wow Jan. I'm glad you will have them in out of the rain soon! That's a lot of rain in one month.
Flash flood watch in effect for our whole area. Seeing 'erosion' all along my routes as buckets of water make their way to the sea. Most of the Bay is brown. Hope some of the restored wetlands projects are working.

How's your rain garden SS?
Happy, how is your front hill holding up?
JB, sometimes I think 'hunkering down' is my middle name.

Scary how far away from strike lightning can harm people.

Thoughts and prayers with all dealing with extreme conditions and unsettled weather patterns even if only local. May there be enough food to feed us all and keep us healthy including all creatures great and small.

Wriggling worms are pretty good at getting to the sides of rushing water run offs!

Wonderful book recommendation our resident Librarian!

Here my trusty rain gauge read just under 4" for June with yesterday adding an inch. So I am still under average for June in my yard.

Need to go to the library and see if they have it.

Yep, we are pretty waterlogged! Feeling a little moldy. Thankful for working sump pumps.

Jan- Non fiction in travel, but just ask them or look it up in catalog. If not on shelf they should offer to order from another branch or system (I would think ) He's a great writer!!!!!!!!!!! It's about his walk in the Ap Trail I am sure you would really enjoy it.

I have read "A walk in the woods" and can second Sallyg's recommendation. It is an entertaining and informative account of the AT.

This message was edited Jul 1, 2013 10:00 AM

Cool! I have only been on a very small section that we could access from our house up the hill in PA. That was in the 50's before the state came through and confiscated some of our property for route 33 to be built. Then we moved to NJ.

It has been pouring today -- and apparently it will rain much harder later in the day, so what we are getting today is just a prelude.

Coleup -- thanks for asking about my awful front hill. My whole lot is on a hill, so we get a lot of runoff from the back yard to the front. I spent a lot of time in the past few years adding hardscape to stop the runoff from my yard to my neighbor's property on one side, and that has largely worked, but now I think I need to put in as much as 3 separate rain gardens to finish the job (sigh). There is a huge amount of runoff down the edge of the awful front hill that flows onto my neighbor's side. It is compounded by the fact that my neighbor pulled out her plantings on her front hill and doesn't intend to replant until the fall -- and since the water is coming from my side, it looks as if it is all my fault. The raingardens will help -- as will her replanting the hill on her side. So we are on top of it, but it will be a lot of work.

Meanwhile, my neighbors on the other side are putting in a retaining wall right at the property line, and in the process have dug a ditch that picks up all the runoff from their property and dumps in on ours, so we have runoff problems in spades. (We are all over the latter problem, no worries....)

very dreary day

We had a nice, maybe 45 minutes, of a decent, soaking rain way earlier.
Nothing since then, Did some clean up of my patio and such.

This AM--went to the "Greenhouses" and bought some more phlox, 2 pots of
Speedwell, and 2 pots of Purple Cone Flowers. All--Buy 1 get 1 FREE.

Right now it is a bit overcast--with sun coning through now and then.
Nice breeze going....Not sure if we are in for something more....

Gita

and somehow central AA Co MD was mostly free of precip today.

Columbia had on and off rain...it rained on and off until noon. The sun peaked out for an hour or two and we had another light rain for half an hour. Strange strange weather pattern.

That's about the same we had here, Paul...
Just enough steady rain to water everything....G.

Today is to be the same as yesterday, hot, humid, rain, storms. I understand by the news this morning that there was a tornado in NJ yesterday I think they said in Beverly Heights??Burkley Heights?????not sure just caught the end of the news.

There is so much to do and I am still limited in what I can do, but the others are trying to figure out how or when to begin to mow. They have a big July 4 party here Thurs. and they want everything mowed. It keeps raining and the grass is higher than normal so it will play havoc with the mower blades when it is wet. Oh well, we will see.

Have a good day everyone and keep your eye on the sky. You just never know anymore what is going to happen.

It may be bad for many plants to get soooo much rain -- but it is great for my newly planted front hill, and I love how easy it makes weeding....

We really need sun at this point to dry things out.

All this rain is fantastic for a lazy gardener like myself. I've only had to water my annual containers 2-3 times. But I'm having to fertilize every time I do water. My lemon tree in particular is looking pretty anemic. I need to remember to do all my transplanting earlier in the season next year, though. I just got really lucky this year with all this summer rain.

Coleup, the rain garden is doing its job! It really should be bigger and deeper, but it still does a very good job of holding a lot of water. I'd love a Nichiki willow or a red twig dogwood in the rain garden, so I'm going to widen it next year.

Just today looked at my own lemon tree and thought it looked pale. Probably needs food as you said, ssg, and maybe the pot its in hash't gotten enough direct rain.
I agree am liking easy weeding and no worries over watering baby garden plants.

JB if anybody mentions the grass just hand him a cold drink and change the subject...

another dreary day

Flash floods for many areas,.............more storms coming...............blah blah blah!

If the drinks would be strong enough maybe we could get the guys to have a mower race and get the grass cut that way. LOL I doubt it.

I've been lucky enough to get my mowing done between the rains and if it's a little wet I just bag and compost it. My tractor is probably 30+ years old and has 8 speeds, only 2 of them faster than a walk. But it will mow trees, built strong, not for speed.

The lawn has been "squishy" when I walk on it. It's been raining since the last day that we mowed it last week. It comes down in buckets and we are continuing to be under a flood watch.

OMG the sun actually came out for 32 minutes this morning very early. Now it is cloudy and calling for more of the same crap, storms, heavy rain and flooding. I am going out and work if the heat and humidity do not get to me. I will not do anything stupid for sure. I must finish cleaning pots before more rain comes. If winds come with it the pots blow all over the farm because I have them sitting on a wagon to dry. LOL

Hope this is the last day of rain until next week. I am a dreamer. JB

I continue to hope for a nice 1/2" of rain every three days, in the early morning if you please.

Oh Happy you are a dreamer also. Have a wonderful day.

So humid! Glasses and camera lens steamed right up!

Poured again, now sun is trying to come back out
Don't want to go out there

It's not that hot but it is so humid that it's unbearable! My tomatoes need tying up but I'm not going out there now.

Yeah, I agree, it's only 79-80*F, but feels like a rain forest, and most of the rain has missed us! Our soil is comfortably wet, but not squishy.
It's like the humidity just sucks the energy and desire for accomplishment out of you. I wonder if there's a Seasonal Affective Disorder for summer, feels almost like Dog Days, you just want a cool place to curl up and nap.

Finally started getting the predicted rain around here yesterday... while the Orkin guy was here trenching and rodding. Oh swell. Thankfully it was just fitfully sprinkling most of the time he was here, but I swear, it's like God just knew that we needed that treatment done, and held off until it was done, but not 2 minutes after the guy was out of the driveway the sky opened up and it started to really really really rain. And rain, and rain and rain, the rest of the afternoon. I can hear the lawn asking for sunshine now...

Mowed some grass, got too hot for this old lady after an hour or so, now the kids are both out on the mowers trying to finish before dark. We have a party tomorrow and the place is so big and well, what the Heck. Friends come to eat, not look at the grass.

I was about to go out today and the heavens opened up and it rained like crazy. The sun came out, steamy afternoon and now it is getting cloudy again. We are so fortunate this is rain and not snow. LOL.

Kind of puts it into perspective, doesn't it?

Ran in and out of showers some of them hard whilst taking DS to the airport. Glad we got there when we did cuz I passed 2 accidents going northbound, so traffic was backed up, where I had just been 15 minutes before.