The San Joaquin Valley thread, where everyone was posting their local weather, is getting pretty long so I started a new continuation of it.
Here, it is very windy (Santa Ana wind conditions). I don't have a way of measuring the wind speed here, but the weather report says gusts to 55mph. This kind of stuff is pretty common from October to Christmas. We don't usually get any damage at all in our yard, just a mess of leaves, but this time one of my tall, beautiful, night-blooming cactus got broken off in the middle of the stem. It must have been about 6 1/2 feet tall. That was a bummer.
Local Weather - November 2004, Part 1
Those winds were something last night! We were up in Atwater by Griffith Park and the halloween decorations at our friend's kept blowing away. Supposed to ne 70 down here but I am predicting 82.
Sorry to hear about your cactus, Kelli!
We have been having t-storms and some rain - @ 2.5". Might get a light frost this week. So far the coldest temp here for the winter of 2004-5 has been 56! Very sorry to hear about your cactus too, Kelli.
Hullo, all. Thanks for referring me, John! Nice to talk to some "local" people, too! Merced, here, obviously. We complained all summer about the heat and now I am just toooo cold. At least the first winter storm is over.
Ouch on the cactus, Kelli! Losing anything in the yard breaks my heart, the plants are my children. Not looking forward to building the winter greenhouse to house all the tender potted plants, but the work is worth the result.
Hey, ladyanne! Glad you made it. They will be along soon to greet ya'.
Hi, Ladyanne!
Hasn't made it to 82 yet as I predicted. LOL
Hasn't rained here anymore, as THEY predicted. Flash flood watch, my ........!
I just happy I can get outside without my heaviest coat on, lol!! Winter, fires, cuddly snuggly is grand, but I really miss being outside with the plants and hummers. Last winter was so mild, wondering if Mother Nature is going to make up for it this winter. Forgot what the almanac said!
The power was off for a couple hours this morning. That is rare.
It looks like it got up to 72F today. Sometimes it is hot with Santa Ana winds and sometimes it isn't. Regardless of the temperature, they are always dry. Weatherunderground says 14% humidity (dew point 19F).
The cactus will grow back and the broken end can be rooted, but still, it's a bummer to have lost the full height of it.
Hi all. . .welcome neighbor 'ladyannne' from Clovis/Fresno environs. . .had ground fog (tule fog they call it here) that lasted until about 11am. . .Merced probably had their share too. . .sun felt good when it finally broke through, a luxury we won't have when the fog lays in for good. I agree last winter was extremely mild here, not near as many foggy days as the norm. . .but we may be in for it this winter. . .who knows? 65* right now with 70's forecast for the week. . .great weather for cleaning out spent summer garden and getting winter stuff in. . .no complaints here. . .
Sorry about your cactus Kelli and thanks for starting over again. . .new thread ;-D
Our hands, faces and lips feel like we have had dry sand rubbed all over them for the day . It is dry here with the winds!
Hi Daisy, Gemi (waving south to Clovis) and yes, the first of the tule fog hit. I don't mind it except when I have to drive, but I have thankfully never seen it as bad as the stories you hear. At a four way stop, roll down your windows, listen very carefully, pray and then DRIVE as fast as you can. The sun breaking up the morning cold is simply glorius!
Kelli, I have to, with malice, purpose and forethought, chop my 17 foot rubber tree down, along with the 18 foot Schleffa (sp?) in order to fit them in the winter greenhouse or the living room for the winter. It's sad, but mandatory. I will have more of both of them, but we really enjoy their heights. Last year, both of them spent the winter in the 14 foot living room, tilted in order to fit, and I won't try that again!
The trusty almanac says drier and warmer winter than normal, with two degrees temp higher on average, most rain in January, coldest being Dec to Feb, stormiest mid Dec to early Feb. How DO they know these things?? We shall see. At least that gives up some time to finish the roof. We had only placed the new OSB on the roof and were caught off guard by that last storm. I didn't own enough buckets!
Off to cook up some din din, Anne
Why do all these folks from Oregon, Washington and Idaho keep telling me that the their tomato prices have jumped up since our rain? Where do these supermarket tomatoes grow in leaky green houses in California?
LOL!! They must be talking about MY greenhouse. Drip, drip. I just paid $2.49 a pound for a truly sorry tomato last night at the market. That hurt. We had a deluge of white flies this year and finally could not stand it anymore, tore all the tomatoes out, broke my heart. Goodbye, squash, sunflowers, hollyhocks. Verbena, morning glory, the list went on and on.
Is anyone else experiencing the most ants they have ever seen? I keep thinking this might be indicative of the end of the world, they are storing up? Seriously, I read something, I think, somewhere about busy, busy ants mean a bad winter, but then we had them last fall, too, and a fairly easy winter.
'Is anyone else experiencing the most ants they have ever seen?' . . . .just went to a 2 hour seminar by our county entomologist specifically about the ant problem this year. Seems it may be related to drought conditions in SJV in last decade or more. Their studies indicated that back when most almond orchards started converting to drip irrigation from flood irrigation, the ant population began to proliferate, which they feel is one indication of why. We've had a huge ant problem at the garden where I volunteer. . .so I can difinitively say yes!!
Do ya'll have fire ants yet? Now thats an ant problem you do not want!!
Gemi, thanks, that's interesting, I wonder.....Are we still, really, in a drought? If so, I can't wrap my mind around why that would make them populate. Why would you not see a decline in ants? Or are we just seeing them at the surface trying to get water? Totally lost, grey or asleep here.My current stance is to get an bait for the nest and try really hard not to get out the instant ant kill spray.
John, (John, right? COFFEEE!! ) I have been there, done that. No one told me the first time I was picking potatoes in Mississippi not to do it barefoot. OMG.
We are forecast for our first hard freeze this coming Friday, Nov. 5.
I think we have light freeze coming soon, too, darius. Its snowing in the panhandles of Texas & Oklahoma as we speak!
Eeeek!!!This early???? I'd die. (Whatsa hard freeze anyway?) It's cold enough here at a whopping 39 degrees, thank you very much. The bunnies were soooo happy for their morning carrots they actually ran up to me. (They are wild bunnies in our front yard). I want to take them inside, poor babies. Gonna go huddle by the bedroom stove with the inside animals!! Darius, how do you do it?
Anne, 27* for a half hour for most plants. Less for others.
Quoting:
http://www.redwoodbarn.com/DE_frostvsfreeze.html Frost versus Freeze:
What's the difference between a frost and a freeze? Frost occurs on a clear, still night, as heat radiates from surfaces (your car window, a field, etc.) to the sky. The temperature drops below 32 degrees, and water vapor freezes on those surfaces. The temperature usually won't go much below freezing, because energy is released as the water freezes. Most plants that aren't tropical can go 2 - 3 degrees below freezing with no problem. Heat will be trapped by any overhang, so tender plants will usually not freeze if they are up against the house. Clouds or fog will trap the heat, usually preventing a frost.
A freeze is when cold, Arctic air moves into the region. The air is much colder than freezing, there is wind, and the humidity is very low. Much of the damage we see on plants in a freeze is from desiccation -- severe drying of the foliage. An overhang provides less protection; sheltered plants may need to come indoors.
Quoting:
http://www.thegardenhelper.com/frost.html During the day, your plants and the soil absorb and store heat from the sun. As the day turns into night, your plants quickly begin to lose all of their stored heat. Clouds will help to insulate and slow the loss of the heat, but a cloudless, wind free night will afford no protection whatsoever. The temperature within the soil and in the plant's cells may even drop to a few degrees colder than the air.
As the temperature drops, the moisture in the air condenses into dew, which then freezes when the temperature reaches 32 degrees F. on the plant surfaces. At 32 degrees, damage to most plants may be minimal, and only affect a leaf or two.
However, if the temperature drops far enough for the plant cells to freeze, non hardy plants will die.
Ladyanne, you made me splutter into my first cuppa, with your cry for COFFEE to stir the brain cells into action. :)) Sometimes I talk to my brain cells as though they were a separate entity. 'Hello in there, that information is stored on the hard drive, spit it out.
Actually my storage system was installed before computors and so it's a big filing room with file drawers hanging open from the last search thru the contents. Also there are stacks of unfiled info spilling off the tops of the file cabinets, piled on the floor, jammed into boxes.... you get the picture. It's no wonder I can't come up with the answer.... my mind looks just like my house. LOL
Froze here last nite and I wasn't expecting it, so at midnite I was outside unhooking the hose from the faucet... 29* is no big deal, but I learned long ago that the bit of water trapped right at the faucet can freeze and split the faucet without a large drop in temp.
Hate it when it does that!
OMG...I was kidding about not knowing what a hard freeze was in the sense we don't experience them (at least outside, can't say the same for my brain) but that was honestly really interesting. A life time student here. Thanks you, both! I truly did not know 27 for a half hour qualifies, despite the fact that this is a major farming community.
Blooms, I am ignoring you. LOL!! NOT!! Handing her the wipes for the keyboard....lolol!! Truly sorry about that. Honest. Really. I took a picture of my daughter in the kitchen, and when looking at it later, to see what was behind her, pantry overflowing, walls overflowing, frig top overflowing, part of me was too embarrassed to share it, part of me just grimly nodded and shrugged. That's me. Yup.
Ouch on your freeze! Guess we are definitely putting up the winter greenhouse this weekend! Far too many babies to loose.
When I got up this morning (6:30am) it was 61*. Looked outside and noticed that the wind was blowing from the north. Within minutes the temp had dropped to 54 and has stayed there all day. Heard on the news that it was snowing in the panhandle and they could expect upto 6" today.
Hold one hand out, forefinger extended and straight up in the air. Remember, the forefinger is the first one, not the center one, lol!! Hold the other hand out, forefinger extended, but crossed against the other forefinger, making a cross. Hold both hands together towards the screen. Thatsa what I is a'doing. Donta lika snow!!
ladyanne. . .'are we still in a drought?' . . . .I don't know. . .guess it depends on which 'expert' you listen to (personally I like that definition of expert someone posted a day or two ago, right on!), but the ant guy laughingly said that they've decided that underground, there is just one huge world-wide colony of ants and when you bait one place, they just pop up somewhere else. . . very industrious and bound and determined to do their 'ant thing'. The best control we've found since Diazonon was outlawed is a product called 'AMDRO Ant Bloc'. We try not to use pesticides or in this case 'anticides' LOL unless desperate and this summer we were desperate. . . .couldn't step anywhere w/o some ants trying to haul you into their den. . . and we were told to be patient with any control we use. . .at least 7-10 days for some of them to really do their stuff. There's probably a forum for this discussion, but just wanted to respond. .
John. . .no personal experience w/fire ants, but they're here. . .and hope I don't have a run-in with them. . .the ones that did bite, left welts for a week. . .bad enough in my book. ;-D
Seems like I read somewhere that they had made it io CA. This is one of my experiences with them earlier this year:
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/452021/
Oooh. . .John. . .what an awful experience. . . did you try the boiling water. . .or what? Take care if they're still around your place. ;-D
Oh, they are still here. The good news is that they lay low during the winter months. The battles will be neverending and resume in the spring.
John can one do the poison on the ant hill thing in the winter when thery are at home more?
I plan to keep after them! I think most folks will wait untill spring when the ants are more active. Probably an "out of sight out of mind" thing. I think they will cross my mind at some point this winter and I will make my move. The key is to get the queen. Without her they are nuthin. Most of them die off and the queen and a skeleton crew go deeper underground during the winter only to rise again with warmer temperatures. "They can run but, they can't hide." Mainly b/c their mounds give them away.
here it's the mound makers that are the biters.
Altho the number of different kinds of ants and their various homes made it dangerous to sit anywhere without looking this year. Bac to the drought theory. We're def in one/
Thank the "higer sprit" I haven't encountered this problem yet ... my sympanies for those that have.
It was really a little disconcerting. move a rock or branch and itsy tinys ants have their tunnels full of eggs right at surface level - and in the garden one small penstemon had its leaves covered with the hill of a not at all large ant. the family was sizeable tho I've even got a bunch living in my cottonwood tree.
How do you determine the "good" ants from the "bad"? (the good eat aphids etc?) I know the fire ants are bad (lived many places in FLA) but some of the others are not good also. - an ant forum? W/ID? This could drive you as nuts as the ants.
Dyson - my understanding is that ants do not eat aphids. Rather, they 'farm' them and 'milk' them. They carry the aphids to your roses and other such - aphids can be washed off plants and they'll bring 'em back.... kid you not
On the other hand they aereate the ground and cart off and I suppose eat an enormous amount of nature's trash. leaves, dead bugs, elk antlers, bones, you get the picture.
Blooms if all ants are bad - I really need to do some eradicateing - have tree (wood loveing) ants out the glutamas maximamsas (spelling?). They haven't bothered us much in the house this year - I think they all moved into the mini-van together. Ha it's not mobile - fooled them!
No non no,,,, not bad just said verrry busy cleaning up after nature. Also busy aereating the soil... just that they don't eat aphids as prey.