Labour/Labor Day Blues

Well its here and I'm a little teary. Now I begin to break down containers and put things into the ground for winter; move bulbs around (to fix oops from last fall), dig out the compost, and tag for late seed collection. Anyone else starting?

Not yet. I should be working on the gardens getting final weeding and mulch down, but instead I am preparing for the fly fishing festival this weekend and the Denver Fly Fishing Retailer Show a couple of weeks later, while still filling orders for the gallery.

Now that makes me a bit teary...

Not really, but such nice weather to be outdoors instead of indoors working! Enjoy it as much as you can!

Fly fishing is cool. I haven't learned how yet. I'm a flat water fisherperson.

I have not been fishing lately either...

No I think that fall is still an extention of summer. If I delay I can only plant something next year. We always have an extended summer and winter is only a friend to selectivly elimininate the zoneal mistakes of last year.

Now that is an interesting view of winter. It was so cold so long last year it also eliminated most of my winter fishing too, since I do not ice fish.

I totally agree soferdig. Great attitude! But I do need to get my babies into the ground cuz life in a container over winter here is certain death.
ps Also I will remember and remind you of this later when your bum is perched on a frozen vehicle seat and your vehicle is going ka-chig, ka-chig, ka-done and you will just have to back inside for hot chocolate or a blueberry tea ^_^
pss there is no such thing as zoneal challenges IMHO. There are just elevational trends and climatic shifts which can be overcome. (Work with me! ^_^)

How about just too darn cold???? I don't have enough heaters to fix all my gardens, ha!

^_^ too funny mulch ^_^

I have no zonal needs that are not met here in Montana. Why plant perenials when you can plant annuals. Each year is a new trip to the nursery. Just waiting to find some plant that just might make it. I love the challenge of growing in zone 4. Dan Hinkley can have the joy of zone 8 but I NEED a challenge to make my life interesting.
Anyway I took a walk in my garden today and saw over 10 different Butterfly species in my back yard. Very nice!

Wonderful butterfly pic. Is that a butterfly bush (buddleja) ?

Yes this one dies to the ground each year but pops back up to over 6' of growth before producing very fragrant flowers.
I had a garden full yesterday of butterflies. Just another

Thanks soferdig. I have one that I grew from seed. It came back this year but only got a couple of feet tall and no flowers sigh. I'm going to move it to a hotter spot next spring if it comes back again.

Neat photos, Sofer. I have friends who also have bazillions of butterflies in their garden right now and I am inspired to plant more flowers that appeal to those lovely winged creatures.

Right now I have loads of goldfinches feasting on the sunflowers. I always have plenty for them, except last year when the deer ate a lot of my hollyhocks and sunflowers.

I am so proud of the bee, butterfly, birds, wasp, and lack of parasitic bugs in my garden. I haven't used insecticides for over 8 years and it is paying off with the joy of a walk in a garden alive with happy bugs and birds.
The flowers were covered with this unique cross between a bee and moth. I don't know what it is but it is everywhere this week. I have never seen it before.

That is a very cool bug soferdig. Never seen it before.

Is it a skipper butterfly, maybe? They were migrating through here (E OR) last week. Congrats on going insecticideless!

Hi, all. Dahlia, I've been starting to take down pots and trying to get things in the ground. Yesterday I planted some kind of hummingbird mint, agastache, datura, some groundcover ice plant and some violas. Also got some soil mender in to the ground. I think I will have to bring King Tut in tonight as it is already too cold for him, supposedly, though he looks o.k. Today it has rained on and off all day and stayed cool. We have been sanding woodwork in the kitchen. I did all the cupboard doors already but now we're on the back parts and the kitchen island. Big job; just getting ready to paint. We've been removing old varnish that had yellowed and looked nasty. Already things are looking better! We're about half way prepped to paint. We are supposed to go to a big party on a friend's ranch tomorrow. So pretty! If the weather is better I'll take pictures! Coleus and others in pots. Won't be around too much longer. Yeah, I'm a little sad. But mostly my wrists are tired from the sander!

Yes, I noticed some cottonwoods starting to turn yellow in the Rio Grande Gorge as we drove back from Taos. My neighbor's pumpkin vine is tarting to get yellow and slow down enough to reveal massive pumpkins. It is really beautiful this time of year.

I am sitting here listening to sirens and wondering how the dams are doing upriver. We are ok at the moment, but it is rather bizarre. The sheriff's department says they will let us know here in town if we need to evacuate, but not to go now. My next door neighbor is in close contact with someone actually working on the lower dam so I will likely hear before the sheriff notification if anything cuts loose worse.

One floodgate is broken and a lot of water is coming through. They think 3-5 feet rise within 12 hours, perhaps 7 feet in 24 hours. They have been evacuating people on the flats along the river, some friends of ours have had to evacuate. Our house sits on higher ground but we may have to pull the artwork out of the gallery if things get worse.

Nasty north wind and supposed to snow tomorrow. Does this count as Labor Day Blues?

But I am glad I am not in the Gulf Coast area.

Good grief, mulch! With all the craziness going on in the Gulf, I thought the rest of us would get off easy. Sounds like that is not so for you. Heaven help you if you have to clear all the art work out of your gallery. Will you have decent notice? Scary thought.
We attended a garden party in Taos this afternoon where we had an incredible downpour, but the party givers had a portal ( porch or gallerie to the rest of the world) on 2 sides of the house and we were able to stay dry while eating. We did all have to put on jackets though.
Back home in Los Alamos ( about 60 miles southwest of Taos) we got a much needed 9/10 inch of much needed rain and it is continuing to rain. But this is much needed for us. Flooding seems extremely unlikely here because we are on top of a mesa.
I will be keeping fingers crossed that you and your gallery do not have to be evacuated. Is the gallery closer to the river than you are?

Thanks paj, yes, the gallery is downtown only a block or so from the river. Our house is on a bit of a bench on the west edge of our little town with the river forming the eastern boundary of town.

Glad you are getting some needed rain. I would not mind some rain here, which may happen tomorrow before it drops to freezing temps. But I would rather the big water stay neatly behind the dams!

Update: Not evacuating, but have been doing some packing and organizing in case we do. Have gotten more info, they were doing a release and the whole dam started vibrating, took out the hydraulics for the headgate and the flow went from 900 cfs to 4000 cfs in about nothing flat. They don't know what the vibration was, maybe earthquake as we have a lot of them this close to Yellowstone. When the vibration stopped they were able to get the hydraulics working again and reduced the flow about 400 cfs.

But they have a crew of 20 people up there pouring concrete right now. Headgate problems they have had before and that gets taken care of. But pouring concrete means the structure itself has some problems, and that is cause for concern. No one pours concrete at a dam in the middle of the night unless there are serious reasons to do so. This dam holds Hebgen Lake which is ten miles long and 90% full.

Somehow I do not feel really sleepy.

I can certainly understand not feeling sleepy. I was up late last night trying to protect the Louisiana-Mississippi coast from Gustav (lol) as if I could do anything! Then I got up at 6:30 this morning to continue to do the same. Storm is now making landfall and has just fallen from category 3 to category 2. The surge isn't too high so far and may not get that high. The eye of the storm is weakening. Everybody will still get lots of wind and water, but nothing like Katrina, it looks like.
Hope your situation continues to improve, too.

Mulch, that's awful! I am glad to hear that whatever started the vibration is now under control. It seems to me that quite a few structures, bridges, dams, etc. are in need of major repairs. Hopefully you will not need to evacuate. What a mess. Paja you must be doing a good job on protecting the gulf coast! Way to go! My brother near Pensacola has been ready for this one for a few days. It's been a slow moving storm. He's got a generator, etc. He lives inland but is not far from a river. He has said that the river flooding is more of a problem for his area. Lots of rain here but appears to have let up some this morning. Studio flooded just slightly from the door even with sand bags. Our birds are "vacationing" in the studio ( in a cage up on a table ) to avoid the noise of the sanders in the kitchen. tomorrow we are supposed to get the chimneys cleaned. It's a 3-ring circus over here. I think we will go to the ranch today anyway.

Looks like Gustav is not going to be as bad as feared, which is a great shift! Paj, keep those energies running!

I am not at all sure the dam situation is properly resolved, but we are still dry and safe at the moment. We are getting an eyeful of the lack of communication with the public in terms of handling a potential dam failure, I probably have more solid information than 99% of the people here in town, which is ridiculous.

The river is running just under flood stage, high and muddy like spring runoff. They are keeping everyone off the river today while they continue to stabilize the situation. Plenty of rumors flying. But when you have a dam that has previously been damaged by earthquake, followed by numerous small quakes particularly in the past three or four years, and then yesterday a quake directly under either the dam itself or Hebgen Lake, there are big questions as to what is happening with the structure.

Below Hebgen Dam is Quake Lake, a lake formed by the failure of a different dam during an earthquake back in the fifties. A natural earth and rock dam formed from that event, which created Quake Lake. If the Hebgen Dam went out, the earthen dam would hold it for a bit and then also go out. That would mean two lakes crashing down through the valley. Not a pretty idea.

We are getting much clearer about what we need to do if we have only an hour or less in which to leave. I am going to get better organized for this situation!

Well, I guess you'd say it's a wake up call and I hope that is all it is! We got that message with fires a few years back when Los Alamos burned. I'm sure Paja remembers that. In SantaFe we had some flooding this summer, though not nearly what you could have. That's when we discovered we have No flood plans whatsoever. Interesting. We didn't used to have any fire plans, either. I hope you will be able to get some sleep tonight and that tomorrow the water will slow down.

To a degree, I think emergency planning is overrated. What you have to do is have clear in your head what is most important to you and where the best route out is.
When we had the fire we only got 1 hr. or less warning. And we didn't have any choice about which route out to take. Luckily a friend had seen this coming and offered to take in me and my pets and my friends and all their pets in her house and the house of the Texas millionaire across the road.
I grabbed my best paintings, my silver, my jewelry and my dogs and of course my DH and his mother and off we went in two cars to Santa Fe for a week.
The last hurricane I was in, we realized that we should evacuate so late that all the highways were jammed with bumper to bumper traffic that wasn't moving and there were no motel rooms for hundreds of miles. We decided to stay and the hurricane turned out to be practically a no show for us -- not for the people of Mobile, Ala and Pensacola, Fla.
mulch, I realize you probably have a lot more paintings to grab than I do, but I find that emergency has a tendency to really focus your values.

Roybird and Paj,
Thanks for your thoughts. I quite agree with you both.

The situation is not over yet, but seems to be under control. The guy in charge has publicly admitted communications have not been good with the public. The committee making the plan refused to do any planning for communications, a friend of mine who worked on the committee for awhile got frustrated that he could not get them to address that issue.

The dam has one floodgate stuck open and they have a bunch of engineers arguing about how to fix it. Big cranes, helicopters, god knows what all. But the water remains below flood stage and they have disbanded the emergency team. Now it is the engineers and workman left to deal with fixing the floodgate now that the structure itself is deemed stable.

We would have 8 hours notice if it blew out, would take that long for the water to get here. Rather than go up Jack Creek or the Virginia City Hill, we would load up and go less than a mile to Moore's Creek Road and go up on the bench into a small subdivision there. Friends live up there. That would keep us out of the main traffic and we would be on the right side of the river to get back to our house afterwards even if bridges were gone. Roads there lead up to the top of a small mountain a friend of mine owns, so we could go as high as necessary for safety, less than five miles from our house.

Challenging to determine what to take for sure. People do weird things in disasters. Getting it figured out ahead of time is good, but then hope you remember to do it. Back in 1959 the Morgans owned the El Western Motel when the earthquake formed Quake Lake. They got their money and papers all together as they got ready to evacuate. Then went off and left it all on the kitchen table! Fortunately they did not flood out.

I have always thought the supervolcano in Yellowstone was our biggest hazard around here, but now this dam, hmmm....

Sorry to hear things are so bad mulch. I hope you're over the worst of it.

Hey, we are dry and fine, so I see no reason to complain. I just hope the emergency planning people go correct their omissions!

As Paj said, it brings clarity to your priorities.

It sounds like things are improving and Labor Day weekend is over, too. Seeing as how it is now Tuesday. Although our mail is late and I thought it might still be part of the holiday. I never can tell.

Sorry to hear about all your dam problems MM. We never have problems over here in Kalispell life is perfect. Have enjoyed the snow we are getting already at 5000 ft. It is melting by afternoon every day. Has there been much on the Gallatins?

Glad you are doing well mulch. I have never been in a situation like you guys. It is scary. Wishing you the best.

Sofer, we have had way more rain than snow although it did freeze pretty hard night before last. Running heaters in the hoop house hoping for some more ripe tomatoes.

Today our mayor blasted the county officials for the poor handling of the situation. The director of the emergency services had yesterday said we should all be "proud and happy" about the way they handled it. Proud and happy they did not tell anyone what was happening, including the mayor??? Sure thing...

They still do not have the floodgate fixed and no info as to when they might. And typical of the way this has been handled, the river has been opened up to fishing but kept all the public boat launches closed. Not that I want to put a boat on the river until they get this fixed anyway.

Thanks for all your good wishes, please keep them coming. Last I heard the engineers were not in agreement how to fix the dam, but who really knows???

I will keep sending you good thoughts of the engineers learning to get along, agree on a plan, and do something about it! Having no floodgate sounds like a really bad idea.

Thanks Paj. I just got my other newspaper today and it seems the engineers don't know what caused the malfunction so they are cutting through the concrete of the intake tower. They will install a bulkhead to stop the water when they get it cut open. Then they can work on the floodgate and see what went wrong with it.

How can they say the dam is structurally sound if they do not even know what went wrong? After all, it passed its annual inspection on Thursday and went haywire on Sunday. I really do not know much about dams but I know none of this sounds very good!

Dams are a mystery to me as well. I even own one, at my farm which is being worked on as we speak. The spillway was poorly constructed and falling apart so the work began a month or so ago to divert the water from the spillway and rebuild it. Talk about $$$! The job is partially finished and here comes Gustav. The lake is way over the top of the new spillway so is spilling out like crazy through both the new one and the temporary one. We have our fingers crossed that it will be okay. But it isn't the size problem of your dam. There are people who know how to do that sort of thing, but not very many, as far as I can tell.

I hope some of those few people are working on Hebgen Dam!