gravitylover

Damn this rain... I had pretty much dealt with the bugs in the garden but now it's overrun with grubs and cabbage worms It looks bad enough that I might lose most of my potatoes and I'm going to fight like hell not to lose the cauliflower and broccoli but it may be a lost cause too. This morning I sat on the ground pulling slugs for an hour and that's after I treated for them. Grrr...

Yeah me only earning a couple hundred bucks a month for 4 months now is painful, possibly even more so than the last 5 weeks of intense back pain with the first two weeks of that needing a cane to stand up and get started moving. I think the mental anguish that wakes you (me) up in the middle of the night worrying about that is a terrible thing and I don't see it going away anytime soon.

OMG it's so nice out. It's rare that I'm happy I woke up just after sunrise, I woke up started my coffee then realized what time it was so I figured I'd go sit outside and enjoy it so I wouldn't bother the fam. That was definitely the best decision I'm going to make today.

JC having a rough time there. Sorry dude.

I was out mt biking yesterday and the forest is tinder dry. The season started out with great understory growth due to good moisture and a very slow start to leafout but then it dried out and that growth mostly died off quickly adding to the problem. Between that and the last few years of storms and rotted branch drops during the very wet periods we had all of the fuel on the floor from the last few years is just waiting for a spark and with the additional huge numbers of people using the woods it's just a matter of when not if.

Yeah there's no way 2020 is letting us off too easy on the weather.

Turned into a pretty nice day, breeze came up and the air dried out nicely. Woulda been nice to see some rain but it is what it is. The forest is bone dry and the creeks are more like a series of puddles.

Now that I spent over an hour watering the garden I'm almost guaranteed that today will be the day I get doused with a good t-storm.

Yeah that's just a nuisance, enough to make the grass grow so you have to mow but no other real benefit.

More than I got too. Now it's foggy and uncomfortable.

Our yard is fenced.

Sad because it won't happen again for 6 months or more or because you miss wave after wave of frozen goodness?

Which section of the river were you on? Essentially it runs past the bottom of the complex of hills I live on so I watch the water levels pretty closely when we're driving around. The reservoir levels are down a little bit but not all that much because the system is spring fed, it takes more than just a dry month to really bring them down significantly. If you want a fun place to check out from the water try putting in at the park in Patterson and wander around the Great Swamp between there and Pawling. That's where the water splits and runs off in two directions, south into the Croton River system and north it's the Swamp River that feeds into Tenmile River and out to the Housatonic. If I'm not mistaken it's the only place in NY where water flows out of an area into two different basins. I'm not sure how many trees might still be blocking things up after those tornadoes ripped through a couple of years ago but I know that people have been venturing back in last year and this year.

It got a little warm this afternoon but thankfully it didn't last too long. It's beautiful again now. Some rain might have been nice, things are finally starting to brown out. Of course two days ago I got a cool new electric lawn mower so I did the whole yard and now it's all burning up.

Yeah but when they're good they're SO good. I think my problem is going to be keeping the birds away from them and the blueberries.

Ehh, those work alright for flying pests but don't do squat for the crawley things that eat my veggies. To be honest I prefer a ring of citronella candles/torches to the electronic things because I really don't want to listen to the constant zapping (although there is some satisfaction knowing that each one is one less annoying stinging critter in the world). I had to give up on ground grown strawberries because I don't like having to spend so much time debugging and keeping the squirrels and chipmunks away from them. I have all of my strawberries and tomatoes in hanging bags now and that seems to have done the trick. So far so good and if it keeps up this way for another few weeks we are going to be swimming in fresh tomatoes and strawberries.

Yeah right, these will likely be remembered as the best weather days of the year, it would be pretty tough to beat them methinks. FYI, if you need bike work help let me know, 30 years with a wrench in my hand so I can probably handle what you need and I have a full bike repair shop in my basement from when I closed my old shop. Bring beer

I don't use any insecticides other than vinegar, Sluggo and Captain Jack's and those are only in select spots and never near flowers. The flowers on my tomatoes were just closing every day with no fruit forming. I did it by hand 3 days ago and had a couple dozen by the end of the day yesterday so I did it again today.

That's been a thing in my garden so far too. I was out this morning at 5:30 with a q tip doing it one by one on the cucumbers and tomatoes. Where are all the bees that were here last year?

I thought yesterday was going to be the nicest day of the year... today is better. This is alright

46 and breezy, it got cold enough to close the windows and kick the heat on for a cycle around 5am. Looks like the garden dried out from the soaker and the leaf munchin' critters are enjoying it

Hope ya have plenty of TP

So why don't I believe that it's going to be dry for a week? Nice forecast though. After some of the local stations caught up after yesterdays drenching it looks like it was about 1 1/4".

Looks like that deluge didn't add up as much as I thought, all of the local stations are approximately. 8" for the day.

Little fingers extending northward off the main line are skirting just to my south, with passing wetness every few minutes for a minute or less. Interesting little feature to the backside of the line.