wokeupthisam

Very light dusting in the pre-dawn hours, gave a comical look to all the oak leaves in the yard as they were the only things holding snow. Flurries now, 31.3F wind ramping up.

0.13" overnight, up to 48.5F and still cloudy. Pond is still down about 4ft, lowest water level yet for this time of year, even drier than 2016 summer/autumn, it's always been full by the time it freezes up in late Nov. Oak, beech, apple and birch leaves still hanging tough despite the many strong gusts over the past week.

1.87" final, very happy for it too. 2hr power outage after a strong gust at 7:50am but nice 57° temps out there now.

Nice synopsis and discerning too (well, notwithstanding the HAARP's accord...) What always strikes me hereabouts is the transition to 'stick season'. Early in the month, most deciduous leaves are down but there's still enough oak, beech, birch, apple, and mulberry leaves tenaciously hanging on as a last gasp of the growing season left behind; by the end of the month, its down to just a few stubborn trees while the landscape takes on a brown and gray skeleton. The inverse of May. The other striking difference to me is, the first flakes are met with welcome anticipation, again inverse of how the last flakes in April, or sometimes May, are received.

@dendrite Yep, you're right you could provided there's enough healthy branches left on the stump for the photosynthesis needs when spring arrives. Haven't tried grafting but for the root system reasons you noted, occasionally if we come across a cut stump with a whirl or two of healthy branches left, we'll leave them intact in the field and will see a few branches turn upwards the following season, attempting to become a leader and if that happens, after a few months we'll pick the best looking leader and snip back the other wannabe leaders but not the horizontal branches. (Learned the hard way that cutting those support branches off too soon kills the stump due to losing too much photosynthesis). If all goes well, after the growing season there's a new 'tree' 1 - 1.5 ft long growing off the old stump. And as you thought, those 'turnups' have the benefit of a mature root system and can get to market size sooner than a planted seedling, perhaps more importantly they withstand the droughts better than planted seedlings. Stumps left without healthy branches intact wouldn't support a grafted scion from what I've seen - and even stumps left with just one or two healthy branches generally die back quickly. I haven't tried grafting because grafting skills aren't in my toolbox, but the 'turnup' results I've seen indicate to me it's a viable alternative.

Yes though might rename it Steindance after the last 4 months...

Yup yet another benefit of growing fir trees... haha

IOW, "persistence forecasting"?

Fall color and Concolor

1.62" and one more batch to get through. Near perfect with the .25" via heavy drizzle Tues night and Wed to soften the hard dry ground and break the surface tension so the goodies could soak in. Better than a 2" burst from a tstorm on baked ground that mostly runs off the hills.

Wow. Is the black line 2021?

Yikes that just pains me to look at

37.4F RN with MAYngled flakes mixed in and breezy. 1.12" since yesterday. Even the wild turkeys look angry this am

The transition of scenery between mid April and mid May is the inverse of mid-October to mid-November. Sticks / brown to leaves and green grass, and vice versa. Won't mind the snowy scenery going on hiatus until late Nov or early Dec

32.2F with mod occasionally hvy snow, close to 4" grassy areas, 1.5" on pavement. At least it's good for a little nitrogen fix for the soils.