CoolHandMike

I just measured my back yard soil temps with a digital meat thermometer, which, admittedly, only went a couple of inches deep. I measured between 75-80°F in the sunny spots, but only 64°F under my biggest shade tree (box elder). I'm relatively certain most of my big trees are quite a bit older than 17 years, so we will see. My other trees are mostly maples and some hemlocks.

Seeing 89.9°F and 23% RH in my back yard. Now that's a dry heat. I can't recall experiencing this since I left California many years ago!

Just now, FPizz said:

You can probably just post about it in this thread.  I haven't seen any in my area of NJ so far.

Yeah none in Reading though I think I might have seen some of their burrows at Blue Marsh Reservoir last night. Didn't see any shells on the trees though.

Would anybody mind if I started a Cicada thread? I know there's one in the MA sub but I'm more interested in what's going on in our neck of the woods.

I think we've peaked for the day at 83.4°F but man is it dry out there. 24% RH.

It's actually kinda sorta raining here now. Juuust enough to make you go "hmm, I should probably pack up for the day and put all the lawn tools away" only to slow down to a barely noticeable drizzle once you do. Eh, I'll finish planting my shrubs tomorrow evening.

12 hours ago, Albedoman said:

enjoy your brief pollen washing showers the next two days if you are lucky to get them.  The yards should start turning more yellow as the short term drought takes hold.  You will  hear farmers complaining and it will make the media in the next week as crop planting is being delayed big time.  I have never seen it this dry and cool at the same time for this late in May. The humidities should be in the 40-50% not 25-30%. The soil moisture is literally being ripped out in the next week. 

I'm actually going to skip mowing my lawn this week as it has hardly grown over the last 7 days. It is a little more humid today, but you're right, it's been exceptionally dry lately.

I think like three raindrops actually made it to the ground just now in Reading. 

2 hours ago, RedSky said:

All a sudden potential big heat signals showing up in the 7-14 day, think it's going to be a roaster of a summer 

 

Say it ain't so. Dang.

Another lovely afternoon of watching the virga showers rolling along. 76°F and 21% RH here. Pressure on the downward trend.

Can't beat this weather with a stick. Been getting so much landscaping done on the new house--every day just thanking my lucky stars that I'll have humped something like 30 yards of mulch before it got grossly hot and humid out.

One thing that I'm curious about is the wind. Has it always been this breezy out during this time of year and I've just never noticed? Seems like multiple days in a row where it's blowing 10-15 with 20mph gusts. Maybe it's because I've never worked outside for this long before, but I'm not sure. I don't remember it always being windy growing up around here.

76 and slightly breezy out, 67% RH. Really wish I'd built our fire ring already, but that project is a couple of weekends out at least. It's super pleasant sitting out on the deck though.

I was hoping we'd get some more rain tonight since it's been so dry here. Hopefully we get a good soaking tomorrow.

We're now up to 70°F with 73% RH. Slight drizzle, feels gross out. Glad for the cloud cover--it'd probably be in the 80's again without it.

10 yards of mulch survived the night under a tarp and a lot of rocks; just had a couple small "drifts" of wood chips up against the SW side of the house. Temps peaked at almost 68°F here with winds blowing up to 10 from the west. Was an absolutely beautiful day to move a crap-ton of mulch. I think I move about 8 yards, but I did NOT want to be doing this in 80 degree weather tomorrow. Back side of the house is almost completely mulched in and it looks GOOD. My arms are jello!

1 hour ago, Lady Di said:

When was the last time this area was in a high wind warning?  Usually it's advisories.  Isabel is the last significant wind event I can recall.  Hoping this won't be as bad as that was, but sounds like it may get interesting around here later.

I dunno, but my personal weather station sure picked a bad time to get all flakey. I was hoping to record some epic wind gusts today but it's intermittently going offline for some reason. Might have to change the batteries I think...

7 hours ago, Rtd208 said:

Mt. Holly has issued a High Wind Watch for their forecast area from Friday afternoon thru late Friday night for wind gusts up to 60 mph possible.

Wowzers. I'm getting more mulch delivered on Friday... 

1 hour ago, Rtd208 said:

Current temp is up to 87 here now.

Same here and 38% humidity. Back deck is shaded and it's nice and breezy out, might go out for a bit and read. Still, glad we finished up moving a truckload of mulch around yesterday.

Got down to 41°F here this morning, now at 44. Time for some coffee and then I shift 8 yards of mulch from the driveway to the beds in the back yard before it gets too hot. Meh.

17 hours ago, Birds~69 said:

Every Spring/Summer day should be like today, 50s and gray...

56F/cloudy

I'm with you man. But I'll take another summer like 2012 (I think) where it never really got too hot for too long. Low 70's, breezy days until September, please.

Sudden flizzard in Reading. Actually sticking to the ground a little bit. Surprise April snow shower!

On 3/27/2021 at 7:00 PM, KamuSnow said:

A sawzall (reciprocating saw) is the best for working around dirt, with either a woodcutting blade or a branch cutting blade. I've cut out roots through the dirt and all with a battery powered one. I tried it one time with my chainsaw, and that was the last. It's like if it even sniffs the dirt it's instant dullsville.

I've used my s10 blazer with a hefty rope tied to the ball on the trailer hitch for pulling. One time I snapped a 3/8" rope and it sounded like an m80. I've used it to shake a large walnut tree one year when we had a bumper crop, had the rope tied off about 30 feet up, and actually felt the back end jump to the left a few inches when I gave it just a bit too gas, lol.

Anyway, sounds like fun, lol, good luck and hope your arm is okay!

I had a wood-cutting blade installed, but your comment has made me think that I need to look at other blade options the next time I go to the hardware store. Arm is slowly getting better though, thanks!

Story time because I need to put this down somewhere.

Beautiful day outside, time for some early spring yardwork on our new house. I decided to try some stump removal for a bush I cut down last weekend. I'm guessing it had to be original to the house (30-ish years old) because the stratigraphy in that part of the yard is pretty interesting. From top to bottom: old mulch, red 3/4 stones, landscape fabric, large round stones, small river rocks, more landscape fabric, and then clean fill. The ginormous root cluster is oblong, about 1' x 6" and consists of multiple stumps fused together at the base. The cluster started just beneath the top landscape fabric and continues down and sideways throughout all the other layers.

I think it's osage, judging by how dense the wood is and the color of the root bark. Digging around the cluster is frustrating because of all the rocks, fabrics, and dense-ass roots. Loppers can only get through the smallest; there are multiple 2-3" thick roots shooting off into the depths. I don't want to use my chainsaw to simply cut the stumps below grade because of all the rocks, and I have no way to pull it out.

One trip to Harbor Freight and $40 later, I'm the proud new owner of a reciprocating saw. Which gummed up almost immediately. After repeatedly clearing the blade and attacking the stump from different angles, and actually getting some of the offending roots out of the way, I thought perhaps I had cleared enough dirt and rock to make some exploratory cuts with the chainsaw. I did manage to cut the cluster in half vertically with no issues, but I got greedy and tried to cut some more. Hit a rock and dulled the chain immediately thereafter. Great.

So half the cluster is out, I've got a giant pit in my back yard, and my right arm, which I thought had recovered from a recent injury is starting to tighten up again, so I think I'm done for the day. Bush: 1 Me: 0

The sucky part about all of this is that there is another stump just like this on the other side of my house. I might have to start getting inventive. I've got a whole woodshop full of tools, hmm... Maybe removing some material with a large wood boring bit might help... Oh yeah, I'm also going to have to put something over the hole for all that rain we're supposedly getting tomorrow. Dang. Still, a hella nice day to be outside, yardwork frustration notwithstanding. Anyway, thanks for reading.

34mph gust imby! Yowza.

Huge sleet, like almost pea-sized, just fell across parts of central Berks.

That was super pleasant to wake up to. There's now just a light frosting of snow on the grass, and there's still a tiny remnant of one of the snowbergs in my cul-de-sac, so that totally counts for snow-on-snow x6 for the season. I though it was supposed to come later in the day; glad I didn't miss it!