KamuSnow

Yellows on the doorstep here. Good night for a kettle fire, temperature wise at least. Tent's working pretty well, facing SW so we don't eat too much smoke.

Sounds about right, and the week prior to that we had 1/4" here, so it's been dry for sure. Got 0.70" here last night, this morning all the plant life looks refreshed. Nice day!

Up to .40" here from the two rounds (2nd round was a decent shower but no lightning). Been a boatload of lightning for the last half hour off to the south, from this baby moving through Delaware, and into south Jersey, with distant rumbles of thunder. Saw 3 lightning bugs as well. What a nice night out!

Nice out now, some sun, steam coming off the driveway, everything wet and refreshed, plus we saw a faint rainbow off to the east.

Still raining a bit, up to .30". Not too much wind, no hail, but plenty of thunder and lightning. Nice shot of rain too. We decided to go inside since the lightning was getting a bit close, and then a bolt went down across the street, maybe 400-500 ft. away. That was...stimulating!

Rain!

Just getting ready for that southern cell to roll in here, lots of thunder and lightning, a few rain drops, probably about 3 minutes till we're into it. Sounds like a good old fashioned thunderstorm, like last summer.

Nice breeze is helping so far.

We just saw 2! It's happening!

Monday sounds plenty cool, I have higher confidence in that than in rainfall, but I won't turn any down! I did water the tree canopy, I was able to get it up about 35 ft. which misses the highest part, but got a good bit of it along with some wisteria and honeysuckle, which are both starting to bloom as well. I know plant life gets its water from the roots, but I'm sure you've noticed in the spring, how after an extended warm dry spell, an overnite rain makes things pop.

Hey, long time no post - good to see you! If this dryness persists, it could take something tropical to break it. Hopefully it won't take that long. One thing for sure, it can still be plenty humid around these parts even without rain. We have a Yellowwood tree here that is just starting to bloom, the flowers smell amazing, but so far not noticing any scent. Thinking about spraying it with a hose, let's see how high up we can get the water, the tree would probably appreciate it. Simulated rain, you know?

Sounds reasonable. It doesn't seem like they migrate a whole lot.

Nice job! Don't forget to water them (lol). Depending on what they are, generous watering. We planted some green giant thujas about 3 weeks ago and have dialed it back now to 3 times a week.

Don't know about elsewhere, but there is definitely some humidity in the air this morning.

We usually start seeing them here the last week of May. However, and this may sound suspect, but for the last 4 or 5 years we've had a couple show up around the end of the first week of May. Consistently, like every year, and they hang around for a couple of weeks, then there's a few days gap before the main crew starts showing up. So the early guys are late this year it would appear, not surprising really. Yes, we spend a lot of time outside!

No cicadas yet but I am pleased to report that we saw our first lightning bug tonight. Yay!

That makes more sense, lol. Too dry!

I've been watering here for the last week and still no sightings yet. Maybe we'll get dry slotted cicada wise. Now that I said that, probably not.

I was able to get by without it although I thought about it for a minute. When it's hot and humid out, I like the inside like a walk in refrigerator, so the electric bill gets a little steep during the summer.

Just did a little research and learned a little more. I don't have any recollection of anything out of the ordinary in 2004 either, so it's a bit of I'll believe it when I see it. Having said that, these guys apparently are busy from mid-May to the end of June, which is earlier than what they call "annual cicadas", who are around from the end of June through August, and what we are more familiar with. They emerge, they say, when soil temperatures reach 64F, 8" below the surface. I'm not digging a hole to check the temp. here. Apparently there are sightings from DC up through Maryland and out towards Harrisburg. Guess all those cool northeasterly breezes we had didn't make it that far west. Also, that map you gave a link to has us under a hatched area representing multiple broods, so it doesn't show brood X very well around here. I'll attach another map I found in a minute. Here it is, although it seems the density of coverage may vary from one area to the next.

Haven't heard any here yet, seems a bit early, especially with the coolness lately.

Lol, thanks. For the mowing or the dirt/reseeding? It's free, except for the materials, sweat, and stiffandsoreness. We've put a lot of topsoil down back there over the years, mostly in 2016 and 2018, I've gotten good at raking dirt. We've had problems with fungus and have wound up reseeding portions of it just about every year. So this year I decided to go organic and got a boatload of cornmeal (3500 lbs so far) which supposedly helps the bacteria in the dirt that like to eat certain types of fungus. We shall see!

That would be correct, lol. I have cut it by hand a few times over the years, usually in the fall when we reseeded it. The back shown here takes about 3 hours by hand. Try to not do that these days, the knees complain a bit.

This is probably the nicest it will look this year, but that's what I'm talkin about:

Talk about a gorgeous day, wow. Mowed yesterday, started watering today. An inch per week is ideal for grass, and we had about 1/4" here the latter part of last week. Almost seems counterintuitive to water when it looks good, but once it starts to turn brown it's a bit late.