We took yesterday off, pretty well, because both of us are so sore we can’t walk.
Exhausted. Flat exhausted…
by CJ | Jul 12, 2010 | Journal | 16 comments
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That’s the trouble with learning to ride mechitae
Hope you took some hot baths!
Oh, yes. And we are resting despite the 7 cubic yards of mulch reposing in the back yard and encroaching a bit into the street in front. Today it is forecast to blow, and there is a forest fire going somewhere to the west, I believe, which increases smoke: we are having 40 mile per hour winds, which with big trees (evergreen roots are brittle)like 50′ hemlocks can be pretty scary. Every time we have a blow like this (and it is supposed to be like this today and tonight and maybe tomorrow) we have somebody’s tree down on their house. Fortunately the fence and the concrete weight of Ash Avenue help secure the big hemlocks—I do not know whether they are 50 or 40 feet, but they are very, very tall. A cold front is coming through, a 20 degree temperature drop: that is welcome, but the wind will be dusty and smoky and not. Welcome, that is.
We also found something you gardeners might want to look into: wilt-proofing. It’s a water soluble (applied in water) wax that you spritz onto plants that may dry out: you do it about once a season, or after transplant, and for Japanese Maple you apply a stronger dose in the winter, not to the leaves, but to the branches. We spritzed all the rhodies and azaleas, the magnolia, and the cypresses, and also the twisted cornel (Harry Lauder’s Walkingstick) to keep them from windburn. It looks to be doing a good job. A wind like this in a dry spell can be brutal, but while this allows photosynthesis and respiration, it protects the leaf/branch against sweating out into the wind. You use 1 oz to every 10 oz of water, so a bottle goes a long ways.
Just had to run out and rescue the Contorted Birch from the wind: I’d staked it with aquarium airline tubing, which makes a great yielding tie, but it had unwound itself from the rock about which I’d wrapped it. The wind is fierce and the sky is pinkish grey. A house fire has started about 8 blocks from us, which is bad. Spokane has already kept the fire and police departments busy with crazy driving—two bad wrecks, including a truck headon into a pole trying to miss somebody else, a headon collision of two watercraft in the area, somebody killed on an ATV that flipped, and this morning two cars collide on a 25 mph residential street, leaving one car upside down and the other afire…they’re still trying to catch the drivers of the second car, and I’ll bet they have a good idea by now who they’re looking for. There’s a slight sense of unreality under a grey-pink sky with the wind blowing like this. The hemlock is shedding cones like crazy, nasty brittle things that don’t make good decoration, and that only float for a little while: I’ll be unloading the skimmer basket twice daily.
It’s a zoo out there. We’re staying in and staying out of trouble.
Somebody opened the cage door and the squirrels all got out. We had two young men riding an ATV on the road, apparently the 13 year old driver lost control and got airborne, while his 9 year old brother, who was wearing a bicycle helmet, had a broken arm and facial lacerations from the #0 grit of the roadway,
I do not envy you in that wind, and if you got hit by one of those hemlock cones, driven by that wind, I’m sure it’d hurt pretty badly. Stay indoors where it’s safer, relatively speaking.
I don’t suppose it’s full moon time. We had 2 light plane crashes over the weekend, one into Mohawk Park, into heavy woods just north of the airport. Crazy weather with flood watches, thunderstorms, and more rain than we know what to do with for this time of year. More of same for the next 2 days.
Noo-o-o-oo, we’re in the dark of the moon right now. Some dingaling was playing with fireworks left over from the 4th, and set a brush fire in one of our populated valleys. 2 friends called last night about 9:30 and asked if they could stay at our house, should they have to evacuate. They didn’t, but the gusty winds are keeping the fire from being properly doused. All the burnt off ground cover means the next time we have a good soaking rain, half the area will wash down into the stream, possibly in big chunks with houses on them.
While you are staying in and dust-free, I hope, you might find this discussion of e-book conversions helpful: “WS formats to lose: a suggestion.” It’s in the Toni’s Table conference at Baen’s Bar http://bar.baen.com/ . Sorry I can’t give a direct link, but that is very difficult with the Bar software.
And the same topic posted in the Webscriptions Ebooks conference generated a somewhat variant discussion, though with some of the same posts.
Last Friday I spent 9:30 am until 5:30 pm at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, so I know all about too sore to move. On the other hand, I did get a lot of nice photos and put 38 of them up in my Photostream at Flikr (ZetteG). They’re not bad shots, though just prior to posting those is a set of my favorite big cat pictures from previous years. Those are nice.
Russ was home for three days. We ran and ran and ran. He’s now back in Maine. I’m trying to get back the interest to do any real work!
Crazy Times! On Sunday Somerville, MA (outside Boston) had so much rain the Public Works Building got flooded out. Police cars and motorcycles floating, building evacuated. Very local storms dumping massive amounts of water in short periods of time….all fits in with the odd weather patterns that seem to be more frequent than odd.
Sheesh, I saw a report on Boston, and thought of the Big Dig….
Our peak gust got to 48, which is not too remarkable in Oklahoma, but is pretty strong: Vantage, on the slope above the Columbia River gorge, which gets severe wind sweeping down off the continent headed for the ocean—only got 53. That was probably the one that unstaked the birch.
The good news is we bought a new weight for the patio table umbrella, a broad piece of granite weighting 42 lbs. Our umbrella, furled, and the table, stood fast in that blow. This is good!
Ouch! I spoke too soon! ;( Out by the pool yesterday; came inside for more ice tea; wind gust from nowhere hit the umbrella and took it over like a sail. Turns out I did not have all the pegs properly into the deck! Fortunately no damage, 🙂
The gust heralded a period of unsettled weather. We are now in the middle of rain for the next day or so. Not a bad thing, mostly gentle and warm. I start getting a little nervous if we go for more than two weeks without rain as we are on the edge of a state management area.
Yes indeed!! Lots of tunnels around Boston. Fortunately no fatalities, the one woman caught in her car was successfully rescued!
Good Idea regarding your granite weight. My 40 lb. umbrella stands are fastened to the decks with large nails rather than the wimpy L-braces that are included. 100p nails are good for tent pegs too. Did the birch survive the unstaking?
VERY PLEASED that you and Jane are getting caught up a little on R&R. How are the fishies doing, or rather their milieu?
BTW I love the fish tanks and water features in Regenesis. Is this a literary wish fulfillment? 😉
The water is improving: we can see the bottom today, and the fish are much happier. And yes, I’d have Ari’s wall, if I could. 😉 The birch is fine. One thing about birches (cf Robert Frost) —they bend.
http://www.eso.org/public/videos/eso1029a/
This is a front window view from the most powerful
starship in the universe.
Just the thing to see while resting.