Sad news...
Mom With Hope's hubby has passed unexpectedly on May 14th. She asks for your prayers for support.
Posted on 05/01/2025 6:15:12 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
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Not ONE SINGLE RAINDROP FELL ON US! But, man did we have the wind! My TEETH feel crunchy, and my kitchen counters are crunchy with dust blown in! What the heck IS THIS? Kansas? ;)
Called Mom who is North of us and they had a downpour for about 15 minutes, and some hail, but her car and house siding are OK.
Really, REALLY getting tired of being told I’M GONNA DIE for a FULL WEEK AHEAD OF TIME when an EVERYDAY WEATHER FRONT moves through. Grrrr!
And the one I ignore? That’s the one that’ll flatten my house and kill me! Double Grrrr!
I’ll be watering the garden and greenhouse and every other living thing in the AM and then mowing, if you need me.
P.S. Please DON’T need me, LOL! :)
*** Really, REALLY getting tired of being told I’M GONNA DIE for a FULL WEEK AHEAD OF TIME when an EVERYDAY WEATHER FRONT moves through. Grrrr!***
Well, dear Diana, this is why I have adopted Angie’s most truthful phrase of “weather guessers”.
*** And the one I ignore? That’s the one that’ll flatten my house and kill me! Double Grrrr!***
We have tornado sirens here, and thankfully we’re not the leading edge of the county, but a little bit in. 15 minutes of warning.
Just a month ago. we heard the winds and rain go crazy nutsy! Within a few minutes the tornado sirens went off. We immediately grabbed our lanterns and went into the basement. I had enough time to grab our important papers and water, and a couple of blankets.
I take tornado sirens seriously. Weather guessers? Not so much.
But in true Bill Clinton fashion, “I feel your pain.”
I’d sure be happy to send you some of this moisture of ours, if I so had the power!
Your take on the forecasts got me wondering: We are smack dab in the middle of a Level 4 risk of severe weather over many hours tomorrow. Does a Level 4 risk of severe weather usually result in at least one death due to storms in the warned area during the period of the warning?
In my FWA (Forecast Warning Area) the forecasts of severe weather are usually right, and I’m guessing, on average, “yes”. :-(
I don’t know. Honestly. some of this stuff has changed since my meteorology class days.
On a different note, I was out working in my garden and discovered one of the raised beds I had been composting was infested with those ^#%@&* jumping worms.
I had read some time ago that vinegar would kill them so I filled a couple squirt bottles with vinegar and started turning over the soil and squirting the worms. They very quickly curl up and die.
None of them were very big so I must have stumbled on them just as they were coming in. Every dead worm is many fewer in the future.
I’ll just keep that bottle with me when I’m working in the garden from now on and take them out as I find them.
On a brighter note, my asparagus is coming in wonderfully. All my onions are in and growing. Lettuce is looking good, potatoes are coming up.
I was going to put the tomatoes and peppers in but the weather is supposed to turn cooler with lows in the 40’s at night, starting Sunday so I’m going to wait.
40% DEET works fairly well on our mosquitos, but does nothing to stop gnats. For the latter I’ve found Trek repellent to be reasonably effective, esp. if I keep lights off as much as possible in the evening. I’m not sure, but I think it may be the geranium oil that does the trick. Repellents based on lemon oil alone don’t seem very effective.
We already have lots of ticks too. They love this wet weather. The chickens get a lot of the adults of larger species, but then there are the tiny deer ticks. :-(
Jumping worms? Are you talking about “Alabama Jumpers” (a type of nightcrawler size earthworm) or something else?
My daughters piano teacher grew up in Wyoming and she remembers the storms and jamming rags in the cracks in the windows but they still could not keep the dust out.
There was water last week and I have to mow the lawn. Maybe some more over the weekend. Hope you finally get some. Nobody wants a Pestigo Fire repeat. : O (Seriously!) (City Freepers...Lack of water is also bad for morels and hay and stuff.)
There may be some solar storms and possibility of high lat. Aurora tonight. If you can get TV broadcast of the women's curling leagues in Thunder Bay and have clear skies you might be able to see them. (That's probably a no in Ridgeway. )
Will try to post garden pictures tomorrow. Tomatoes are taking off. I had to buy marigolds. The Seed I harvested was probably too old and did not germinate. Using Johnnies Low bush Prospera Basil which is growing well. End of next week I will plant out to the garden. (Good night!)
It sounds like it.
These suckers.
How to prevent invasive jumping worms from ruining your garden
https://www.alleghenyfront.org/how-to-prevent-invasive-asian-jumping-worms-from-ruining-your-garden/
I used straight vinegar squirted directly on them, and they quickly became still and curled up. I thought that killed them but now I see I should have picked out what I could.
Nitrile gloves are a gardeners best friend. They’re impervious to almost anything and yet allow for great dexterity in gardening.
There are mixes thoughts about the vinegar. They sure didn’t like it though. And I’m not sure how long the vinegar will last in the soil.
Maybe burning the soil over in the fall will help. We have a flame thrower thing that’s supposed to work for soil. We’ll have to give it a try. It could also kill weed seeds.
Good grief, we were all just awakened by 4 VERY close* lightning hits in a row. (Actually, I woke up 1st from a deeper, more distant rumble, and then BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM-KABOOM!) about 30 seconds apart, and a 20 second or so hard shower after the 3rd blast, then only really distant rumbles and a another brief (30 seconds?) hard shower followed. Each flash was under one second in front of the thunder...
*Next closest” is when they sound like “PAM!”, where the flash is well under 0.5 seconds in front, and then it’s “pop-PAM!!” where the pop is virtually simultaneous with the flash and may sound like it is inside the house — or maybe inside one’s own head...
What fun. At least we seem to have no damage to electronics.
As for the jumpers: Yep, that’s them.
The article is worded a little poorly, as the biggest issue is, I believe (and per local Forestry profs) that the jumpers eat up the surface “litter” of heavily wooded areas too quickly. Ditto for mulched open areas. Therefor the erosion.
Around here, what the worms do to the naturally occurring soil (clay) is a big improvement. Summers are usually dry enough that the worms don’t eat all the litter by fall, when it is replenished. They may also be inhibited by all the juglone in the soil under the dominant hickory trees.
Gardens with “nice” soil in them (lots of peat-like material) and “nice” soil kept by watering from drying rock hard, and / or mulch, could be problematic. As in eaten up, so to speak. However, I’d think almost any wide spectrum insecticide that has a half-life of over a few days in soil would do the baby worms in.
These Alabama jumpers make GREAT fish bait, as they are very active on a hook, and large as adults. I used to get them in the soil under our big leaf pile out past the garden, and conveniently kept it moist. However, the last few years there have been few of them. I suspect they’ve created a layer of castings so thick that they don’t like it. (I’d never find them in the bottom of the leaves - they’d be a few to several inches down. Possibly they retreat there upon sensing footsteps?
I also never dug one of these up in or under the lawn, FWIW.
Now, let’s see if I can get back to sleep! ;-)
Sad news...
Mom With Hope's hubby has passed unexpectedly on May 14th. She asks for your prayers for support.
So Sorry.
Prayers for Mom With Hope during this difficult time.
So sorry to this difficult news! My deepest condolences, Mom With Hope! Prayers being said.
So sorry to hear of his unexpected passing. May God send His comfort and strength.
I agree completely. The TV weather people in my area are nothing but pushers of fear porn. They can't allow us to have ONE SINGLE DAY without some doom-and-gloom prediction of ultimate destruction.
I get my weather now from (1) looking out the window; and (2) "watching the birdie". That parrot is the most accurate weather predictor I've ever seen. When he gets agitated for no known reason, I know something's coming. When he takes naps during the fear porn, I know we're in no danger.
The tornado sirens are in the immediate vicinity of my house, which is very helpful in the event of one of OK's middle-of-the-night outbreaks.
My heartfelt sympathy to you and your family - you are in my prayers.
~Q
Prayers for the family.
Oh, no...Prayers for Mom and her family
Prayers of comfort (((Mom With Hope)))
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