I never can get potatoes or onions to grow in anything but pots anyway, and that’s iffy. The wild onions around here seem to do ok, and sometimes I have brief success with cut off “bulbs” from spring onions purchased @ Aldi. (I can get another round or two of greens from them, by replanting the bottom 2” or so of what I bought, in a pot.)
Chilly here this morning! 35 deg. F on our back porch & a bit of a breeze. At least the howling winds of last night have subsided some. Then we get a couple warm days, and again strong winds. Then next Tuesday morning the forecast is (still) 20 deg. F. It sure looks like the orchards in the region will take a big hit. Our two little plum trees are already in full bloom. “Bummer!”
Wifey was complaining this morning that she won’t be able to wear the green “spring dress” she bought for St. Patty’s Day. :-(
Wifey has an old Sony “Dream Machine” ICF-C212 clock radio by her bedside. It’s a very nice unit, but...
The display gets dim after a while, even with a recently recharged rechargeable lithium backup battery in it. Pull out and disconnect the backup battery and the display brightens back up. Reinstall the battery and the display is still ok... for a while.
What the...
No, the display doesn’t run off the (nominally) 9 volt backup battery.
Instead, apparently Sony included circuitry to detect if the battery is low, but did not include a low battery indicator. If the battery voltage drops much below 8(?) volts, the circuit adjusts power to the display downward, to preserve functionality if one’s AC power does go out.
However, rechargeable “9 volt” lithium batteries actually are not 9 volts: Over most of their discharge cycle they will be about 7.4 volts at a 25 mA draw. My better battery tester tests 9v batteries @ roughly 20 mA - close enough. It showed the battery, which has been in the clock radio for a couple weeks at least, at 7.7 volts. So, the battery was (is) doing great. The clock radio just thinks it isn’t.
Solutions:
Use a conventional alkaline battery - which have become stupid expensive for what they are.
Or, disconnect the backup battery momentarily, often. (That’s a minor pain, and you’ll break the connector or the wires to it, sooner or later.)
Or, add a switch to do the latter.
Or, finagle a way to safely trickle charge the battery, and use a zinc-carbon battery. (Might get a bit “involved” - I’m thinking, I’m thinking!)
Bah!
We had ‘howling’ winds start up around 2 am .... sounded like the big bad wolf was trying to blow the house down, but it’s brick so still standing this morning. Wind chimes are still going in what is now a good breeze. Temps have dropped from 72° at midnight to currently 39°.
Temps next Mon - Wed will be in the 20’s. Earlier this week the weather Mets were forecasting as low as 18° so it’s ‘warming’ up. The orchard we like to visit lost all of their peaches last year due to a freeze while the trees were in full bloom - I think they got 1 bushel. The other peach orchards lost their peaches, too. Depending on the stage of the bloom, high 20’s is survivable if in the very early stages (about 10% loss). Our very small peach tree has a few full blooms so we ‘ll see what happens next week.