In the garden, and RAIN!!!!
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Thursday, December 25, 2025 04:27
VIEWED: 1005090
PAGE 9 of 1154
Hey Brenda -
I truly wish things were better. From personal experience I know it's hard to feel happy when you're cold. I wish I could do do something.
How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?
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I would gladly take some!
I hope you have good holidays!
How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?
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Hi Brenda,
I understand the insecurity of walking in the snow, sometimes it makes you feel like you're going to slip and fall, and your feet are always cold.
OOC what would make you feel cozy? A blanket? A jacket? A sweater?
What kind of landscape do you imagine you would enjoy? Deserts? Tropical beaches? Temperate forests, like where you are, but only in summer?
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"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake
"If you aren't aware, Texans don't have much concern for the well-being of Yankees or Californians, even Yankee factory workers in Indiana "- SECOND
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This past 24 hours of "chance of showers" has turned quite unexpectedly into a major rain event. From San Ysidro to Saugus, So Cal has gotten anywhere from 0.4 - 1.4 inches of rain, with most rains gages in the LA area reporting about 0.5 inches, and most rain gages in the San Diego area reporting almost 1 inch. YAY!
Because this wasn't expected, I didn't have my own little "rain gage" deployed, so I don't know how much our location got, but there's another event expected on Friday. We seem to be making good progress into our rainy season, now that "the Blob" (and the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge and Redux which was driving it) has dissipated. Here's hoping that this year is at least normal rainfall (unlike the previous six years).
All we need is twelve more significant rain events for that to happen! *fingers crossed*
And while the contiguous US is reporting about-normal to colder-than normal weather, with Arctic air swooping down the west coast and central-to-eastern USA ... if all of that cold air is down here, how is the Arctic faring?? Not surprisingly, the Arctic is having its lowest ice coverage ever for this time of year. At the time of season when meteorologists and earth scientists expect the fastest ice-build, there is a lot of open water. Energy and matter can never be created and destroyed, and once you trap heat in a system - you can push it around, but if you can't dissipate it - it goes into a lot of unexpected places (melted ice, deep ocean, earth's crust) but never disappears.
I've learned from watching the US Drought Monitor http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/ that there is always drought somewhere. (The downside of the drought monitor is that it doesn't show when areas have a rain surplus, which creates a rather unrealistically negative picture). So FWIW: that drought in the southeast .... looks like rain is coming their way, again. Hurray for them too! If our luck holds, then by year's-end we might be at a point when there is no "exceptional" drought anywhere, which would be rare indeed.
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"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake
"If you aren't aware, Texans don't have much concern for the well-being of Yankees or Californians, even Yankee factory workers in Indiana "- SECOND
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The last rain event, which was Dec 21-24, dropped about 1.75" in my backyard. That was a great Xmas gift!
It's anticipated to rain, on and off, for today and tomorrow and is sprinkling a little bit, even as I post. Not much rain is expected this round ... possibly up to a half inch (I have my "rain gage" out in the yard, just to see!) ... but there is a larger rain event anticipated, not this Sunday but the following Sunday.
Unlike the previous six(!) years, where the rainstorms got thinner and weaker before (usually) disappearing altogether at they attempted to break through the blocking high pressure/ warm air ridge, THIS year the ridiculously resilient ridge is gone. Now the storm fronts are gathering a little steam (literally) as they approach the coast, probably picking up moisture from The Blob, which- according to NOAA - has NOT disappeared entirely, although El Nino has. So we have relatively warm coastal waters lofting moisture into the approaching storm fronts: a good setup for normal rainfall.
If I sound obsessed with rainfall, that's because of the drought. And my fingers are crossed that we get more - we need it! Although we had 4 inches of rain so far this December, which makes it the wettest Dec since 2010, we need another three rounds of rain just to make it to average, and our rainy season barely extends into March.
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"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake
"If you aren't aware, Texans don't have much concern for the well-being of Yankees or Californians, even Yankee factory workers in Indiana "- SECOND
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Uggggggg.... Water. I feel like the GD Wicked Witch of the West. My sump system will be the death of me, I know it.
Recently, we had a huge thaw, and my sump system was going off like crazy. Then it started to get loud. REALLY LOUD. I went into my nasty crawlspace and found that the seal on the check valve broke and was spraying not only on the plastic lining the floor and walls, but the joists for the first floor and the insulation as well.
I covered the whole thing with a tarp, bought a check valve, and was waiting for tomorrow to fix it when it's going to be fairly warm. Two days ago it was louder than ever, so I decided I had to fix it ASAP. To my horror, I realized that there was a "mudslide" in the well. The previous idiots who lived here installed a shower in the basement leading to the well, and rather than install a new polyresin well with proper measurements they just took a sledgehammer to the concrete wall.
I always thought this might be a problem, but it never was... until it was.
I thought for sure this was something I couldn't possibly fix myself. I thought the seal broke and I could just put in a new check valve. But the unit itself had moved about 4 inches, likely sliding all over the place with the "lubrication" of all of that mud introduced to the well. For the meantime, it was at least pumping out enough water to keep the basement from flooding again, but what could I possibly do to fix this???
I went out to my garage with a cup of coffee and had a few smokes while looking around at various odds and ends I had saved up over the years from various projects and what not. I wasn't looking for any permanent fix, but just a temporary band-aid to make it to warmer weather so I wasn't working in water that was nearly freezing.
Suddenly, as if a ray of light from Heaven illuminated it, I caught glimpse of a part of a dryer install kit left over from when I bought my dryer 5 years back. Separated by the seam and unrolled, it was just about 12"x12" and I thought it could possibly be PERFECT for what I needed.
Working in a dimly lit area with nothing but a flashlight, a few screwdrivers and a pair of tin-snips, I went to work. I'm sure a math genius like JO could have taken measurements of the awkward breaks in the well and could have come up with an exact design for our new aluminum wall, but I'm not that smart. This was going to be trial and error. This was going to be cold. This was going to be messy.....
A little snip here, a big snip there... over an hour putting it in and taking it back out and making minor adjustments to make it fit snug everywhere and we had a PERFECT new wall for the old well, with plenty of "lip" left on all sides to keep it from caving in.
I filled the vacancy left by the mudslide with 5 gallons worth of river rock and some mud in between and did my best to remove any residual mud out of the well by hand in the freezing cold water and then I tested it out. 3 full loads from the washing machine and it works like a charm. Didn't even need to install the new check valve.
What's even better is that there were small square holes at the top of the aluminium piece so I was able to snake the dehumidifier drain hose through it so I don't even need to use a brick to secure that into the well anymore.
I woke up the other morning thinking the worst and that I'd have to spend at least 1.5k to a plumber to re-haul my entire system. It ended up costing me nothing but a scrap piece of aluminum in my garage and about 2 hours work in total. Chances are, the integrity of the well will outlive me now.
Don't let anybody make you think you're dumb because you didn't go to college. At least half of the CEO's who've been bailed out with million dollar parachutes over the last decade never went to college. A few of them never even finished high school. 
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Well damn! Ingenuity and persistence pays off! Hats off to YOU, SIX!
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"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake
"If you aren't aware, Texans don't have much concern for the well-being of Yankees or Californians, even Yankee factory workers in Indiana "- SECOND
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I heard that there was a big warm front following this big cold front. So Brenda, I hope it will!
And we have yet MORE RAIN! This small storm follows a larger one about a week ago. In deference to the small cold and hungry animals, I've been very careful to toss out more seed, more peanuts, and to keep the hummingbird feeders full.
And this morning, since I had to stay home to make some phone calls, I was rewarded by seeing crows and a blue jay and squirrels coming in for the peanuts, and sparrows and mourning doves aiming for the seeds, and a black phoebe looking for ....? Bugs?
They are happy! So am I!
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"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake
"If you aren't aware, Texans don't have much concern for the well-being of Yankees or Californians, even Yankee factory workers in Indiana "- SECOND
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If you're happy with your upcoming weather Brenda, so am I!
Down here in CA ...
For the first time in 11 years the Yolo Bypass is flooded. The Yolo Bypass is a straight valley, 3 miles wile and 40 miles long, that is just to the west of a looped portion of the Sacto River. There is a passive weir at the top of the valley: if the Sacto River is above roughly 30 feet, it overflows into the Yolo Bypass. Further downstream, about midway through the loop and closer to west Sacramento, if the Sacto River and American River reach 28 feet and are expected to keep rising, up to 48 wooden flood gates are manually unlatched (with long pole-hooks) which allows further spillage into the Yolo bypass, keeping west Sacto dry.
Not only is the Yolo bypass an important farming area in the (dry) summer, it's an important breeding ground for Chinook salmon, a stopover point for migrating birds, a prime wetlands habitat full of wetland species, AND (most importantly for the area farmers) an important groundwater recharge basin. That mkaes filling the Yolo Bypass important.
The parade of storms which we've been getting .... some of them have hit us head-on, but many of them are merely the edges of much LARGER storms in central and northern CA.
Areas like the Yolo Byass should be everywhere in CA: the safest and most capacious place to store water is not behind a dam but in the ground. Here in So Cal, our groundwater is actively managed and there are recharge basins up and down the San Gabriel and Rio Hondo rivers. As part of our "water infrastructure" we (as a state) should be making MORE groundwater recharge areas .... up and down the LA River (for example) and up and down the other rivers in the central valley.
As rainy as it seems to have been, we are just at NORMAL for this time in our water-year. We still have another 4-5 inches of rainfall to go, just to be at average. This abnormal-seeming normal rainfall is a testament to just how dry the past six years have been.
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"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake
"If you aren't aware, Texans don't have much concern for the well-being of Yankees or Californians, even Yankee factory workers in Indiana "- SECOND
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Warmer weather sounds like GOOD weather for you, Brenda. I hope the ice melts soon!
Down here in So Cal, we got two storms back-to-back. The first one on Tuesday was kind of a blow-by, the second pretty much passed directly through. As of Thurs AM we had collected 2.0" of rain, but then I had to empty the "rain gage" to prevent it from overflowing. Just glancing out the window last night, it looks like we accumulated another 0.5" or so ... I'll check it in the AM. Then about six days of clear weather, and another storm or two coming through, if the forecast holds out.
This is such a reprieve. There was a huge tree die-off in the past three years, literally millions of trees dead due to drought, throughout the central and southern CA, and even in the Sierras. At least the survivors will be able to recoup and regroup.
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"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake
"If you aren't aware, Texans don't have much concern for the well-being of Yankees or Californians, even Yankee factory workers in Indiana "- SECOND
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