In the garden, and RAIN!!!!

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Thursday, December 25, 2025 04:27
VIEWED: 1005090
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6IXSTRINGJACK

Saturday, January 14, 2017 4:53 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Well damn! Ingenuity and persistence pays off! Hats off to YOU, SIX!

Thanks Sigs.

We've had a lot of rain since and it hasn't been a problem since the fix. Actually, it seems to have made things quite a bit better down there. I always just assumed I was going to have a musty smell in the basement because it's a tri-level house with a dirt crawlspace. It looks as though the ground inside the home doesn't get wet when the french drain system is able to work like it's supposed to and dump into a sealed well.

It's not "sealed" yet... I'm going to caulk it all up in the summer when it's bone dry. For now though, it seems to take care of a majority of that water as is.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

SIGNYM

Sunday, January 15, 2017 8:57 PM

After the rain: sun. At least for several days. We've had to kind of weather that makes people wish they were here: mid-60's and sunny, white puffy clouds, clean air and a mild breeze. But that's OK folks, we pay for it in drought, smog, and hot summers and autumns (and winters) the rest of the time! If the forecast is to be believed, more rain is coming our way this weekend.

Oh, the measured total in my backyard for the previous two (Tue-Thurs) storms was 2.4". Just before the last two stormfronts I tossed out some plant food for the avocadoes, roses, camellias and azaleas. The plants will be very happy. It seems like it's raining all the time, but (hard to believe) we are barely above average for this time in the water-year (July to July). The plants blooming right now:

Groundcover sage. Yesterday about a dozen hardy honeybees came out to gather nectar, and that's where they landed. The bees love these plants; I don't. They turned into garden thugs, and are about a foot taller and a couple of feet wider than they're "suppose" to grow.

Red camellias. These were planted by the previous owner, and are almost small trees in their own right. The white and pink camellias will follow soon.

White azaleas. Again, planted by the previous owner. Breathtakingly pure white flowers. The pink azalea, which has soft-pink lilly-shaped flowers with deep pink speckles and is extravagant in its blossoms, will follow in May.

A few sporadic blooms from the Joseph's Coat climbing roses, beautiful fragrant sprays of medium-blue flowers from the California lilac (Ceanothus arboreus) and brave lavendar aster-type flowers from the beachside daisy (Erigeron glaucus) fill out the blossom list.

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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

1KIKI

Monday, January 16, 2017 1:20 AM

Despite the rain - which does an excellent job of washing PM2.5 out of the air - air quality is predicted to be only 'moderate', not 'good'.

How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

1KIKI

Tuesday, January 17, 2017 10:10 AM

Rain. Blessed rain. I'm glad for you, Brenda.

How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

SIGNYM

Wednesday, January 18, 2017 5:26 PM

Three more storms, heading squarely for southern CA.

IF the rain totals come up as predicted, we should see about three inches in the next week. If I've got my rainfall added up properly, that should bring us to within an inch or two of average, which is far, far better than the previous six years!

The United States Drought Monitor (see here for current) http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/ has erased "exceptional" drought from all of CA except right where I live: in the Los Angeles area. With these storms, the last of the "exceptional" drought should be erased.

That's good news for CA wildlife! Reprieved! But to find a dark cloud behind the silver lining, one of the key wells in the LA area is down 50 feet.

-----

Say Brenda, the storms that are heading our way are cold, so how's the weather up there?

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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

SIGNYM

Friday, January 20, 2017 4:55 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Hey Sig,

Weather is warming up some here. Was suppose to hit around 9C which is 48 degrees F. With rain the rest of this week.

I guess the cold air has slipped down here, and you got our warm air! But I'm not complaining!

The last storm dumped its predicted 1.25" into my "rain gage", the next storm is raining even as I post and predicted to bring 1.3", and the one following THAT is predicted to bring 3+" of rain to our area. I THINK that brings us almost up to normal, so even if the rain goddess shuts off the tap we'll at least be close to normal. Which is a helluva lot better than the past six years years!

-----------

"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

SIGNYM

Monday, January 23, 2017 7:34 PM

So the Tuesday-Wed storm brought 1.25" to my raingage. The Thursday-Friday storm brought 1.75". And the latest storm - the Saturday-Sunday-Monday storm brought 3.35" (I had to empty my unofficial rain gage late night because it was going to overflow.)

Here's hoping we get more rain in the (roughly) 1.5 months that we have left in our rainy season- it would be such a blessing! I hope to see lupines blooming everywhere, and I wonder if we will be treated again to a blizzard of Painted Lady butterflies, thanks to beneficial desert rainfall.

I'm glad I refreshed and refilled the hummingbird feeders. I didn't think they'd brave the rain, cold, and wind to feed, but they did! Did you know that hummers metabolism is so high they would starve to death overnight? So they don't sleep, per se, they actually go into a short hibernation- torpor - each night, just to conserve energy. I've been tossing out extra food so that the birds and squirrels will have more to go on. You should see the crows in my neighborhood: sleek and so shiny they're blue-black. That's because nobody on the house like chicken liver (except me) so guess who gets it...

In the meantime, I was just looking out the front window at the rain, and saw a little bird I've never seen before pecking avidly at the ground under by CA epilobium, It was a busy little bird, hop-hop-hopping! The best ID I can make (It refused to turn fully around) was either a white-crowned sparrow or a white-throated sparrow. Not rare, but just not ID'd earlier.

Hey Brenda, how is that patch of snow? Gone, I hope?

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"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake

6IXSTRINGJACK

Monday, January 23, 2017 7:38 PM

It's been a pretty great winter here. I keep the thermostat at around 57-58 degrees. I've only broke down and put it up to 60 when it gets below 10 degrees, which hasn't happened much at all. Hasn't snowed as much as usual either. Really a blessing after two back to back awful winters. :)

Do Right, Be Right. :)

SIGNYM

Monday, January 23, 2017 7:59 PM

Yes, I gather from sis that the last two winters the polar air mass slipped over the Midwest and Northeast, and that (thanks to "lake effect" snow) they were both brutal.

I guess it's our turn! We don't get sub-zero temps, and even so, we're not such polar bears! Yeah, we have the heater on, even tho the temps don't dip below 50.

There's one good thing for extra-cold temperatures: They kill bugs. I was told that the various tree-beetle invasions are slowed down when the weather gets ultra-cold. I'm personally hoping that the Persea (avocado) mites - which came in on a batch of contaminated much - get whacked this year!

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"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake

According to you GSTRING, if I discuss something I'm over-reacting. If I DON'T discuss something, I'm hiding.

You see? You're a troll. YOU don't want to discuss the subject, all you want to do is look for an excuse for personal attacks. So the reason why I'm NOT discussing this with you further is because (1) You've been demonstrated to be wrong about five ti

6IXSTRINGJACK

Monday, January 23, 2017 9:34 PM

Yeah.... our mosquitos are tiny and unless you're in a real cesspool you'll never see any cockroaches or anything. Spiders don't bother me, but the idea of 2 inch mosquitos and 3 inch cockroaches is terrifying to me. I could never live in the SouthEast where it's always wet and it never freezes.

I'm kind of the exception the the rule with my temps. My family thinks I'm crazy. I can't exactly justify living cozy warm and paying 200 bucks a month on heat for it. My gas bill last month was 80 bucks ;)

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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