Sometimes no news is good news, sometimes no news means something bad happened.
Good news for us is that we have had some rain lately, might have a millet and milo crop this fall afterall. Wheat did ok for the conditions it had. It made from 7bu. up to 26, which isnt bad for hardly any rain on it last year and before harvest. Grain prices arent too bad either, sure could be a lot lower. These 100 degree days are sure getting old. Seems like the sun just bears down on a person when you are outside working and wears you out.
Bad news is last week my sons house in oklahoma caught on fire. His alarm system called it in, and the fire dept got it out and saved it, although it burned a hole in the roof of approx 5 ft. Charred a bunch of roof stuff and the normal water/smoke damage. Guess it started in a bathroom and a got a small part of one of their kids bedrooms. It will take 2 months to get it repaired it is estimated. We tried to go down, but they kept talking us out of it as there was absolutely nothing we could do, they had to stay with her parents a few days and the house couldnt be touched until it was inspected by insurance and fire marshals and stuff. Her parents live down there so they helped secure the place and whatnot. No one got hurt which is the most important thing.
Anyway, thought id throw a log on the fire and see what was going on around here.
I have been wondering if you were droughted out down there. They had a decent harvest here, we had a wet spring, so they had some rust problems and bugs, but mostly its been the hail. Had a couple monster hail storms go through, but it was hit or miss, mostly missing us by 1/2 a mile. The dang grasshopppers are getting to be a problem in biblical proportion. I have lost probably a good 30% of the hay to the little bastiges. Spraying doesn't seem to make a dent, works for a couple days and then they as bad as ever. We have not had many triple digit days, but high 90s and a lot humidity this year. Miserable to be in, of course the good thing is I can just do what I normally do and then look like I really work with sweat soaked shirts and hats. And as far as wearing me out, seem the older I get just being awake wears me out. :icon_biggrin:
Sorry to hear about the fire, but you are right, at least they are fine, and they did not lose everything.
A ton of respect for those working the land....the weather has been anything but cooperative up here this year...starting with the heaviest winter snowfall for years....that goes quickly and everything dries out and we enjoy the benefits of wildfires and fire bans...just get a handle on that, then the rains come..flooding any flat area of land...including a town up north that got hit bad with a wildfire sweeping through, then got flooded
(http://storage.canoe.ca/v1/dynamic_resize/sws_path/suns-prod-images/1297167021423_ORIGINAL.jpg?quality=80&size=650x)
......but wait, we're not done!....guess what blood sucking critters flourish in standing water?? Yes, Mosquitos...millions and bazzillions of them!!! The stores sold out of bug spray and were bringing it in by the skid loads and selling out again. A dose would only last about 10 minutes if you were lucky...
Summer may have arrived as we have had a few days of blue skies and sunshine while Ma nature conjurs up her next surprise........
Hope someone is enjoying a decent summer somewhere.......
Wow that's a bad fire too. There is a forest fire going about 50 miles west of us, went through about 12000 acres last I heard. Smoke was really thick here yesterday. Too bad it doesn't kill grassghoppers. :)
(http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/k2radio.com/files/2011/08/Squaw-Mountain-Fire-630x420.jpg)
I can't remember the last day the high was less than 105.
Summer here has been textbook. Had a week in the mid 90s, the only wierdness is that August is almost over and the vegetation is as lush as it was in June. The garden is spooky. My Amish Paste tomato plants are over 7 feet tall, we've brought in so many green beans and snap peas that the kids have started trying to sell them (and lemonade to draw the customers in, of course) with a roadside stand. The traffic flies by pretty fast on this highway, but they made 50 cents yesterday and a LOT of the over-the-road guys honked and waived. School starts in two weeks, they live in fear...
I am laying 800 square feet of engineered acacia flooring and will have to fabricate new baseboard when done, maybe heat vents as well. Acacia baseboard is over $20/linear foot, so I'm gonna stain match some poplar or pine...I haven't even got my outdoor projects like painting the house or fixing the deck or getting the shed straightened and Terrin's garden shack done, but I DID finally finish her walk-in closet (she's never had one) and now she's talking about getting the master bedroom done.
I will die with a hammer and a nailset in my hands...
Frazz, sorry to hear of the fire, but am really happy to hear no one was hurt.
We finally broke the streak today. Had 24 days in a row at or over 100 degrees. Had some thunderstorms move through last night, but no appreciable rain and it will be 100 degrees again tomorrow. We haven't had any significant rain since March. The rivers are drying out, the lakes are drying out, and my grass is dying (which is no great loss :icon_lol: ). There are boathouses (with boats installed) on the banks of Lake Houston that are now fifty yards from water. There are, however, no mosquitos!!
We didn't have any 4th of July fireworks celebrations and we've had a burn ban in place for months. People are complaining about how hot and dry it is, but it's like that where I come from anyway, so what's the big deal? :disturbed:
And it damn sure is too hot to fly....
Stetto, if you are building stuff, does that mean your arms are working again? If so, that is great news...
Heh heh, well Nony, it's kinda hard to explain; Yes, I can use the arms, but I can't lift anything above elbow height. I can work below myself (like a floor, or higher stuff if I get on a ladder), but the arthritis in my shoulders is progressing. I have a friend who comes over to help, a farm kid 10 years my junior, who is charged with babysitting making sure I don't try to get myself killed or something. He does the bulk of power tool work, because my right hand is NOT to be trusted.
Thing is, there's no one else to do the work. Can't afford a contractor, and I can hammer my way out of a wet paper bag on a good day, so it's me or it doesn't get done...
QuoteAnd it damn sure is too hot to fly....
Yeah, its been pretty warm even late in the day and mornings are too busy trying to cram a whole days worth in the 4 hours or so of cool. But I have managed to slip in a few flights now and then, I even got out the neglected Goldberg Ultimate and fired it up, hope to have the chance to take it out soon, all I have been flying is electrics and now those 90 size planes seen so huge. :icon_smile:
Finally. 1/8" of rain (almost) and a high of only 91.
Well, it's time to break out the parkas. It's only 89 degrees right now. No rain here, but 80 miles east they're getting so much they don't know what to do with it.
We had a taste of things to come, it was about 50 this morning with a definite chill in the air, starting to feel fallish, just like throwing a switch since it was 98 a couple days ago. High today was 75, but most of the day it was at or just under 70 and down right chilly in the breeze on the atv changing water after sundown. In fact its 55 as I speak so its probably going to be in the 40s tonight. :o
The only good thing is maybe I can get time to enjoy the newly bladed runway now that its not surface of te sun hot out for the better part of the day.
Only 100 yesterday. 81 Right now. A definite chill in the air.
About 80 here, cloudy and really windy. It's been spitting rain on and off all day, but nothing steady.
If it stays this way, I might make into the garage to get the Phantom phinished..... :icon_mrgreen:
Our weather has been pretty much like honcho's, ceptin he gets the cooler weather a day ahead of us. So far we have about 1500 acres of millet swathed, half of it our own and half other neighbors. Might do another section, just depending on things and weather. I'll tell ya, I dont know when the flies have been so bad as this year. They must be really sexy, as I call them f........ flies LOL. Man they just go for the backs of yer arms and keep landing on the top of ears and back of head just under where the cap fits.
Well, our neighbor died in a motorcycle accident in Missouri a few days ago. The guy was my daughters ex father in law , but we have known the family for all our lives literally. Funeral was yesterday, and was a very sad day. No one seems to know what happened, he was riding his harley and highway patrol just said that his bike left the road and hit a tree. He was a good rider and wouldnt just have messed up and drove off the road, but we probably wont ever know. No drugs or alcohol, he wasnt like that.
And this weekend, my mom was put in the hospital, she is 74 and hid from all of us just how bad of shape she really was in. So now she gets to stay in the hospital a while while she gets her butt chewed for not going in sooner, like a few years ago when she was having problems.
And youngest daughter will have a baby this next week, one way or another. This is gonna be grandchild number 7. I tell ya Im too young to be a grampa... i just got out of high school last month. :angel:
102 yesterday. Grass fires all around these parts. We're lucky, closest is about 15 miles away. Lots of people not so lucky. Hard to tell sandstorm dust from smoke.
QuoteI tell ya Im too young to be a grampa... i just got out of high school last month.
Maybe not, looks like you're suffering dementia already. :devil: But congrats anyway.
Sorry to hear of the neighbors passing, sometimes stuff just happens.
Man...massive heat wave up here...nearly hit 80 for 2 days in a row!! :icon_biggrin: :icon_biggrin: :icon_biggrin:
Seriously, though, the weather has been beautiful for the past week or two - not too hot and not too cold lots of sunshine and blue skies.....Lord knows we deserve it after the torrential rains and hordes of mosquitos in the previous 2 months.
Some of you guys may get a kick out of this..we just got back from a weekend camping trip. The host has a farm and built himself a first class RC field and a select crowd get invited up to fly a couple of weekends a year. His neighbor likes guns - specifically cannons...so Bill invited him over to fire off a few rounds. So he brings this thing over in a trailer behind his quad...homebuilt replica of some sort with a 37mm bore firing either ball or slugs. Now us city folk never seen anything like this before, so there were lots of questions, and he fielded them all and seemed pretty happy to be the center of attention. He and his grandson set it up, and fired off 3 rounds for us........
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni6qN7fHQWk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni6qN7fHQWk)
Way cool, and noisy. :icon_cool:
Quote102 yesterday. Grass fires all around these parts.
Are y'all ok out there? My daughter came back from Austin yesterday afternoon and had to take all kinds of detours around brushfires. It's usually a straight shot down 290, but parts of it were shut down.
It was 60 degrees this morning, highs should be in the lower 90's. It was almost as if someone just shut summer off. Still no rain, though...
We're OK so far. Bastrop fires about 15 miles away. If anyone does something stupid around here though, it'll go up in a flash. Lots of dead trees and the ones that aren't are getting sickly.
<just to change the topic slightly - sorry about the fires, guys - but this is too good not to share! >
QuoteHe and his grandson set it up, and fired off 3 rounds for us........
One of the guys had a really good camera, and got this action shot:
You're right Nony, that was an awesome pic. Thanks for sharing. :notworthy: :notworthy:
Carl
Take that you prairie dog bastiges :icon_smile:
Awesome pic.
Here's some cool video of a DC-10 tanker dumping fire retardant on the fires just a few miles west of here. Some good flying going on here:
http://blog.chron.com/newswatch/2011/09/ktrk-video-of-jet-tackling-tri-county-fire/
we are out in denver right now our youngest daughter is having our seventh grandchild. It's a girl.
Of course she's a girl, she is having a baby. :disturbed:
IT'S RAINING!!!!!!!!!! :icon_mrgreen:
Congrats, we had some drizzle a couple days ago, and it got down under 40, I freez-ed.
But then yesterday was about as pretty as you could get, fantastic flying weather.
Yumpin' Yiminy!! End of september and the hottest day of the year yesterday...93 degrees F. !!
93!! Is that all? Brrrr
yeah, but when you are wearing mukluks, parkas and snowshoes, it's kinda toasty...... :icon_biggrin:
Yeah been warm here too, but its been beautiful, 80s to 90 for highs and 40s for lows, very low humidity and hardly any wind. Won't last but its sure nice while here.