Weather Lore

[chrysanthemum]

I took the shade cloth off the garden today.  We had a big storm yesterday (no hail thankfully), and we may still have rain, but our chances for violent weather are less now.  It has been really cloudy and damp, which is great for my garden, but I decided that the shade cloth could come down for a while since we aren’t having excessive heat and sunshine.

I was talking to my mother on the phone the other night, and we often talk about our weather.  She got to telling me about a place very near where she grew up in Vermont that was referred to as Egypt.  She said it was from a time when crops all froze across the state except in that one area.  I looked up the story and thought it was so interesting that I’d share it here.

vtdigger.org/2020/03/01/then-again-the-egypt-of-franklin-county/

[heavyhitterokra]

chrysanthemum,

What an uplifting story!

Thanks, for posting that.

[heavyhitterokra]

I was reading last year's posts from May 20th, 2020. At that date, we'd already had 24.84" inches of rain. So far, this year May 20th, we've had 17.62" even though this year has felt awfully wet, we're 7.22" behind last year's totals. (Which I'm kind of grateful for at this juncture) but later in the year, we might wish we hadn't complained about the cloudy weather quite so much.

I looked up a video from May 24th, (2019 Record Flooding) in Fort Gibson. (The year I posted photos of geese swimming between the rows in my garden). I remember trying to get from Hulbert to Tulsa for a wedding but all the main highways were so far under water that we had to turn around and drive all the way to Locust Grove to find higher ground on Highway 412.  (Because of high water, we were way beyond 'fashionably' late).

[chrysanthemum]

Here’s some interesting reading on wet/dry areas of the country.  I’m smack dab in the middle of the historic solid line and the hypothesized new dotted line.  We’re classified as moderate drought right now on the site Bon referenced above.  We had been in severe until this month, but we’ve received some good storms.

news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/04/11/the-100th-meridian-where-the-great-plains-used-to-begin-now-moving-east/

[heavyhitterokra]

chrysanthemum,

I can surely relate to that. There's nothing quite like that first good rain right after a long period of drought. I remember coming home from work one evening in the mid-90s, in September, after several months of drought, and seeing my wife and our 4 kids out in our yard, just running around, soaking wet, playing in the rain. They were so happy to finally feel some cooler weather that they just couldn't help themselves!

I can still almost smell the air that day after the first drops of cool rain hit the dry ground. The soil was so parched that large drops of rain were stirring dust when they hit, causing the ground to appear to be smoking. The wind was shaking drought-deadened, bright, yellow leaves from the trees, while the kids were all running around dancing in circles with their hands in the air, trying to catch them. That was a beautiful sight to come home to.

I'm glad to hear you finally got some rain!

[heavyhitterokra]

It has rained here for so many days in a row that I had to toss about a hundred okra seeds today that have been soaking for three days, waiting for a chance to be planted.

To quote Ronald Reagan from a conference about farming: "Buster, they're in a business that makes a Las Vegas crap table look like a guaranteed annual income.''

Farming is a gamble for sure ...

[chrysanthemum]

Discarding all those seeds must have been painful.

[heavyhitterokra]

That was tough for sure, but it had to be done. It has rained here every day for about two weeks. Today, I gave up on gardening all together and just concentrated on mowing our 5 acres of grass between storms. I got rain soaked several times today, as that job requires about 6 hours of mowing on a good day. (This wasn't one of those good days). We had grass taller than the mower in places, from not mowing some areas during the entire rainy, rainy, month of May. We've had over 10" inches of rain here in the past 60 days.

Truth be told, it's beginning to get kind of annoying.  The garden is suffering for lack of sunlight.  I've had to remove a few plants because of a gray-blobby fungus taking over the entire leaf structure.  This type of fungus usually resides below the surface of a well aerated compost pile and is a sign of good compost health.  Although, the super cloudy conditions of late have allowed it to leave the confines of subterranean wheat straw and creep up the entire height of a few of my seedlings. 

[heavyhitterokra]

Bon,

Do you have any old gallon-size plastic milk jugs? If you don't, your neighbors might save some for you? If you cut the bottom out of those, they make good mini-greenhouses for young tomato starts.

Hank Ballard told me when he cuts the bottom out of his milk jugs; he only cuts 3 sides and leaves the 4th side as a 'flap' to put a rock or a brick on so the wind won't blow them away.

If you cut a line across the bottom of a milk jug at the center and split it two ways, you will have two 'flaps' to anchor down.

If you have two flaps, you can also use those later, as an extension to make the milk jug taller.

If you cut the top shoulders off of one milk jug and staple it to the bottom of another, you can make it taller. Or you can fasten them together by cutting interlocking tabs. Just be sure to wear your garden gloves, so you won't get cut using a razor knife.

In the off season, you can slip one jug inside the other to store them over the winter. (Just be sure no sunlight can reach them, as the plastic degrades).

During one cold Spring snap, I drove out to Lowrey School house and asked them if I could have all of the gallon size tin cans they used that week.  They even washed them for me.  By week's end, I had over 100 tin cans.  I used those to set over my tomato starts at night and saved them from more than one frost, but the milk jugs work better.  Plus, they store better too.  If you cut both ends out of a gallon can, it will make a base for fitting a milk jug on top of to extend it higher though, so the combination of the two worked well.

The old gallon cans came in handy around here for several years as feed cans, water cans, nail sorting cans, tick granule spreaders, and fishing worm cans. I even cut both ends out of the gallon cans and flattened them to use as bird house roofing material and sold a few bluebird houses at the Farmer's Market.

[chrysanthemum]

I was just checking my local weather, but I have Tahlequah, Oklahoma, as a recently viewed place. It popped up on my screen with four weather alerts about severe storms and possible consequences thereof. I’m praying for safety for you folks and your gardens.

[macmex]

Yes indeed, as some might say, we're having "a toad straggler" of a storm right now. I rushed home from work today and worked like crazy to get the chores done, getting into the house with the evening's milk, just as the downpour hit. Jerreth was working on supper and said... "Do we have any broccoli ready, out in the garden?" 

I told her that I'd run between the rain drops and get it. I already knew it was past its prime and starting to spoil, with all this rain. I got it and we had it for supper tonight, though, I have to admit I didn't quite make it "between the rain drops."

Didn't have time to move any trays of seedlings outdoors. Hopefully they'll be okay.

[heavyhitterokra]

I worked in the garden today until I started getting sunburned and had to come inside for a hat and a long sleeve shirt.  I think it got up to about 85 degrees before the weather turned.  I didn't make it back out there before the winds came up and I decided I'd better go catch my wife's deer to put her inside before the lightning and thunder scared her off again.

We had a bad thunderstorm back in January that made her decide to run off for two weeks. She just came back home right before the Valentine's Day snow hit. So ever since then, I've been coaxing her inside the goose enclosure until after the thunder passes.

My wife stayed out there with her in the little tin shelter through the entire storm tonight. I guess you could say they're best of buddies. I think she was happier to see I'd caught the deer, than she was to see me, tonight when she came in. (She had been driving home from Tahlequah while looking at the storm rolling in and was worried about her 'poor baby').

Everyone's safe and all dried off now.  We turned the deer loose after the storm passed.  She gets antsy when no one is out there with her.

[heavyhitterokra]

Did anyone go out last night after the first round of storms hit, right around dusk?

It was still raining lightly and all the vegetation around us was an unbelievable, lush color of green.

To the West, was the most beautiful, golden, yellow sunlight I've ever seen! Not a sunset really, in the usual sense of the word, but sunlight, illuminating the entirety of the bottom side of thick cloud cover as it took up one full half of the atmosphere before those colors faded back to a lighter yellow, and then to gray, moving gradually to twilight blue the farther East you looked. 

In the far East, where sunlight was highlighting the still falling rain, there was a full arc of a huge, splendorous rainbow that spanned from horizon to horizon, just opposite from the wonderful display to the West!

God truly makes some beautiful things, very fleeting at times, but very beautiful. No camera made could ever have captured the full splendor or spectrum of what we saw this evening.  It was totally amazing!  Making Heaven a truly marvelous mentation; for, if he can do such marvelous things here on our simple earth, what must the wondrous vastness of heaven have in store for those who are blessed to behold it?

[Deleted]

You know, I actually did only I didn't have a full view of it.   I had to look because I looked out the window and saw orange, but not the regular orange.  It was an unusual color.  I bet it was spectacular in its fullnelss.

[heavyhitterokra]

Grandma always said, "When it rains while the sun is shining that means more rain at the same time tomorrow."

Today, it was pouring rain in such direct, hot, sunlight that I thought our house was on fire for a moment! I had just opened the North door to look outside because I heard the downpour, when a wall of heavy steam came rolling downward off our roof right in front of my face.

Since it's shaded on that side of the house, the steam was highlighted against a backdrop of heavy greenery with bright sunlight pouring through the openings, making it appear extra white and extra bright. It startled me at first, because it looked just like it does when our woodstove is billowing white smoke over the eves on a cold winter day.

There was a slight South breeze during the downpour, the sun was shining brightly, and we have dark brown shingles on our house. The combination of those 3 things made steam come rolling over the North side of our house in a thick billowing cloud. It was weird to see that for sure! I just wish grandma Fannie could have seen it with me. She always had some old wive's tale at the ready when a thing like that occurred.  I always enjoyed her wisdom and wit.  I wonder what she would have said about this one?