Weather Lore

[heavyhitterokra]

What a Beautiful Fall Day! My wife and I took our pack of dogs to the woods and camped out last night, sleeping on the ground beside our fire ring.  Our fire ring is made of an old semi-truck wheel, so it keeps stray coals from starting any leaf fires while we're not looking.  This time of year, that's a really good feature with the 20 mph winds blowing oak leaves like drifts of snow. 

It got down to 41 degrees this morning, but we never really got cold.  Sunny, our German shepherd and Peppy, our who knows what Bulldog cross made sure of that. Poor little Bandit about froze though.  He's our little Shih-Tzu.  I woke up in the middle of the night with Bandit sleeping on top of my legs, on top of the sleeping bag, just shivering like a leaf.  He was more than happy to spend the rest of the night inside my sleeping bag, sleeping on my legs to keep warm.  Poor Bandit is an inside dog; he's not used to the cold, but he made out alright.  

It's already warmed up to 66 degrees outside.  I just came back up to the house to take a breathing treatment, so I can load up the truck and go shell out more okra seeds.  I've got two 5-gallon buckets almost full of seeds right now, 23 pounds in each bucket.  A 5-gallon bucket brim full until you can hardly get the lid back on will hold 26 pounds of seed.  I never fill them that full though because they get spilled over the top when I have to dip them out to bag them for shipping.

[heavyhitterokra]

Bon,

I think you might get your wish tonight. It's already down to 37 degrees here and the forecast is calling for a killing frost by morning with a low in the upper 20s.

Today was definitely Fall. We had 30 mph winds this afternoon, after last Saturday's frost. The trees were shedding leaves like crazy today!

[heavyhitterokra]

It got down to 24 degrees here right before sunrise. When the frost melted off, I could see that it killed the grass. Our yard looks like someone poured boiling water over it. It won't be long now until our lawns look dead as winter. Oh well, we had grass for the livestock to graze for nearly an extra month this year. The forecast calls for temperatures in the mid-70s by Tuesday.  It ought to be a beautiful day with lots and lots of Fall leaves on the ground.  God is good!

[heavyhitterokra]

Sprall is a good word for what we've had weatherwise this Autumn. I like that.

[chrysanthemum]

We may have our first freeze of the fall in south central Texas tonight. That’s late even this far south. It was late last year, too, happening at the end of November. Two other times that I remember it’s been the end of October.

I spent time harvesting everything that I didn’t want to take a chance on: tomatillos, shishito peppers, just a few small potatoes, mini sweet peppers, hot banana peppers, Seminole pumpkins, fish peppers, and cowpeas. We pulled down the cowpea vines for the compost and put the pumpkin leaves in the trash.  If we can add more compost to the beds, I have hopes of growing onions in them soon.



We’re going to eat shishitos for dinner (late tonight because my chicken was still frozen inside when I started baking), and I think I’ll pickle the banana peppers in slices and dry the fish peppers for more hot pepper powder.  Hopefully the sweet peppers won’t dry out too much as they ripen, and the kids will eat them as snacks.

[heavyhitterokra]

Nice!

Those peppers remind me of the Chili Verdi pork tamales we had this weekend. They about burned my tongue off but they sure were good! do you know what kinds of peppers those were that you brought in before the freeze?

It's 21 degrees here this morning. (A good, hot, Chili Verde tamale would not be turned down right now). If I'm not wrong, I think this is the coldest night we've had so far? Two days ago it was 75. It's forecast to be back about that high again by Wednesday. Wild swings like that sure are rough on the animals. I need to retrofit our big doghouse for our German Shepherd stray dog that we adopted in November, (Sunny is what we named him). The old doghouse has an opening that I custom cut just to fit our old red healer stock dog, "Duke". Sunny can't fit through the door. It's a big doghouse and is insulated inside, but the door was built for a much smaller inhabitant.

Now that Duke has passed on, I need to upgrade his old home so that Sunny doesn't have to sleep in the barn floor. I build Sunny a 3x5 bed out there in the barn, but it's pretty drafty out there. So far, he'd rather sleep in a leaf pile right beside the back door. (He's a homebody). He just lives for someone to open the backdoor,so he can run up and get loved on. he's not smart enough to go to the barn during rainstorms, so my wife brings him inside during rainy nights. He's just a big ol' Teddy Bear. Kind of a stinky, chewed-up, Teddy Bear, but a Teddy Bear nonetheless. Who could resist? I just love that big ol' dog. He doesn't have a purpose in life and doesn't even get up when the UPS guy knocks on our door, but we love him for the kind spirit he brings. He just makes you feel warm and loved every time he curls up so close against you. He's kind of big for a dog to be let in the house though; he's infamous for knocking coffee cups off on the floor with his wagging tail, and look out, if he decides he wants up on your lap while you're on the couch!

When he came here, he had a choke collar on, with a piece of broken ski rope tied to it. All four of his metatarsal bones were broken in his back, right foot. He had 'road-rash' on the side of his head and was half-starved to death and ashen haired, from malnutrition. The Vet thinks he might have fallen out of a truck on the highway with the rope wrapped around his hind leg. He healed up fast though.

I'd better stop thinking about him, or I'll have him back in the house, sitting on my lap again, instead of drinking my morning coffee.

[macmex]

I know we'd love Shishitos. Just don't know how I'd isolate another pepper and I don't want to cross them with Chile Rayado. If we grew them, however, I think I'd do a pretty big planting and plan on eating them with about the same frequency as green beans.

It's cold this morning! I slept in and haven't gone outside yet. For me, sleeping in is cause for celebration. Been working hard to develop new sleep patterns, allowing me to sleep closer to 8 hours a night. 

Just before bed time I remembered that our prickly pear cactus was still setting outside the greenhouse and had to go out and retrieve it. It had already suffered damage from cold nights. When we purchased it last spring I had no idea that it wasn't winter hardy.

Sunny is a good boy! I know when I drop in he's always looking to be told that he's a good boy!

[macmex]

The Ajicito Las Tablas plants seem to reach only about 2 1/2' tall and slightly less wide.
I wouldn't mind Shishito if it had a higher percentage of hot ones. My first encounter with them was at my daughter's home, in Alaska, last March. I was disappointed that I never got a hot one myself!

[heavyhitterokra]

We don't have television here. If we did, I wouldn't watch it. (I seriously don't even know how to turn our TV on). So I didn't hear about the tornado until Church this morning. When I got home after the seed saver's meeting, I looked it up on the Internet. What a tragedy! I haven't seen anything close to that kind of destruction since the '99 tornado that hit Oklahoma City. My sons and I spent two weeks up there with the Baptist Disaster Relief Team. There were thirteen of us who went there from Tahlequah. We hooked up with the Red Cross and reroofed houses until we ran out of money and had to come back home.

At least those folks in OKC were hit in the Spring of the year, so a person could have lived in a tent in the backyard if need be. Those poor people this time will have Winter to contend with. I can't even imagine ...

[chrysanthemum]

The night that I thought we were going to freeze, our thermometer showed a low temperature of 33 degrees. So far we’ve not seen any signs of hard frost, but I did notice some leaf damage on basil and zinnias. The bulk of the leaves still look just fine, though, especially considering how long the plants have been growing at this point. My peppers still look great, and I’m just letting them grow to see if I’ll manage to harvest any more. This week has been a really warm week and humid, but there hasn’t been much sun. It seems like a strange December to me.

[heavyhitterokra]

I sure was glad when I finished my chores this morning right before the heavy rains set in for the day. I had just gotten my raincoat put away and was taking my muck boots off, when my wife hollered to me from the back of the house, "Hon, when you get a chance, could you go out to the barn and get a block of hay for my bunnies?"

[heavyhitterokra]

The bunnies got fed and I was none the worse for wear. But you're right ... Every time.

Did you get any rain up your way, Bon? We've been getting quite a bit here lately. Nothing harsh though, mostly just good, steady rain. I set out several rain catchers under the eaves of the barn last evening, in hopes of catching plenty of water to keep my chickens and geese happy for some time to come. Last winter, I hardly had to carry water at all because I had so many rain barrels to dip water from as the months went by.

My wife dumps them all out in Summertime because mosquitoes love to bite her, then the wind blows them away, so it took me a while to find them all again. After today, I ought to have plenty of stored rainwater to last for quite a while.

[chrysanthemum]

It’s pretty amazing how many gallons of water one can gather from a little rainfall. We got 1/4 inch overnight, and two of our large rain tanks were nearly empty, so it ought to be at least a couple hundred more gallons for us.

Our local average is about 32 inches per year, though it’s not at all evenly distributed. It tends to come in frog strangling storms that flood the area, and then it’s dry for a long time. This year was different from normal, though, in that there was more regular rain. It has been really nice not to be in an extended drought for just about the first time since I’ve lived here.

[heavyhitterokra]

Our average rainfall in Tahlequah is 50" inches, though this year, we've only had 42" inches so far. Our biggest problem here usually is an overabundance of weeds and powdery mildew because of our extra rainy Summers. This year was average, but the rain stopped in August and put us in a drought situation for a few months, so we fell short about 8" inches in the long run.

[heavyhitterokra]

Can you believe this weather? It was 77 degrees on Christmas Eve, and 73 degrees on Christmas Day!

I took a sleeping bag and slept outside with Sunny, our German Shepherd last night and never once got chilled. He's a great Wintertime camping companion. Peppy will sleep near you at night; he might even lay his head near yours, but Sunny will sleep on top of your legs, no matter how many times you toss and turn during the night. (He'd be a good sled dog) however, a guy might not appreciate that behavior quite so much come Summer. He's a snuggler that much is for sure.

This morning, when I got up, Sunny was laying on my shoes. When I said, "Sunny, are you about ready to get up?" He just barely opened one eye and raised his nose high enough to let out a low "Moan." I've never seen a dog that wasn't ready to jump right up at the slightest hint that I was going to get out of bed on the first morning of a camping trip. He was enjoying his privileged position, laying across both of my legs, so I couldn't reach my shoes that were also tucked under him. The second time I beckoned him to get up, he still just laid there and moaned.  I finally just had to roll him out of the way to put my shoes back on to get up and poke the fire and stretch my legs.

Maybe, all of my tossing and turning during the night caused him to not sleep well?  I know every time I'd roll over in the night; he'd have to get up off of my legs and reposition himself after I had settled.  I rolled over several times.  Having a 75 pound dog lay on your legs tends to cause one to turn often. 

After I got up this morning, I rolled the sleeping bag up, but I didn't have the heart to take up the cardboard that I had spread out over a leaf pile where we had been sleeping last night. Sunny was enjoying that spot way too much to be disturbed further. Then, I headed to the barn to go feed the chickens, and the geese. (Sunny's a good sleep buddy), but when he heard me open the barn door to scoop out a can of dog food, naptime was over! I'm still smiling at the way he jumped up when he heard the barn door creaking open at breakfast time. 

We had a good Church sevice this morning, but I sure was glad to get back home afterward, so I could take some medicine for my poor old aching back that is not used to sleeping on the ground as much as it was when I was younger.