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Post by steev on Dec 3, 2014 3:52:20 GMT -5
The past week has been very rainy in Oakland (also, one hopes, on the farm); I think Oakland is about normal-to-date (though still in real deficit, of course). It's raining now.
I didn't get grains planted the past week-end, having had "too much fun". Went to visit my brother for Thanksgiving; went for a bike-ride with my nephew; going down a hill-curve, I was watching the scenery when I should have watched the road; didn't see that pot-hole; went over the handlebars; pogo-sticked right-handed, screwing up my right hand and clavicle; landed lefty, road-rashing my left elbow, shoulder, and face. Thanks to "old-man's-thin-skin", I bled like a stuck hog, but I'm good; thanks to working like a dog every day, I didn't even bruise; I was back to work on Monday. Hadn't gone "over the falls" that way since I was seven; glad to see I can still take it. Prolly added years to my life; that sort of event tends to blow the plaque out of one's arteries.
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Post by steev on Dec 4, 2014 1:42:59 GMT -5
~1AM, it was pounding rain so hard it woke me, no mean feat; continued off-and-on through the morning; ~noon, it poured so hard the gutters were all curb-high streams; pretty sure I saw salmon swimming upstream in the streets; hard times for the raccoons (they use the storm drains to travel all around town, to avoid traffic and notice); not to complain, but this isn't the best way for rain to come, it's so much in so little time that much of it just drains out to the bay, rather than soaking in as we need. Luckily, no pavement nor drains on the farm, so if it's rained, it's recharging the soil.
In Oakland, at least, we're certainly above average rainfall-to-date, but still greatly in deficit; mushroompaloosa is surely coming!
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Post by flowerweaver on Dec 4, 2014 8:34:31 GMT -5
Generally, that's how it is here steev: feast or famine when it comes to rain. Sorry about your bike spill--hope nothing is broken and you heal quickly. I took one over the handlebars, too; going downhill when my front tire blew and it has taken 27 years of bodywork to unfreeze my shoulder. I was by myself, concussed, blood running down my leg, I carried my bike home four miles and not one person in a city of a million stopped to assist.
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Post by bunkie on Dec 4, 2014 11:03:40 GMT -5
Sending healing vibes your way steev!
The Polar Vortex has been heavy handed here for weeks now. Not used to all this bitter cold and no snow. Got a relief with warmer temps and rain this weekend.
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Post by steev on Dec 4, 2014 11:37:41 GMT -5
Yesterday's rain in Oakland equaled last year's total-to-date.
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Post by jondear on Dec 5, 2014 9:23:01 GMT -5
It was about zero here this morning. My furnace is running almost non stop, and I can't build a fire in the woodstove due to the chimney fire we had 2 nights ago. It's going to be an expensive winter to heat the house
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Post by 12540dumont on Dec 5, 2014 22:37:23 GMT -5
We haven't had a frost, and so I still have tomatoes on the vine. No they are not tasty. But the birds need something to live on. But golly gee we had a toad dumper today. Leo says 1/2 inch in one storm. I figure if it rained like this every day until March, we might catch up on the drought. Problem is people think, oh rain, droughts over. We were reading about virtual water and how much water goes to waste when vegetables are wasted. Pretty interesting reading. I don't feel bad about the tomatoes, because someone needs to feed those traveling birds. www.waterfootprint.org/?page=files/productgallerySteev, sorry for your accident. Half gainers off a bicycle really really hurt. My glove got stuck on the scooter accelerator, while I was squeezing the brakes to come into the barn. I hit a pile of lumber and a counter top, all which fell on top of me. (A good reason not to stack lumber on end...something I'm always nagging about). Then the scooter fell on my leg and I was pinned under it and the lumber. Zack heard the noise and came and rescued me. Or, I might have still been there. I'm thinking of hanging up my leather jacket....and bike shorts...permanently. Blow out carbon you say? I practically blew a gasket. Phew.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 6, 2014 0:43:05 GMT -5
12540dumont: I figure that in my garden it takes about 7 gallons of water to grow each 10 oz tomato fruit. About that much more falls during the winter and might or might not still be available for use by the tomatoes during the growing season.
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Post by steev on Dec 7, 2014 23:20:45 GMT -5
Friday, the farm's rain guage had 2"; that night came another .8". The stock-pond, which had only a little water down the cracks of the mud two weeks ago, was full to overflowing.
The soil was great for tilling, so I spread MAP and tilled ~4000 square feet, sowed grains, and harrowed them in with the pitchfork. Another heavy storm expected mid-week, so they should get a great start before it's cold enough to make them dormant.
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Post by 12540dumont on Dec 9, 2014 13:36:31 GMT -5
Heavy, no kidding the forecast for Thursday is 1 1/2 - 4 inches. I'm going right now to stick some favas in the soil. Finally it will be wet enough to sprout them. Then, I'm on to xmas baking!
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Post by steev on Dec 10, 2014 0:58:35 GMT -5
Last couple days, the past week-ends' tilling caught up with me, a preview of my future: shuffling down the sidewalk, bent forward, muttering to myself. Damn! Had I thought I'd get this old, I'd have partied much harder. Oh, well, never mind.
Favas? Guess I'll give them another shot; they've been cold-fried in the past and heat-fried last try. Only cost me a couple bucks for bulk-bin seed, so why not?
I'm stoked to have good conditions for soil-prep so I can plant Brassicas and peas in Jan/Feb; I'm really looking forward to good crop/seed-increase of my peas.
Think I'll pool all my old lettuce/radish/greens seed and seed a mixed bed; let them fight it out amongst themselves and the weather; I'll eat the survivors; not sure that's going to motivate them, but "We keep you alive to row, Judah Ben Hur", etc.
When I'm on the farm, if it's raining (one always hopes), I can go to Yuba City (three-hour round-trip) for fencing materials. My neighbors will install the fence so they can pasture their critters on my land; it's a community-growing thing. Since I've had three-day week-ends on the farm, I think I'm making much more progress. Crap! I'm hearing helicopters, which leads me to think there're more demonstrations/protests on Telegraph Ave, ~5 blocks away. I'm mostly in sympathy, though not with those who come masked and go vandalizing; I figure if you prepare to hide your identity so you can't be held responsible for your actions, you're an asshole and you know it, but you don't have the stones to face the consequences of your actions, which might suggest that you know your actions are beyond the fringe. Damn! I heard a pop; don't know from what. There were PA systems. Lots more helicopters; I may take a walk, just to see what's being done "in my name".
Having been at Cal in the 60's, I'm really not all "the police are always right"; I saw riots that were police-instigated, just to get things moving so they could "take care of business". There is something about the notion that the function of the police is to "control" the populace that I find disturbing. Don't you?
Landrace farming; resistance to Big Ag; desire for local control of issues like schools, policing, or taxation; are these really things about which we disagree? Are we being herded by the 1%? To what abbatoir? Another Great War?, for their profit, again?
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Post by steev on Dec 10, 2014 21:12:29 GMT -5
Not to belabor the subject (hell, yes, it is!), but there is a principle, Posse Comitatus, which denies the government the power to use the military domestically for populace control. Is the militarization of police forces an end-run around this? Just wondering.
In a more climatological vein (you don't need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows), the storm coming tonight is expected to be so fierce they've closed all the schools in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland for Thursday; haven't seen that before. I parked my truck away from any significant trees; they expect quite a few to be blown over.
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Post by steev on Dec 11, 2014 12:16:34 GMT -5
It's been raining so heavily that several Bay Area counties are on flood alert; record drought and then this; Mother Nature is getting bi-polar.
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Post by flowerweaver on Dec 13, 2014 10:10:19 GMT -5
Foggy and warm here, I can't complain about the weather. What you are experiencing steev we call feast or famine. Welcome to desertification. Stay safe.
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Post by steev on Dec 14, 2014 16:23:27 GMT -5
Friday I got to the farm to find my rain-gauge maxed-out at 5.6" (that's where it overflows); that puts season-to-date upwards of 9.5" at ~6 weeks into the season, with a normal expected season ~21" in 24 weeks. The frogs were singing their hearts out; here's hoping they produce prodigiously; their near absence the past two years is my explanation for the plague of cucumber beetles.
Walking out in the Saturday morning fog, I found the bull elk herd now up to ten; not having seen a cow for several years, I think the bulls must be cloning themselves.
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