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Post by Phalon on Aug 11, 2019 7:35:51 GMT -6
You read about these types of incidents happening all the time, whether it's children or pets; very sad that people ignore the warnings. Maybe the visual service announcement the fire station did with the thermometers will cause people to stop and think before leaving a living thing inside a closed vehicle.
I experience that all the time, even here. Though the overhead irrigation at the nursery runs nightly, sometimes some plants need spot watering during the day; potted plants dry out pretty fast in the sun, heat, and wind. If you don't let the hose run for a minute, it's like blanching the leaves in hot water!
It's been pretty busy here the last couple of weeks, both at work, and with social obligations. It doesn't seem like it'll let up this coming week - on top of the the calendar already being pretty full, BP came home Friday. We've got a ton of stuff to squeeze in before she leaves for college at the end of this week.
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Post by stepper on Aug 14, 2019 15:30:13 GMT -6
Yesterday it was 103F with a heat index of 110. Last night the weather guessers pointed out that the last time we has measurable precipitation was 14 July when we got 7/100 of an inch (which isn't enough to do more than raise humidity) - except even that was scattered and it didn't happen here. Same thing with the precipitation before that one - not in my yard it didn't. So they said "chance of rain" mostly to keep people from getting depressed and desperate. Evidently those chances are "none" and "less than zero" - there's naught out there but blue skies. It made moon watching this morning easy though.
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Post by Phalon on Aug 15, 2019 5:23:36 GMT -6
Couldn't do it. Nope.
So, dun, dun, dun.... <---- ominous music
It's the Full Sturgeon Moon - the name given to August's full moon by the Algonquian tribe because this month sturgeon fishing was at its best. One has to wonder if the Lake Ness Monster will surface once again, its sleek and imagined slimy body glistening in the light of the moon. Or maybe there's no one wondering at all. I for one though, will not be swimming in Lake Michigan for the next couple of nights. Quite possibly because I never swim in Lake Michigan at night. (eye-roll)
Chilly here this morning - sixty degrees and windy. Feels like fall.
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Post by moonglum on Aug 15, 2019 14:06:01 GMT -6
The weather here is still topsy-turvey. One day blazing sun and 27C and the next day rain and wind in the low 20's. Got three-quarters of the framework done for the lean-to (porch). Made a slight miscalculation when ordering the timber, only ordered three posts instead of four. That's what comes of changing the design halfway through the build. Ha, what design? I'm making it up as I go along!
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Post by Phalon on Aug 17, 2019 6:32:32 GMT -6
Beautiful late summer day here, although there is a chance of thunderstorms across the state. Hopefully, we'll out-drive them. Got a long drive, and a long day ahead of us. Taking BP to college.
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Post by Mini Mia on Aug 17, 2019 21:06:56 GMT -6
Stay safe.
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Post by stepper on Aug 18, 2019 21:05:13 GMT -6
First: how did things go and did LX show up to help? What are your initial thoughts? The weather guessers are saying that before the end of the week we should be in the beginnings of breaking the heat-high pressure and the temps will be getting lower. Mornings in the 80s to upper 70s and highs in the upper 90s (meaning 99 but at least it's not 100.) That also means there's a slight chance of rain.
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Post by Phalon on Aug 19, 2019 5:33:34 GMT -6
Initial thoughts: Whew!!! Move-in day is chaos, but all in all, it went pretty smoothly.
LX didn't come, but in a sense helped because first BP had to move out of their apartment before she moved out of here...and also if past experience counts, had that to offer. When she first went to college, she brought everything she thought she'd need and more; we had one car loaded and also the truck because she brought a giant futon we had, and her bike. BP fit everything into Hubs' car; she opted for a non-motorized scooter that folds up instead of a bike, and if she and her roommates need a futon, that'll come later. Not to mention she'll be home in a couple of weeks for Labor Day weekend, so can take whatever she might need that she didn't bring initially then.
BP has a lot more trepidation about going to college than LX did - different personalities: LX is very outgoing, and BP is a lot more reserved. There's also the boyfriend she's leaving behind - they are very serious, and I hope that doesn't become an issue while she's up there.
This week is a 4-day leadership camp for freshman before classes actually start next Monday. I talked to her Sunday morning, and she seemed way more relaxed and herself than she has been in a week. Her three room mates are "chill" so that's one load off her mind at least.
Worst possible timing though - a wire on her braces broke on Thursday; the orthodontist couldn't get her in that day, is closed on Fridays, but they could squeeze her in today. That means I've got a 10 hour driving day ahead of me - 2 1/2 hours to get her, then back down here to the orthodontist, then back up to college to drop her off, then back home. Ugh!!! Hoping I can call them first thing and they can change to Thursday - the leadership thing ends Wednesday night; I can pick her up then, she can drive herself from home to the ortho on Thursday, and I can drive her back to college after work. It'll be a whole lot easier on me to split the drive up into two days, not to mention she won't miss nearly a whole day of camp. Keeping fingers crossed - the orthodontist opens at 8am; I have to leave at 8:30 if the appointment can't be changed.
I know my brother will be glad for a break in the heat! He called yesterday; he's in Sweetwater, and the temperatures have been in the 100s since he's been there. They are in the welding phase of whatever they're doing, so he's had to wear a flame-retardant suit and face mask - he said by one-o'clock he's almost delirious from the heat. They have cooling trailers set up, but being new to this type of heat, he didn't know that he could take a 15 minute break whenever the heat got too much for him; he's used to only taking breaks during scheduled times. They've been working 10 hour days, from 5am to 3pm. He mentioned to the head contractor that even in Detroit, when the temperatures get above 90 degrees (maybe he said 100; I don't remember) they finish at noon, so on that suggestion they are going to switch to 3am to 1pm starting today to see how it goes.
I hope you get your rain! We had thunderstorms yesterday; ruined our plans but we needed the rain. LX and the Boyfriend wanted to take his grandma to show her the nursery - she's a huge gardener, and there's nothing like it down there - and then we were going to do hamburgers on the grill. We ended up postponing it until maybe Labor Day weekend, or after. (Hopefully, that'll give me a chance to get my own gardens in order - having a gardener see your gardens in as disarray as mine are now is like having an interior designer see that you've got a velvet Elvis as wall art!)
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Post by Phalon on Aug 20, 2019 5:04:44 GMT -6
Welp, I could not get BP's orthodontist appointment rescheduled yesterday. The drive wasn't as bad as I expected - I was dreading it actually because there's a ton of construction through Grand Rapids, and the last couple of times I went up that way, there were lengthy back-ups. Smooth sailing though, and the total time I was gone was a little shy of 11 hours. All that for a 20 minute appointment! And I've got to do the same thing in October for another appointment. I'll be so glad when she gets her braces off! (Not as much as she'll be glad, I'm sure.)
Very humid outside now - it's only 70 degrees, but already sticky. That's one thing my brother said about the heat in Texas - there's been no humidity. Humidity is so gross - the temperature is supposed to get up into the low 80s today, feel like it's in the 90s.
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Post by Mini Mia on Aug 20, 2019 13:48:44 GMT -6
95F, but feels like 107. I walked to the mailbox when it felt like 105 yesterday. Will drive instead today. Not even the umbrella could prevent me from being miserable. It’s usually good at keeping the scorching rays off of me, and catching the slightest breeze to swirl around me. None of that helped yesterday.
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Post by Phalon on Aug 21, 2019 5:07:10 GMT -6
Not as hot here as there, but we've got the same effect - the humidity made it miserable. By noon yesterday, I felt as if I was the Swamp Creature - all slimy and gross. And I wasn't even doing anything all that laborious - just grooming the spent daylilies, cutting off the spent scapes (stems after the flowers fade), and I was soaking wet with sweat. Bluck!
Late afternoon, the sky got really dark; thunder boomed over the lake. By the time I left work, there was enough rain that I had to turn on the windshield wipers intermittently for just a few miles outside of work. I don't know if it started raining harder there - we didn't get anything at home. Even though the rain missed us, the storm passing through seemed to take the humidity with it, and it was nice enough that Hubs and I took an evening stroll through the neighborhood - it was very pleasant weather to walk in actually, so different from earlier in the day, when it was so humid, standing still made you sweat.
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Post by Mini Mia on Aug 21, 2019 12:18:17 GMT -6
Can’t believe August is almost over. Just a few more weeks of this humidity. Sometimes September is as bad as August, for a couple of weeks, but the closer to October it gets, the weather starts roller coasting up and down. I’ve noticed the sun is setting earlier, and rising later. I’ll need to block the lost sunlight blues. It is what it is.
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Post by Phalon on Aug 22, 2019 5:11:13 GMT -6
Can't believe August is almost over either - it seems like it just started! Same thing with the entire summer, really - didn't it start a few weeks ago?!
Yesterday's weather was almost an exact repeat of the day before - very humid all day, until just about the time the work day was done; then the sky got very dark and thunder boomed. It started raining just as we were leaving, a bit more than the previous day, then really hard as I got closer to home. Not a drop once I got into town though, until about a half hour later, then it poured down fast and hard...for just about 5 minutes. Not as much as we needed, but enough to perk up the gardens.
We didn't go for our walk last night - it was still very humid after the rain; maybe even more so. Today though, the humidity is supposed to be gone, and the forecast for rest of the week through the weekend is predicting very pleasant weather.
Looking forward to it!
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Post by Mini Mia on Aug 22, 2019 11:20:59 GMT -6
The down side to Spring and Summer finally getting here is that the year is half over. Autumn and Winter seem to hang around longer. Guess it’s the long nights. It’s black outside, and the rain has started. Laters.
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Post by Phalon on Aug 23, 2019 5:26:13 GMT -6
Hope you didn't get hit too hard with the rain.
Glorious, glorious day here yesterday - the best kind ever to work outside at a garden center!
Looks like it might be a repeat today - it's only 53 degrees outside now!
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Post by moonglum on Aug 23, 2019 8:44:52 GMT -6
It's 28C and has been for the last 3 days. Our back garden is west facing so working on the back of the house is shaded up until about 1.30pm, then it's sweltering being up a ladder. I gave up at 2.00 and went to find a store with aircon. Vox caught me loitering in the chiller section.
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Post by Mini Mia on Aug 23, 2019 18:32:26 GMT -6
Hope you didn't get hit too hard with the rain.
Nope. It looked scarier than what we actually got.
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Post by moonglum on Aug 24, 2019 13:39:44 GMT -6
It hit a high of 31C today. The lean-to/porch is almost finished, just one more roofing sheet to be trimmed and fitted, then the guttering and it'll be done. Vox has ordered new garden furniture, arriving on thursday.
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Post by Phalon on Aug 25, 2019 7:23:19 GMT -6
When it's hot out, and I'm working in the gardens, I follow the shade. In spring and fall, it's the opposite - I work in the sunny spots until they turn shady. Unfortunately, this means that each area of the gardens gets only partly done at any one time!!!
Oooo, it sounds lovely. You'll have to post a photo when it's all complete.
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Post by Phalon on Aug 26, 2019 6:41:12 GMT -6
It's very cloudy, and looks like it might rain. The weather radar shows storms brewing over the lake right now; oftentimes they fizzle out before they reach shore though. We definitely could use some rain. When Hubs and I went on our evening walk yesterday, we noticed a lot of wilting in people's yards.
The kids swung by last night for just about an hour; we were cat-sitting the Hellions for the weekend while they and BP's boyfriend went up to spend the weekend at the college. Move-in weekend as always been a kind of festival there, with free food, concerts, and all kinds of activities (and parties, I'm sure), before classes start today. There are three Hellions now, one being a friend's cat who they took in temporarily. The friend is in the same boat they were in a year ago - just starting out as a "grown-up", trying to begin a career, and having a difficult time finding a place to live that he can afford that accepts pets. None of them are kittens anymore, so they aren't the Hellions they once were - all was pretty calm, actually. Until about 4am, when the hellishness in them seemed to spring to life, and they ran through the house, chasing each other up and down the stairs, and over the bed like a trio of wild banshees. Despite being startled awake by a beastie (or three) jumping across the bed, it was nice to have cats in the house again.
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Post by Phalon on Aug 28, 2019 5:09:55 GMT -6
We got a little rain the other day, plenty of sun, and pleasant temperatures. I feel though like I'm living in that old Guess Who song...
<breaks into song, out of key because she can't carry a tune worth a cr@p>
I got, got, got, got no time I got, got, got, got no time...
Later, Taters. Enjoy the day!
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Post by Mini Mia on Aug 31, 2019 20:20:57 GMT -6
I've noticed the crickets now and again. I haven't noticed them close to the house yet, but they seem to be louder. Crickets are my sign that Autumn is moving in. Plus, the nights are getting cooler ... which is what brings the crickets out of the fields and around/into my house. As much as I love to listen to them out in the fields, I hate them around and inside my house. It's their death warrant.
http://instagram.com/p/B11oRx8Ar2I
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Post by Phalon on Sept 2, 2019 7:57:19 GMT -6
Our temperatures are similar to yours - cool nights, and warm days, but maybe just about 10 degrees cooler for both nighttime and daytime. I love this kind of weather - sleeping with the windows open, (and hearing the crickets!), a jacket in the morning, and warm and sunny during the day, but not sweaty hot.
We got some rain too - about 1/2 inch Saturday night. There have been a lot of storms this past week, but they've been spotty, and all the rain has missed us. Even at work, it'll be a deluge just a mile away, and not a drop hits the nursery. Thursday night there were storms across the whole state. After work and a quick dinner at home, I drove up to the college to pick up BP for the weekend; she doesn't have classes on Fridays, and no classes today because of the Labor Day holiday. I drove through extremely heavy rain for the last 10 miles of highway driving, right before the last hour of the drive, which is all two lane roads. Got soaked getting out of the car at the gas station mini-mart where I always stop to get a cup of coffee for the last part of the drive; it was completely clear when I left the gas station.
We left the college sometime between 9pm and 9:30 - the sky was most amazing I have ever seen. Amazing and scary. It was dark, but the sky was completely lit by lightning. Huge, thick layers of clouds looked as if they were strung with strobe lights, flashing continuously, while the lightning strikes zig-zagged down toward earth. It was beautifully eerie. And we were driving right into it!
It continued like that for the entire 2 1/2 drive - always ahead of us; we never encountered not even a drop of rain.
We had a full house the entire weekend. LX and Boyfriend came in on Saturday while I was at work, the three Hellions in tow. BP's boyfriend, of course, was here since she was home. Friends of both girls too, were in and out all weekend. It was LX's birthday, and the big annual craft fair was this weekend, so we had lots to do.
Speaking of birthdays....thank you all who wished me a Happy Birthday on Facebook! It's not my birthday though. When I signed up for the account, I just picked a random date (it just happened to be LX's birthday), not realizing it would show up as public!
Speaking again of birthdays....Happy Belated Birthday, Joxie. I was good this year...sort of. The intent was there anyway...I looked up the date of your birthday in early August in the birthday thread, determined to get birthday wishes in on time for once. It came and went though, and I missed it again. Shoot, I can't even get my own birth date right, why do I think I can remember someone else's?
Hope it was a good one!
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Post by Mini Mia on Sept 2, 2019 12:27:41 GMT -6
I couldn’t remember you having a birthday in August. I even checked the August calendar here before sending you birthday wishes. Sent them anyways. There is a way to set it up so that only you see your birthday. I did that this year for all of my Facebook profiles. You should see ‘edit’ next to the info on your ‘about’ page.
I do love listening to crickets, when they’re distant. But when they move closer to the house when the weather cools, they’re too loud for me, and drive me nuts. I guess it’s because I have a sort of super hearing. I’ve always been able to hear things before other people can hear it, or they can’t hear it at all. I hear sirens before others do, and I’ve heard spraying water from burst pipes in a wall, and under a house. I can turn the TV all of the way down, and then turn it up one notch/degree and am able to hear it. I think it’s because I can’t see out of my right eye, and the doctors had my parents put a patch over my good eye to try and strengthen my bad eye. They would play games of hide and seek, and I always found them from their breathing and body shifting motions.
Mom told me the patch didn’t stop me from my daily activities. Just when she thought I was going to race straight into the wall or door, I’d stop abruptly. I’d even go outside and play like I could see. I don’t remember going outside, but I do remember playing hide and seek, and searching the house by sound. My sister’s giggles always gave her away. I loved using my hearing to find them. I love having such good hearing, I’ll miss it if I start to go deaf in my old age.
Happy Labor Day!
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Post by Phalon on Sept 4, 2019 5:17:18 GMT -6
I'll have to look again. I had checked earlier when I got the birthday wishes, but couldn't find an option on the edit page to set it to private.
What I heard the other night driving home from dropping off BP at college probably would have driven you nuts, with your hyper-sensitive hearing. You know that kind of continuous sound when it seems like a million crickets are chirping in unison? I was on the interstate, doing 80-something mph, with the radio blaring. I drive with the driver's side window down a few inches (which is partly why the radio is blaring - so I can hear over the wind). Over the wind rushing in through the window, and over the loud music, I could hear the crickets in the median - it sounded like a whirring buzz-saw. The noise was unmistakable as being crickets, but I thought there was no way I should be able to hear them from inside the car with all the other noise, especially since I was driving that fast. I even thought something might be wrong with the car, so I rolled up the window, turned down the radio, and listened - silence. I opened the window and switched to the right lane - nothing. Left lane again next to the median, window opened, radio off - deafening buzz-saw cricket noise. Turned up the radio, with the buzz-saw accompaniment to the music, and enjoyed the ride.
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Post by Mini Mia on Sept 4, 2019 22:26:41 GMT -6
Sounds like I wouldn't have enjoyed the ride. Or, I'd have had to put in the earplugs I keep in my purse. I've had to wear earplugs at night when I couldn't get to a cricket in the house. I could still hear the alarm clock go off in the morning.
I had a fright last night ... and it's back again tonight.
http://instagram.com/p/B1_FqbqA7N3
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Post by Phalon on Sept 7, 2019 5:24:36 GMT -6
Too funny, Joxie. I half-expected something to pop out screaming in those videos you post that "get me" almost every time. The other part of me was like I was watching a horror movie and talking to the actress on the screen. "WTF? Why would you go out there knowing there's something evil prowling the grounds, waiting to pounce."
Didn't expect a spider. We've got its twin sister on the back porch eave; the exact same kind of spider. We've also got a elegant - that's a perfect word for it - elegant and delicate spider in one of the gardens; it's black and green-bodied with white and black striped legs. There are so many different spiders at work, some of them are very beautiful - the big yellow, black, and white garden spiders, and the teeny iridescent mossy green ones fascinate me. None of them bother me, unless they're on me - I'm forever walking into spider webs!
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Post by stepper on Sept 8, 2019 13:37:57 GMT -6
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Post by stepper on Sept 8, 2019 13:46:29 GMT -6
Me too. The darn things keep putting up webs between the window and the side mirror on my truck - the side that happens to be in the dark when I'm headed to work. There's never a bug - just the web and I'm the only thing that gets caught up in it.
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Post by stepper on Sept 8, 2019 14:46:47 GMT -6
Crickets are my sign that Autumn is moving in. Plus, the nights are getting cooler ...
Here, you see trees shedding their bark - at least partly due to the heat and nearly complete lack of rain for a few months now. And, usually those same trees are dropping leaves - another sign that summer is about to move on since this seems to be a yearly cycle with them. (Peeling bark and dropping large leaves before other trees.) Unfortunately, cooler nights isn't a part of the forecast yet. Well, nights get down to the lower 80s so "cooler" is a technical description as opposed to what you'd expect when you say cooler. It's still on the warm side and humid when I head for work. No crickets screeching away yet but I noticed the cicadas have gotten quieter - I consider that a good thing. They make a lot of noise when they're active.
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