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Blastfurnace 2023


Storm the Field

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I'm glad you feel 95 and dry is pleasant.  Again, sometimes nature ain't always about us.  This hot and this dry in late October is beyond fucked up.  It's okay to say, "It's better than August but it's very likely we're all going to die..."  I'm really sure all the dead animals in my creekbed are thinking, "Hey, I'm glad Lobo and his interwebs friends feel like it's not as bad as it was a month ago..."

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Let's not pretend like 95 with as dry as it is and as much as the sun up is uncomfortable or anything. We just did 2 months of 105.
Is it not a good sign for the future? Yes. But hi 95 lo 60-65 with as much daylight as we have is honestly pretty pleasant. 
Yeah this is worse. It's so dry right now and my allergies are murdering me. 

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After a lengthy stretch of really nice days dating back to last Friday, Houston's got some rather "yucky" weather on tap.

Unseasonably hot, dry and sunny today and tomorrow, then clouds, humidity/rain and high in the mid-80's/lows in the mid-70's through next Saturday. 

Might be another ~10 days until our next dry day with a high below 80 and a low below 70.

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On 10/18/2023 at 5:49 PM, YGIFS said:

A man from Andorra 

Andorra sounds like one of those fabricated micro-countries they come up with on the Hallmark Channel crap my wife watches.  Between that and her murder shows, I pretty much spend my time in my office drinking heavily.

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I’m taking out two of my last three loquat trees this weekend.  All they’re doing at this point is just dead limbs/leaves preventing more rainfall from hitting my grass.  
 

one could be replanted and bloom again if you don’t have a neighbor who doesn’t prune his taller shit overhanging mine.  I’ve got it dug out to the lateral and oblique roots and there’s no root rot.  It’d fit in any pickup bed if somebody wants to give it a home.  Kids like making preserves/jam out of the fruit and it’s pretty when it’s healthy and blooming.  The other one is on the north side and completely done for. Gonna take me an hour to get the whole thing out safely and cutup for haul.  
 

and using a seaweed/seagrass concentration to keep one of my Monterrey oaks on life support until more rain comes.  Soaker hose and gentle pruning as high as I can safely get (Panama red) are all that’s keeping it okay.  I gotta keep it from comatose because first deep freeze, that thing may be done for.  It asked me for an autumn.  Yesterday was best I could do.  

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6 hours ago, YGIFS said:

I’m taking out two of my last three loquat trees this weekend.  All they’re doing at this point is just dead limbs/leaves preventing more rainfall from hitting my grass.  
 

Yeah I took one out a year ago. It never was the same after the winter storm. It's a shame too.

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Yeah, it was a one-two punch.  the freeze earlier this year and then this shittastic summer/autumn.  We're straying way too far from historic ranges and pretending A/C and sprinkler systems are gonna save our trees somehow.  I got the one in the back (south) on life support.  It could survive somewhere else but I don't anywhere else to put it where it'd get sufficient light and rainfall.  The one on the north used to be the most robust of all of mine, but it's just waiting to fall into the house/on top of our A/C units.  Biggest one in the East-facing side of the house is doing okay, not great.  Lots of dead limbs but some decent bloom in some areas and still gaining height where I gotta get up on the roof and cut it back off the house.   

One of my few good memories of quarantine was oldest made a sign that we stuck in the ground that said "No ladders taller than this height."  And neighbor kids and even folks from next door would bring over a step ladder or even back up a truck under the tree.  And they could pick however much they could reach to make preserves, jams, even salsa, etc.  And the girls would watch from one of the front/side windows and wave to the kids and make faces at one another.  And the tree just exploded with fruit that particular April which was a blessing.  And every few days, somebody'd leave the girls 1 or 2 jars out front with a little thank-you note.  It did well Spring of 2021  as well but the last two years of extreme weather are just slowly killing all the flora/arbor.  The same people that told me to give my kids ivermectin during that crisis are also telling me now that this is just a natural cycle not to be given a second thought.  Fruit-bearing trees don't care about the last century or the next one, like us...they only care about this one.  

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17 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Andorra sounds like one of those fabricated micro-countries they come up with on the Hallmark Channel crap my wife watches.  Between that and her murder shows, I pretty much spend my time in my office drinking heavily.

I am a stupid person who doesn't know how to embed videos, but there is a perfect Onion video for this.

https://www.theonion.com/nation-of-andorra-not-in-africa-shocked-u-s-state-dep-1819594692

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1 hour ago, Blotto said:

I'd be curious how many days this year were at least 10 degrees over the historical average. Got to be a large number. 

that's a good question.  And surprisingly hard to find the answer to given the robust data easily available on the interwebs.  But this has to be a Top 5'er.  The top 25 has to be overwhelmingly represented by the last 15-20 years outta the last 150.  Again, this wouldn't be that bad if we had some modicum of normal october rainfall (our third best month for precip).  This week doesn't follow through, AND THEN SOME, the flora and fauna are turbo-fucked for Winter.  

Also, the opening to a conversation with, "With regard to this weather, as a hunter, let me tell you..." is quickly becoming the ignorant, under-educated fucking equivalent of, "With regard to current events, as a student of the constitution, let me tell you..."  Took me until mid-life to at least appreciate that stupid people at least have the decency to announce themselves ahead of time.  Used to take days, even entire marriages, before you got that shit sorted out...

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Also, the opening to a conversation with, "With regard to this weather, as a hunter, let me tell you..." is quickly becoming the ignorant, under-educated fucking equivalent of, "With regard to current events, as a student of the constitution, let me tell you..."  Took me until mid-life to at least appreciate that stupid people at least have the decency to announce themselves ahead of time.  Used to take days, even entire marriages, before you got that shit sorted out...

I dunno…I’ve hunted and fished texas for nearly 50 years, and as a hunter and fisherman….I can tell you that things are fucked.
I now catch fish on the upper coast (snook and mangroves) that were only found in S Texas when I was a kid.
Ducks and geese arrive from the north later, and head home sooner.
And plenty of other shit from a half century of observation that has flat-out changed. As an outdoorsman, we’re some of the folks MOST attuned to the fact that shit has changed…which makes it even more baffling when an outdoorsman says otherwise.
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I agree.  I am baffled by so many avid "outdoorsmen" trying their damndest to pretend that nothing else is going on right now, just a temporary cycle of bad luck.  Shit is fucked up out there.  

I spent a long while this afternoon taking out a few more trees in addition to my loquats.  After some heaving hand pruning, I think I can still save one of the two I thought were done for---we'll see.  But there's a mountain laurel out front that we just love when it's blooming.  But I had to take out one side awhile back for cracking and rot.  So I tied off the sister trunk.  Had to fish or cut bait on it between this bullshit heat and what could be our first freeze in a month.  Sure as shit, thing cracked with barely a nudge.  So as not to shock it, spent 90 minutes hand-cutting it off and taking out the corresponding roots in case the one good side decides to come back.  It was like fucking confetti on the inside.  Just turned to dust on a dime.  The compression between end of summer and start of Winter used to be a joke with us, but now it's so fucking disturbing.  I had to once again remind my new neighbor from Los Angeles that their 30' magnolia is done for and they should take it out before it falls on their driveway.  I like him a lot, but at some point I'm gonna have to offer to help him cut it down because it could hurt somebody and he can't wait on some crew to leave a door hanger on his porch.  This thing was absolutely fireworks-level beautiful with pop and aroma for 15 years.  They were gone for the summer and I tried to do some soaker hosing and seagrass supplements, even some mulch to retain the one fucking rain we got during August.  But to no avail.  He thinks it's just part of living in Texas.  I gotta tell him, "There's living in Austin and trees willowing in the heat, and then there's what's coming next for us.  And it ain't pretty..."  

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16 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I dunno…I’ve hunted and fished texas for nearly 50 years, and as a hunter and fisherman….I can tell you that things are fucked.
I now catch fish on the upper coast (snook and mangroves) that were only found in S Texas when I was a kid.

Even over the last nearly 10 years of taking my kid fishing up and down Shoal Creek, I've seen plenty of changes (and that was before the water main break earlier this year killed a shitload of the fish).  The droughts are playing a huge part, but there's just a lot going on - I rarely see bass anymore, and it's been a few years since we saw a decent bluegill spawning bed - normally we have a few places where there are always bluegill during their spawn, doing their little circle nests things, but not anymore (I'm hoping they are still somewhere on the creek).

But that's a very small sampling size - fishing elsewhere, it's just been "off", which I know is a very scientific term to be using.

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1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:


I dunno…I’ve hunted and fished texas for nearly 50 years, and as a hunter and fisherman….I can tell you that things are fucked.
I now catch fish on the upper coast (snook and mangroves) that were only found in S Texas when I was a kid.
Ducks and geese arrive from the north later, and head home sooner.
And plenty of other shit from a half century of observation that has flat-out changed. As an outdoorsman, we’re some of the folks MOST attuned to the fact that shit has changed…which makes it even more baffling when an outdoorsman says otherwise.

The stories I hear…. Though this past Saturday I saw more red tails and happy fish than I’ve seen in a long time. I don’t think it means it’s all ok but they were certainly thrilled to have nice manageable water temps finally.  The heat and being near the wildlife makes me really sad.

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7 hours ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Fuck it, I'm done fighting this shit.  If the weather's going to be stupid, I'm telling myself it's April and going to knock back a pitcher or two of margaritas on the patio as part of my Astros pre-game.

November and December were downright brilliant last year. Not what they are supposed to be but there’s not a lot we can do so when it’s nice enjoy it.

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FWIW, some models are bringing in colder air than the initial runs. It has many across Texas with highs in the 50’s for Halloween. We are within the time frame when the models usually “lose” the cold so I would expect to see some inconsistency until Thursday or so. At any rate, it’s going to cool down significantly by the end of this next weekend.

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FWIW, some models are bringing in colder air than the initial runs. It has many across Texas with highs in the 50’s for Halloween. We are within the time frame when the models usually “lose” the cold so I would expect to see some inconsistency until Thursday or so. At any rate, it’s going to cool down significantly by the end of this next weekend.

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On 10/23/2023 at 6:49 AM, Hate said:

FWIW, some models are bringing in colder air than the initial runs. It has many across Texas with highs in the 50’s for Halloween. We are within the time frame when the models usually “lose” the cold so I would expect to see some inconsistency until Thursday or so. At any rate, it’s going to cool down significantly by the end of this next weekend.

 

On 10/23/2023 at 6:49 AM, Hate said:

FWIW, some models are bringing in colder air than the initial runs. It has many across Texas with highs in the 50’s for Halloween. We are within the time frame when the models usually “lose” the cold so I would expect to see some inconsistency until Thursday or so. At any rate, it’s going to cool down significantly by the end of this next weekend.

Clearly you're excited about this.

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Hate should host a weather channel show that's like the opposite of Frankie.  It's him on his back porch drinking whiskey, then he shows a precip. map of Texas, cues up the Dead's "Looks like Rain", takes a massive bong rip, and says, "Welcome to the Grateful Rain Hour..."

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Hate should host a weather channel show that's like the opposite of Frankie.  It's him on his back porch drinking whiskey, then he shows a precip. map of Texas, cues up the Dead's "Looks like Rain", takes a massive bong rip, and says, "Welcome to the Grateful Rain Hour..."

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