jack frost

[songbird]

we've had a few light frosts up until now, but the weather was trending well above average.

this week we'll be below average and have some

30F forecasts for a few nights with chances of rain.

nice day out there now, time to get back out and dig, but first i have to do the fall crawl under the house to close up the vents. other- wise we're heating the outside each time the furnace kicks on.

i hope folks in Aussieland NSW are being careful and keeping safe.

songbird

[The Cook]

Jack Frost is due here later in the week so I went out and pretty well stripped the peppers ( bell, Poblano and jalapeno) and the eggplant. My large colander is full and I brought in an armful of bells. Time to start looking for people to share with.

Got to get the citrus trees transplanted into larger pots and put them in the greenhouse. I have a Meyer lemon, Key lime (from Florida) and a Mexican lime. They all have fruit on them, so they need to finish ripening.

[Farm1]

We went to the coast for a few days in one of my husband's geriatric British sports cars to look at a number of open gardens. Before we went, the weather forecast for one morning was for 'possible frost'.

I covered my emerging Dahlia bulbs and although they came through and had no damage, the rest of the garden looks like someone has been through with a dark brown paintbrush on all the new emerging grown. Even our oak trees have lost all their leaves.

I'm spending the day waiting for a piece of ironwork 'sculpture' to be delivered that I bought down the coast. :-))

Thank you Bird. I've been wondering if David is OK as he's closer to fires than I am from what I can see on our rfs fire map.

We do have a strong smell of smoke at night here so the wind is spreading the smoke around all over the place.

[David Hare-Scott]

A big lump of rusty barb wire in the shape of Tyranosaurus Rex?

We have not had any dangerous fires nearby but much smoke. Several days of the last two weeks we have been house-bound due to smoke. Thankfully the local firebugs have not been too active except down at Heatherbrae where an

11 YO boy has been charged (and refused bail!!!) with lighting two fires that caused extensive property damage.

The big risk is at the Blue Mountains where the decadal wailing and gnashing of teeth is going on over the levels of fuel around. The country is so rough that you cannot get in to get control, so when the fires are in the valleys they wait on the ridges to defend houses in case of a wind change. The possibility that building (and in some cases re-building) villages in forests at the head of deep valleys full of trees that have been burning regularly for millennia might instead be the source of the problem does not seem to have crossed their minds. Those who stand in the way of those firestorms despite the risk and the low chance of success deserve our support, those who make such stupid planning decisions that it is necessary do not.

D

[Farm1]

Nah. An apple made out of horseshoes.

Well that's good news.

I read a blog of someone who, as far as I can make out, is north of Sydney, Hunterish way 9he makes homemade wine and cheese and lives where that nasty ground creeping grass that get's into everything [buffalo?] grows) and he's been posting about his emergency arrangements including a fire 'safe' area which looks very unsafe to me.

[echinosum]

There's the difference between being on the E side of an ocean and the W side of an ocean. I'm off to the Costa Blanca in Spain at the weekend, which at 38 deg N is about the same latitude as the northern border of NC, and a frost there is out of the question at this time of year, even up in the hills. By the coast, the temperature hasn't really fallen below 20C (68F) at night there yet.

Here, well inland in southern England at around 52 deg N we haven't had anything near a frost yet either, though this is far less assured than in Spain. Indeed there's still no sign on one arriving, so I reckon we'll get through the month frost-free. I've left my ripening chillis and grapes on the plants so far. Since the last few days have been around 16C, and barely any lower at night, they have been continuing to ripen. Of course we can have a frost in October in S England, and this year October is probably going to rate as unusually warm for the month when we see the final statistics. About 4 years ago we had a fair snowfall in October, the only time I've seen it in my life.

[Steve Peek]

Here in the Western N. Carolina mountains tonight is the night. There is a freeze warning for the entire western portion of the state. Tomorrow night will be even colder with a chance of snow. It seems winter has arrived earl y. The sweet potatoes were dug last week and I'm off to the garden to check for any more edibles, especially the chilies.

[Ecnerwal]

It's pretty much the same night (or perhaps one night earlier - it was a bit brisk this morning, and I haven't looked under the covers to see if things died despite them) ~650 miles North-NorthEast in New England.

[songbird]

we've taken some hard frost hits here lately, and even a bit of s.n.o.w. at times when i've been out or yesterday when we ran into town to run a few errands and get a bite to eat. looks like the peas survived. that and turnips are about all out there that is left and edible. just a few beans left to pick and i'll call it quits for the season. if it is an inside day tomorrow i'll be sorting beans and Ma will be making more apple sauce.

we have quite a few incandescent lights here in track lighting that get used just a few times a year, so i've not bothered to replace them. they do have warm light CFLs. some year it will make sense for me to replace them, but until then they collect dust more than anything.

songbird

[songbird]

hmm... :)

yes, i'm glad to hear that you folks are ok. the pictures i saw on the news the other night were pretty scary looking. sure would not want to be in the path of those fires.

naturally smoked cheese. on sale, estate liquidation, oops. sorry, bad humor. good luck to everyone.

songbird