Here in Harris Cty, TX it is alarming if we get a freeze before November and, sometimes, December, and, the occasional, "where the heck did winter go?" We're getting a few mornings with 63F and by noon it's over
90F. I don't miss cold weather but it does kill a few bugs when it comes in. We're getting more mosquitoes than usual for this time of year and we still have mosquito hawks thank goodness.
I lived for a short while in Virginia, Maryland, and Rhode Island as a young sailor so I don't really care for: A: snow, B: ice storms, C: cold north winds, going into the far Arctic seas aboard an old WWII destroyer with only the boilers for heat. It would help kill skeeters, etc. if we got at least a short frost.
At our age, I don't think we can tolerate as much cold and heat as we did when younger. Warm climate is better but you need AC. We seldom get 90 degree days but at start of summer when my AC would not come on I got a backup portable AC and with power losses I have a backup generator.
I don't like snow much either but at least don't have to shovel it every week. I remember my first trip to southern California watching my brother in law cut grass in January.
Speaking of mosquitoes, I hear they are the state bird in Alaska. Who would have thought that?
I had a coworker from Maine who got transferred to one of our plants on the Gulf and hated it. Said he just ran from AC in house to AC in car to AC at work. Twice a year they left the house to the exterminator to get all the bugs.
When we were hit in Houston with hurricanes, heavy flooding, etc. I was happy, live just a few miles from The Woodlands and, as usual, I bought on high ground, have done that since we were married in 1960. Here in this subdivision we never lost electricity, a little high winds and 60 inches of rain, we never flooded either, and, as soon as the rain stopped for a bit, the retention pond behind our home emptied out quickly. So far, so good, we shall see when the next storms come by.
I was eighteen years old when I first saw snow, almost got in trouble because an Admiral was walking by and saw me playing in the snow instead of checking into my squadron. At least he was a nice guy. My wife just finished mowing the small lawn we have. The mower runs faster than I can walk nowadays so I cook, clean house and wash clothes. Sort of a turn about but we both like it. We will only stop mowing every two weeks if we get a cold snap, otherwise, cut the grass, toss in the composter, do it again in a couple of weeks. Our spring and fall gardens are the same, still producing.
I spent a few days in Alaska once, guy told me the skeeters carried his wife off, thank goodness.
I know very few people who don't have AC in house and car and also have fans in the house. If it gets higher than 100F in the house you bring in more fans and crank up the AC. I just moved ours to 76F, was at 80F, and I was baking bacon for my wife. Then when she needs bacon she just heats it up. She loves the bacon on anything. Six lbs of top bacon is now precooked and in the freezer. Saves time when you want it and takes time for it to get that way. Cooking bacon makes the dog dance too but she gets very little of it. That all being said, I grew up in the forties and fifties in homes without AC. Came home from boot camp and my folks had AC. Asked why, Dad said after you left we had enough money for the AC, as if I ate that much. He was sort of shocked anyway, I left home at 5'6", weighed 160, came home at 5'8" and weighed 145. Only got fat again when I married in 1960, now I'm hanging around 206 and am at
5'6" again. Doc says it's because of the couple of vertebrae, one missing, the other squashed. I think it's old age myself.
I think we're going to have a late fall this year what with all the strange weather, two hurricanes, etc. I'm sure glad I don't live in Houston, it's not called the "Bayou City" for nothing, I don't understand people who want to build homes on water and then gripe when it gets washed away, particularly this close to the Gulf of Mexico.
Shoot, I was in my twenties. "A" school in Bainbridge, '68-9; retiring USS Boston in Beantown, '69-'70. Winter in places like that is number two on my Never Again list. Not even for money. Lived in the Tampa Bay area of FL most of my life; snowed there once in my lifetime (so far). Now a few miles north of Bay Area, in a place where it's still comfortably hot and humid much of the year. Had AC once in 1967 when first wife and I moved into one of those hive-like apartment buildings with no ventilation. None since, though. So far, have removed AC from every motor vehicle I've owned. Can be difficult to find a drive belt to fit, though. Pet peeves are the disappearance of so-called "wing" vents on car windows and engine auxiliary mounting brackets designed to support more than one device?getting junk out of the way leaves unnecessary junk in place.
I can't keep the weight off either and have also shrunk an inch. I thought a doctor, pulmonologist, cheated me weighing me with my shoes on but measuring me with my shoes off. Have a new family doctor I have yet to meet but this month have an appointment with an AMD specialist, dentist and cardiologist. At our age, going to the doctor and having tests run are our social life.
My brother lives in lower Delaware three miles from the ocean but wants to move inland because of the hustle and bustle in summer. Think he is safe from being washed away.
The joke going around in Puerto Rico is that they believe after the visits of hurricanes, Jose and Maria, they are due for a visit by the baby Jesus. (Most should know this but Jose and Maria are Spanish for Joseph and Mary). My Puerto Rican neighbor told me this. He likes living off the island out of the hurricane path and prefers cold weather. Unfortunately they are moving to Flagstaff and he might not like the 5+ feet of snow they get in the winter.
The destroyer I was on hit Puerto Rico about every other month, was a good port to visit but way to many crooks and other stuff. I used to go at least once to a little cafe just off the docks, made me think of the Mexican cafe's back home and the food was good. I smoked back then but didn't drink, the owner told me I had to go outside to smoke because it made his food taste bad. I believed him too. Used to suck up a carton of cigarettes every other day when I was sucking them up hard. My wife said one day that every time she kissed me it was like smoking, which she never did. That was in 1992 and I quit forever that day and never even wanted another smoke. One grandson smokes but never in his house or anyone else s house. May quit one day I hope. Never was much on booze of any kind or any of those strange cigarettes either.
sure is, and with recent rains not much is getting done outside that i'd want to finish. i hate being stuck inside even if i have plenty to do.
family things have taken away the three nicest days this week. i got one day in on the project. that's it. grrr! :)
the hole i'm moving around as i excavate and renovate had standing water at the bottom of it the other day. which is a large change from solid clay/sand i could break a finger trying to poke a hole in. rained again last night and is due for the weekend. they've even got us under flood watch. from drought to flood forecast. 3 inches of rain will put the project on hold again for some days. at least all this rain does settle all that dirt i've moved.
at least i did get out yesterday and tried to find the last of the dry beans that were ready to pick before they start rotting. the lima beans are growing/flowering again. i'm still hoping for another two weeks of frost free weather. 39F is the lowest night forecast for the next week (so far) for Sunday night. low 40s here or there. hopefully that won't shut down the limas. we'll see. they are the only thing producing now unless i want green peppers. i don't. i have jars of roasted red peppers i'm finishing off eating.
yes, the critters gotta eat. deer found a radish edible. knocked over the other one that was flowering and making seeds. didn't eat it though. they've sampled some of the ground cover i planted last year and left it laying on the ground nearby. so perhaps that deer won't bother it again. get that times a few dozen deer and the plant will be challenged. we'll see. we bought more poles to fix the back fence where they are coming through and put up the front fence to keep them from the small cedar trees we transplanted. so that means less grass to mow out front. yay! ;) but it also meant losing another day hauling wood chips (found a local source for $8/yd - which is much cheaper than $3/bag and the hassle of moving them and all that plastic baggage). the guy will scoop 'em right into the back end of the pickup truck in one shot.
well anyways, hope the critter doesn't raid everything. we had something eating the beets and the potatoes. not the greens, but the roots. i am guessing the groundhogs, no footprint evidence though, they seem rather smart in that regards. ha...
so i'm awake early, what's for breakfast? :)
p.s. we've not had the heat on yet, but last week we almost turned on the AC (which would probably be a first for Oct).
Send some over here, after two hurricanes and 60 inches of rain a while back we haven't had much rain lately.
I would gladly give you some of our 91F days here in October for low 40s with some rain.
I would gladly send you some Houston area heat if we could round it up and point it. Fall garden is mostly in, wife takes care of that nowadays and I get to pick the kumquats, they're starting to turn orange and I need more kumquat jelly and preserves.
George, who can't sleep in, probably because I worked shift work for sixteen years a long time ago. Nowadays my best friends are costly doctors, I didn't intend to live this long.
this is finally restoring the balance here, but if i were to send it anywhere it would be to California to put out the fires.
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no thanks! we've had enough of those already. two more weeks of frost-free weather would be nice.
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i've never had one, never tasted jelly or preserves. wouldn't know what they even looked like other than you just said orange.
i'd like to sleep in until a bit later in the morning now that it is dark enough out, but i seem to have turned into a morning person by accident. in the older days i'd more likely see morning by being up all night. now i try to get to sleep by midnight or thereabouts.
at least i did get the truck moved and the tiles out of the ditch before they could get washed into the bigger ditch.
wasn't raining for a while, but the drippy- drops are back.
I quit smoking in the late 60's. I met Prof. Louis Fieser who was on the surgeon generals committee that said smoking causes cancer. In the
20 minutes I spoke with him, he smoked 4 Lark cigarettes. He thought the charcoal filter would protect him. He got lung cancer that same year, 1965, but did not die until 12 years later at age we are at now. Don't know if he quit smoking after his surgery.
They thought I had lung cancer 18 years ago but it was lesions caused by a pulmonary embolism which was later removed. Got the zipper for that surgery and scars from the exploratory lung surgery prior.
Lungs checked out again this year when they looked at them because of a cough I developed. Damn cough was due to lisinopril blood pressure med and went away with new med. I still went under exhaustive evaluations with a couple of CT scans and a pulmonary function test. I was completely cleared of any problems with lungs.
With the governor they have I would prefer the state become it's own country and leave the real Americans alone. I had relatives out there but they all moved away as the left wing took over.
The fruit starts blooming early on and the fruit is ready to pick in the fall when it turns a deep orange. I'm the only one in the family that will eat them raw as they are quiet tangy, mostly do other things with them. I worry about this crop as they tree shed it's fruit in January
2017 due to heavy freezes back to back. Just hope they get ripe this time.
The dog let me sleep until 0615 this morning and I was grateful enough to go ahead and feed her. She gets 1/3 of a cup of dog food each day and she is positive I am starving her to death. Dogs will literally eat until they fall over if allowed. I eat three small meals a day and still have a pot belly. My pot belly is smaller than my wife's, she claims it's bloat but, if you watched her eat you could see where the belly comes from. She claims it's our big babies, yeah, one was 7lbs, 7 oz. the other was 8 lbs, 8 oz. Now both the kids are in middle fifties and weigh more than I do at 207. Both have good jobs and families and don't bug us much so I'm happy. I left home at 17 to go in the Navy and my kids got free rides to college, etc. so we moved overseas so they wouldn't come over so much.
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