Gardening and Observing Life in SW Washington

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Ylee: Somehow, I just had you figured for being a responsible, caring dad with more than two wits to rub together. You just proved me right.

Shore: Happy? Yes. Romantic? Not so much. DH did ask if I wanted to go out to dinner. Discussion ensued. Turned out neither of us had the ambition to get cleaned up, change clothes, drive 15 miles to eat some steak that we could just as well have here in our grubby jeans. So, I made a salad, baked some spuds, and DH fired up the grill. Sometimes, simpler is just better in so many ways.

WTS: Thanks for the How-To. I think I see a fun winter project, just in time to catch some fall clearance sales for the pieces and parts. Hmmmm. Anybody who loves backyard birds and bird baths ought to go over to WTS's place and check out his bird bath collage in #14.

Sandi: Maybe I've been living under a rock, but I've never heard of the pinwheel/whirligig/windmill solution for moles before. As I discovered from the link in your comment, Northern Tool even has an industrial strength "mole chaser". The whirligig solution would sure be a lot easier than digging holes and setting traps.

I saw a new weather advisory on my WUhome page. I've never seen "Fire Weather Advisory" before, although the words are self-explanatory. The first paragraph of the advisory says:

... Fire Weather Watch in effect from Wednesday evening through Thursday evening for low relative humidity values combined with local east winds and a high Haines over the west slopes of the Cascades... eastern Olympics and portions of the interior lowlands...

I've also never seen the term "high Haines" before, so I looked it up and here's what I found:

In a 1988 paper, Mr. Donald Haines of the USDA Forest Service’s North Central Research Station proposed what he called the “Lower Atmosphere Stability Index.” Renamed the Haines Index in his honor since then, it has a value of 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 and is a simple measure of how strongly atmospheric conditions near the earth’s surface might contribute to an existing fire becoming a dangerous, erratic fire with a strong, well defined updraft. It reflects atmospheric stability and dryness for a layer of the atmosphere roughly 1 to 5 km above the surface.

Since this is a weather site, I figured it might be worthwhile to share my learning with WU.

So I'm not the only one who hasn't heard of a Haines index before. Maybe it's a weather.com thing making its way into WU.

Ylee: I love your new nighttime avatar! Of course, you knew I would. And yeah, I like win-win-win solutions best.

WTS: Yes, fire weather watches are not that common here. It takes an east wind and a long dry spell, which is not uncommon in western Washington (we had 0.04" of rain on July 27 and 0.13" on Sept. 10 with nothing in between). That's all we call it here is "east wind", but the same set of conditions is called "Santa Ana wind" in southern Cal, and I know you know what that means. The good news is this one won't last long. We started with blue skies this morning, but by evening, the skies were smoky gray-brown from eastern Washington fires as the upper level winds shifted. I see the Watch has been upgraded to a Warning, but as long as some idiot doesn't make a tool spark or toss a burning butt in the wrong place, we'll do just fine.

Somehow, I lost a couple of days. Hmmm. Wonder where they went? Oh yeah, a former client from San Diego that I never really knew very well is vacationing in Portland and decided to bring his girlfriend to visit us for an afternoon. So, day before visit: sweep the deck, clean the deck furniture, spiff up bathrooms, etc. Day of visit: smile, be friendly, try to think of something to talk about, buy them lunch, take them to a historical museum, smile, be friendly, breathe sigh of relief when they leave.

Sandi: Ah, you have "Indian Summer" too? Here, too. The afternoon highs are warmish, but evenings cool off quickly and have gotten as low as 34F, enough to kill my cucumber plant. We could use some rain here. It's been dry for a really long time, after such a miserable start to the summer.

WTS: Happily, surface winds didn't materialize here. For a day, the sky was so thick with high elevation smoke, there was hardly a shadow cast by the sun. It looked cloudy, except the "clouds" were the wrong color. As to squirrels, the cats are a pretty good deterrent. I have one cat who manages to catch a rabbit now and then, but they breed like, well, rabbits, so I don't think there is a solution to that problem.

GGrrl: Trailer park or not, some people love yard art. There's a woman down the road who has deer to keep her gnomes company. I wish she'd do pinwheels and flamingos instead of deer. Frankly, we have too many real deer munching on stuff for me to think they're cute. Hmmm. Pinwheels, gnomes, and toadstools might make a fun combination for my yard.

WTS: Lots of coyotes here, too. They put on quite a chorus every night with yips and howls, and I'd swear, laughter. It sure does sound like they're happy anyway. Because of the coyote population, and some big owls, our kitties have a curfew. They get locked in the house at night. Also, I've put cat doors not only into the house, but the garage, shop, and greenhouse, so they have bolt-holes handy when they are outside. So far, no cats lost to coyotes in the 9 years I've been here.

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Just about time for a new blog, if only I can come up with a topic. In the mean time, since the week is pretty much lost, I might as well head for Longview and see if I can find some clothes loose enough for Tai Chi and nice enough for me to not mind being seen in public. I don't want much, do I?

Ylee: Yeah, that's me. I gave good customer service. Still do, just out of habit. I just can't help myself, and really, that's not a bad thing. I do have my limits though: I served watermelon cubes and beverages, but did no cooking. Afterwards, I do reserve the right to grumble to WUfriends and feel mentally wiped out. >&-}

Poppy: I know you do!

GGrrl: Nesting is best. We have Saturday game nights, but the gamesters don't expect anything special -- just a table and some chairs and maybe some coffee -- and they bring munchies. When relatives from out of town come to visit, we'll rent them a nice motel room, if for no other reason than I don't look or feel as good first thing in the morning as I did 30+ years ago. ;-)

SP: So your experiment was a success of sorts. Rubbery texture for garlic wouldn't make a noticeable difference to pesto, or soups and stews either. And my shopping excursion paid off.

Fun video. Truly a bird's eye view.

I did find some suitable geezer exercise pants: straight leg, stretchy, somewhat loose, no racing stripes. One pair in navy, one in charcoal gray. Not what I would pick to wear to town, but neither will I be embarrassed to pop into the grocery store while wearing them. First class is Sept. 24.