Once upon a time on usenet David Hare-Scott wrote:
David Hare-Scott wrote:
John McGaw wrote:
On 4/20/2015 6:53 PM, David Hare-Scott wrote:
I am just about to plant my winter seedlings, mostly brassicas.

That will have to wait for a while since we had 90mm (3 1/2 in) of
rain over night. There has been much more nearer the coast, over
200mm (8in) at one place. The river is up about 12m (40ft) and the
outflow of my dam is running backwards, that is the dam is filling
(well over-filling) from the river. The soil will be rather too wet
for a few days at least. I will not be going anywhere today as the
road will be cut. How
long that remains depends on how much more rain falls today.

Breaking news! A bunch of campers were marooned on the roof of
buildings at the showground of a town near here and two were
missing for a while but appear to have been found. Details are
dodgy.

The rain has stopped now but the water has risen another 2 m (6ft),
part of my irrigation that I thought was safe has gone. Mybe i will
find it hung on a fence downstream, maybe not.

The river is nearly back in its bank at my place and I can get out
now, it probably peaked at about 16m (50ft). This sounds dangerous
but it is not a problem here as i didn't build on the flood plain and
I don't have big trees near the house.

It was much worse in some places, up to 400mm (16in) fell. And some
old towns are built on the floof plain. Whole houses went down the
street and people died in a town 40km away. Hundreds of homes were
damaged and many thousands are without power due to falling trees
nearby (some people never learn) and roofs being ripped off by wind.

At the camping ground enough water went through to have people
swimming for their lives and at risk of being taken, apparently they
all survived. One building was moved from one side of the rodeo area
to the other.
It isn't over yet on the weather radar I have two storms converging
on me, never seen that before. The cabbages are on hold.

The tail end of that's been hitting my place for two days now.

My biggest problem when there's lots and lots of rain is all of that water
leeching the goodness out of the containers I grow dwarf fruit trees in. I
try to get out between the worst of it and suck the water out of the
'saucers' and put it into a barrel. I use a 250ml 'syringe' that is branded
'Masport' was sold for removing oil from a lawnmower engine (and is no loger
available new) to do the job. However it's plunger isn't completely
water-tight (designed to work in oil) so would love ideas on what else I
could use - preferably 500ml or more per 'suck' but I'll consider anything.

It gets frustrating when there's a big downpour not long after I've
fertilised the trees. On my budget the fertiliser's expensive so to think of
it getting washed straight through the potting media is like throwing money
away.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a
cozy little classification in the DSM."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)