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

On Sun, 20 Oct 2013 12:02:16 -0400, songbird
wrote:

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

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.
--
USA
North Carolina Foothills
USDA Zone 7a
To find your extension office
http://www.csrees.usda.gov/Extension/index.html

"songbird" wrote in message

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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


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

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.

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

"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
...

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

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

Nah. An apple made out of horseshoes.

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

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.

We have not had any dangerous fires nearby but much smoke.

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.

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.

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 early. The sweet potatoes were dug last week and I'm off to the garden to check for any more edibles, especially the chilies.

In article ,
Steve Peek wrote:

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 early.
The sweet potatoes were dug last week and I'm off to the garden to check for
any more edibles, especially the chilies.

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.

--
Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by
Please don't feed the trolls. Killfile and ignore them so they will go away.

Derald wrote:
songbird wrote:

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

No frost here, yet. So far, we're well within the norm for this
time of year. Days are still in mid-80s but nights are cooling
somewhat. Some years, we have light frost by U.S. Thanksgiving but as a
practical matter, I don't expect any before January or even February.
However, that doesn't mean overnight lows won't get unpleasant for
eggplant, summer squash, peppers, basil and the like.

Eggplant have just about had it; yellow squash and cukes are coming
on nicely; jalapeño peppers abundant. Latest harvest recently was a
bumper crop of shield bug nymphs on the peppers. Now, I'll be able to
pretend to have reduced their number somewhat next summer ;-)

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.


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.

My fall ritual is replacing the CFLs with incandescents. DW
prefers the "warmer" color and we use them to moderate interior temps in
the hovel early in the season. However, the increasing expense of
electric power may induce me to start using wood a bit sooner than in
past years.

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.


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

I'm wondering whether any r.g.e denizens are at risk from the bush
fires that are making the U.S. news. 'Spose I could simply ask, eh?

yea...


songbird

Farm1 wrote:
David Hare-Scott wrote:

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

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

Nah. An apple made out of horseshoes.

hmm...


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

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.

We have not had any dangerous fires nearby but much smoke.

Well that's good news.

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.


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.

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


songbird