This has been the hottest, driest, windiest, AND coldest spring I can recall. We lost all of our fruit crop, including grapes and apples. Friends in town where there is plenty of thermal inertia due to all the pavement have abundant crops. But we had several late hard freezes (like, mid-May) that wiped everything out. That was at night. During the day it's been hot and as low as 1% humidity. Anyone in the market for leathery greens? I didn't think so. And the wind has been incessant. Sure, Spring is known to be windy around here but not THIS windy and not THIS long. Today we had gusts of 40mph.
One day a few weeks ago I got so sick of the wind I went out with my camera to complain photographically:
The poor chickens are out in it all day. The little guys must think that Life is Windy for that's all they've ever known.
Stuff routinely gets picked up and blown around the farm. Also knocked down.
Here's a piece of floating row cover that is now about 15 feet up in a tree.
Oh yeah, the wind did stop for a moment this Spring. Here's what we got instead:
Yeah, I'm probably exaggerating a little, and I do know that many areas of the world are experiencing crazy weather patterns right now. At least we're not flooding or having tornadoes (well there was a tornado warning but nothing came of it). But man that wind just blows the life right out of you, and you come inside looking and feeling like this:
5 comments:
I'm soooo laughin right now AND I'm just up the road. I know, the winds been crazy but our house is kind of 'down in here' so it hasn't been too bad. If it's any consolation, you can have some of our apples and grapes. Lordy knows we've got enough grapes to feed the whole darn tribe!
Laughin as I'm saying good-bye.
Jim and I still remember the spring winds out there. It was like someone else moved in with us for a few months, it's presence was so pervasive, and then all of a sudden was just gone.
Wow, sounds like a very challenging season. That so sucks about the fruits. A tornado touched down where we used to live in Southern Maryland last week, and we've had a few watches out here with one a couple counties over.
We've been wet, but not too wet, and I'm quite pleased to have the water going into the dry season. We had a heat wave this past week, and I lost three of our broilers, which sucked, but everyone else made it through okay. It was 75% humidity in our house last week. Too bad we can't trade some.
we have a humidity-reader in the greenhouse, and it has, around the edge of the actual percentage reading, notes that say "very dry, dry," "normal," and "humid." it's been on "very dry" (less than 30% in the greenhouse, where we have standing water and a MUCH higher humidity than out of doors in the howling gales of spring) pretty much constantly since we got the gauge. so "normal" means what, normal in Washington? i'm thinking about going into the silly device and changing the notes so they say "dry" "normal" "humid" and "underwater."
the wind completely destroyed our peas. they never got more than a foot tall, and even when we set up a stacked bale wall down one side to shelter them, they are just all wind-whipped and too dry. i think i got them out too late, too. but it's sad. i'm sorry to hear about your apples & grapes!
I used to say I couldn't stand humidity, but up here in the mountains it's been so windy since October, a month after we moved here that I think I'd rather trade the wind for humidity.
Everyone up here says it's not normal. I keep hoping it's just a fluke and a bad year.
Like you, my hair is getting so wind dried up and ripped apart that I'm considering cutting it short. And every day when I rub my face I can feel the grit imbedded in my pores from the incessant wind pounding it in.
We had snow and a sleet storm up here just a couple weeks ago. I think our peach and apricots are going to be nil this year and I don't hold out much hope for our apples either. Sad.
Our chickens, like yours, seem to accept the wind and they make the best of it by jumping up into the air when the wind gusts so they reach new heights in flying. haha
Anyway, I've been meaning to tell you thanks again for inviting me to the Wool Processing Class. I've posted some photos and the info on my Laughing Orca Ranch Blog. So go check it out when you get a minute.....and the wind hasn't blown you across town.
The winds have been howling here, too, Jen. Shaking house, but landscaping has held up. Sorry to hear about the produce. You have worked so hard, it is a shame to lose anything. I hope the summer brings better weather and fewer problems.
Love,
NIno
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