damp times in July!

I did not finish using the new riding mower in time. An off-seasonal weather pattern will have the NW coast under a damp and somewhat breezy pattern for several days, beginning today with about .30" in the bucket already. We could get another half-inch through next Wednesday, which is really wet for mid-July!

The PRISM model average at our place is just under an inch for July but it's Portland's driest month (thanks to the occasional August thundershower). We shall see how much we end up with - but it's good news for several reasons. Fire season is delayed by such soil-moistening showers, and our need for a heat-pump or other home cooling can be postponed a few more weeks!

- and a few more niceties

We finally saw a counter-depth refrigerator fall to our price point, so that should arrive Thursday. Our current 'fridge came with the house - and it runs all the time! No not quite, but we notice when it's off because it's quite rare.  A modern device (with a door-ajar alarm) will definitely improve matters.

Also coming Thursday are a new washer and dryer. They will bolt together and thereby free up a lot of space in the laundry zone. Some days our clothes come out looking less clean than when they went in - this should cure that for a long time to come.

All three are Samsung products.
We received a call from them asking to be sure items will fit through our doorways, then asked if I had any questions. I asked why the NX camera series is no longer supported, probably not an expected comment.  It has to be asked though; I would embrace the NX300/500 series if I believed other lenses were coming, but no comment from Samsung and no signs of life in the NX system.  They do now have refrigerators with cameras inside - sorry, not quite.

postscript - never mind, then. I visited the Samsung website and their Products tab shows no cameras whatsoever. Appliances, phones with cameras, and IT solutions - no consumer electronics, cameras or NX by any name.  How sad.

it had to happen -

We bought a riding mower this week, to be delivered on July 2nd. Drat.

It was a great Sears deal - $250 off, then 10%, then 5% more with Sears card.
Add tax and delivery and it's a lesser great deal, but still mighty good.

I hate losing the exercise factor of a push mower, but several parts of the yard have not been mowed even once this year.  And one part wasn't done last year!! Until the two of us are mowing at the same time, the yard will always fall behind with simple maintenance - so this needed to happen.  Maybe we can sell it in a year or two, but for now we'll have a yard with a less forsaken look to it.

This thing may not be able to manage some of the steeper slopes, so the uphill parts can still be done with a walking mower - how nice?

It has headlights too, so we can mow any time we want! 

Neighbors with jobs beware!

speed-mowing and bird-watching

I broke the 35-minute mowing 'record' just now. That's just the second mowing of the upper lawn, which should be more embarrassing than it appears. The lower lawns have not been completely mowed yet, and of course the lowest lawn (that I wasn't sure belonged to us!) has not been addressed yet in our 2+ years here.  Oops.

This heat wave came with a bonus ¼-inch of rain beforehand.  We managed to assemble the square garden and plant our vegetables, which had suffered during the previous warm spell in their pots.  Several plants received larger pots too, so that rain settled them in nicely.  Not everything is where we'd like it to be later, but in the ground beats in the pot when the sun beats down.

I haven't quite assembled the front-porch roof, which would also double as a sun-shade at times like this. We'll get there next week once these three days reaching for 99° have passed.

Our thrush count remains low, so they must be waiting for a major push soon.  Our robins still dominate the airwaves with crows singing bass croaks, and a few whistles and warbles intervene. I spotted our local Towhee again today, with his amber eye and colorful coat - but I do not yet know which song belongs to them.  Hopefully a few more of the Swainson's Thrushes will get here soon and sing us gently to rest and to wakefulness in the coming few months!






Update - how funny!

While shooting the Towhee I caught a Swainson's thrush staring at the funny colorful bird.. that's him on the right side of this other image! I had no clue the thrush was there until I went to crop some of the photos the next day.

Thrush Day!! May 18 this year

Must listen again next year to seek patterns.  Lórien's favorite song is here at last.
youtube video

it's marine-push season.. already?

We've experienced a few heat waves in April and May, and yesterday was a classic marine-push day.  We were just over 80° around lunchtime, and well before dinner it was 55° with breezy west winds threatening to remove items from our deck!  We added a nice parasol to our outdoor table this past week, so we need to watch for signs of windy times so it can be retracted; we did just fine this time, but it's early yet..

On the wildlife front we still await a clear signal from any Swainsons Thrushes in the area. Butterflies are here in abundance right now, the frogs are finally winding down, and both swifts and towhees have been seen. We could not recall if the thrushes appeared around May 1st or June 1st last year, and of course this is only our second spring at this address so times will definitely vary!  We had hoped the warm spells would bring them up the hill a bit early, but that has not happened..

first 90° day?

Today and tomorrow are the expected peak heat days, and it's a hot one.  No wind from anywhere unlike yesterday's easterly flow, and our thermometer just hit 94°. Granted it's in direct sunshine right now, but it does have a solar fan built in to compensate for thermal buildup. There's just no cool place to pull from right now!

I pulled our old-school dial thermometer from its shady spot to a place on the deck - it is holding in the low 80s which makes a little more sense.  Perhaps that sunny post needs to be shifted a bit further west to where the Solo Cedar can shade it later in the day?

Done!  Perhaps a temporary shift, but I moved the gage further into the house's afternoon shadow. Now reading is below 90 and still falling. It's about six feet from the house so some morning contamination could happen, but later in the day should be less amazing. More likely the main effect will be on winds as they swirl past the house.. I must get a taller pole and find a shadier spot!