Getting nasty looking outside, but more key is that the dogs are not happy. They feel storms way before they get here and begin to hunker down or just cower. Poor dears. Wind is picking up. Tornado watch is lifted along RT 2 for now so Wha should be OK. Lots of hail in some areas outside of Boston. Horrible for the garden. Patti
Weather in Your Garden # 97
Hope it's not serious!
We are still in a tornado watch/warning area until 11pm. Funny they mention some of the towns affected. Augusta, Belfast. I am directly between Augusta and Belfast. 15 miles from Augusta, 15 miles from Waterville (another named town) and 25 miles from Belfast.
:( :( :(
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS ISSUED TORNADO WATCH 416 UNTIL
11 PM EDT THIS EVENING WHICH REPLACES A PORTION OF TORNADO WATCH
413. THE NEW WATCH IS VALID FOR THE FOLLOWING AREAS
IN MAINE THE NEW WATCH INCLUDES 4 COUNTIES
IN WESTERN MAINE
FRANKLIN KENNEBEC SOMERSET
WALDO
THIS INCLUDES THE CITIES OF...AUGUSTA...BELFAST...FARMINGTON...
JACKMAN...RANGELEY...SKOWHEGAN AND WATERVILLE.
town was on the map with 25 minutes to arrival and storm dipped one town south - just heavy t-showers and rain - did pull in all the flags and table umbrella's just to be safe - wanted more rain to hit here
Patti, my male dog starts pacing about 40 minutes before the storm arrives... he's better than the weather man!
just unnerving
Hope everyone is safe. We had a microburst last year that took down a massive pine in our yard and hail that wrecked my whole garden so I am just a nervous wreck when they come out with hail and severe storm warnings now. My husband thinks I need to come up with a hail plan to protect my hosta and I just look at him like he's crazy. We got hail this morning but missed my little pocket, thankfully. It certainly has been intense, crazy weather for so many this Spring.. I still can't get over some of the pics from Joplin. Makes me feel bad about crying over my plants last year.
Yes - puts things in perspective.
It sure does, Victor. Our gardens obviously mean so much to all of us here and I do think its ok to feel sad about storm damage, but it's almost unfathomable to think that in a span of just a few minutes, everything you own could be wiped out and loved ones lost. All because of weather reaching out of the sky and churning it all up like it's nothing. Crazy!
amen
Some crazy lightning activity here! It's almost constant - bolts are everywhere. Hope everyone is spared from damaging storms.
be safe everyone!!
Yes!
Ugh. 4 deaths in MA.
nnnoooo
This weather is too crazy this spring. Tornadoes in MA and NH??
Diito...everyone stay safe!
Yes, crazy weather, and unpredictable..
Well, on a lighter note, Armageddon is almost certainly on it's way now because I just went on my nightly slug hunt and only found two. Something is definitely not right.
Hoping and praying that the severe weather is behind all of us now.
Nor - you need to get out more!!
lol, Victor. My mom was trying to organize some sort of family get together thing in June (we are all scattered across the country) and all I can think is that I can't leave because then the slugs will win. And my family should KNOW this about me by now!
I hate going away during garden season! Not so much because of slugs, but because I simply don't want to miss anything blooming! If I had a slug problem, I am certain I would feel exactly the same way! Maybe you could hire some neighborhood kids with a slightly sadistic bent to do slug patrol while you're gone. Puts a new twist on plant-sitting. :)
I'm the same, Christina.
Oh yeah, me too. I help my best friend with jobs sometimes down in Virginia, and she has learned not to even think about asking me to come down during the prime garden months! Aside from keeping on top of the slugs and not wanting to miss blooms (not that I have much that blooms!) There is not trusting anyone else to keep up with the watering and coming back to dead or dying plants. I wait all year for those few precious months...it's my little sanctuary out there. .I don't understand why some people in my life don't get that. Especially my mom, who lives in the South. Her winter isn't half as long and dreary as mine!
Also, the big, black snakes pretty much pore out of every crevice of her house in the summer and I want no part of that!!! She told me about waking up to what she calls "snake days"...hot, humid stagnant Virginia days where you just know you're gonna encounter one or more. No thanks!
Wimp!!
I would be in the wimp category as well
Put me on that wimp bandwagon too. No thanks to snake infestations!
I know they are harmless and even beneficial, but man, they are big and scary. She lives in the country and they are truly infested in their attic and cellar. She has stories of them falling through the ceiling (twice!) She'd better pray she never needs to use that cellar for storm shelter! No snake days in Maine, thank God. Every day I go without seeing a garter snake is a good day, IMO.
Noreaster, have the family gathering at your home, complete with fun games such as slug hunt, slug stomp, slug begone, etc ;)
Was in the VA woods for Uncle Sam for about 5 mos, never saw a snake.
... the bears must have ate them.
I can't enlist the family members to help with slugs because I wouldn't trust them not to trample the hosta...it's like a fine ballet I do out there!! I am acutely concious of where to step and where not to.. Needless to say, husband is not allowed to even glance at my hosta beds.
WC, what time of year were you there? My friend is west of leesburg and black snakes are everywhere around there in the summer. But maybe they actually prefer hanging out in homes as opposed to the great outdoors.
Slugs are great slurped with beer.
I think they do prefer to be near the more urban areas, ' comparatively speaking..', they have less predators near humans. I went during the end of August, bears were always around as were dog packs, but we had orders not to shoot the bears.. (lol!)
- I'm sure there were plenty of snakes around, but luckily I didn't run into any! (knock on wood..)
Had a nice timber rattler pic sent to me from a hiking friend yesterday.
If you like those types of critters there's plenty of them out west, good idea to wear high boots out there in the brush, scorpions galore too especially towards the evening, - although one of the deadliest type is in good 'ole Florida! - A nice little light tan one that is only about 3" long..
Oddly, most folks don't know that we have rattlers in the NE. It is the Crotalus horridus or Timber Rattlesnake. I grew up in Okla and have had my fill of seeing snakes.
Now I am still giggling about Nor's great slug patrol. Do you wear a Petzl Headlamp and use a mallet or do you drown them or use some other method to send them off to a great slimy underworld? And I hope you don't waste good beer on them as they will slide right up to just water mixed with a little bakers yeast and then dive in and drown while you sit in the shade and drink the beer.
Here is an Interesting article on how they move.
Quoting:
http://www.asknature.org/strategy/fd910b58db8c330ffee9176f75e29994"A terrestrial slug doesn't so much crawl as slide across its world on its belly (technically its foot) leaving behind a trail of slime--its pedal mucus, consisting of water with some polysaccharide and protein. It's neither a cheap nor a rapid way to go, a slug being the very paradigm of sluggishness. It is (or, strictly, was) a mysterious business. Slugs use neither cilia (as push the mucus lining our respiratory passages) nor peristaltic motion (as do, for instance, earthworms). How they propel themselves turns out to depend on that mucus, in particular on viscoelastic behavior more complex than anything we've seen so far.
The key can be seen if, with just the right lighting, one watches from beneath while a slug walks across a glass surface. Some kind of waves pass lengthwise; they're about a millimeter or so in wavelength and travel at a couple of millimeters per second (fig. 17.7). It certainly looks as if the slug gets around by pushing back on its mucus, and that's indeed what it does. But consider--that will work for one 'step' only. Any operating system that pushes needs to recover if it's to push again…At strains above 5 or 6 (higher values at higher strain rates), the mucus abruptly yields, transforming in a flash into a gooey liquid with a viscosity of 3-5 pascal-seconds--three thousand to five thousand times the viscosity of pure water. Stress falls abruptly, dropping by half, and the stress-strain curve goes flat and horizontal--stress now depends only on strain rate, as befits a fluid. Thus, the mucus can be pushed upon, propelling the slug forward, but when nudged just beyond that yield stress it turns to liquid. Then a bit of slug can slide forward across it and be ready to push backward again. Meanwhile, and critically, the mucus has to recover, to 'heal' back into a viscoelastic solid, which it obligingly does forthwith. In life, a 'step' is about a millimeter in length and the mucus layer is about 10 micrometers thick, so the strain gets up to around 100 during the recovery phase of each pedal wave. Beneath a given slug at a given time, all stages of the operation are taking place, with mucus in different states under different points along the animal. All this from Denny and Gosline (1980) and Denny (1984)." (Vogel 2003:362-363)
Glad everyone seems fine. Lots of rain and lighting, but only scared the dogs and did no damage here. Patti
hopefully all our buddies are safe... 65 now going to 72.. big change thank goodness
will say it again.. hope all is well
Yes, I believe Michaela does live there, hope she's OK.
No snakes is a good day here too Noreaster, I hear you LOUD and CLEAR! Hate them!
I don't care how good they are.
61 now going to 64 and windy. Whoopee! 3 whole degree's!
Hoping all is well!
- Hate snakes.. can't trust them.
65°, wind from the West at 7 mph, sunny & clear skies.
Going up to 74° here and the humidity is much lower, feels good so far. Supposed to get windier as the day goes on.
Clear & breezy tonight, low of 49°.
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