On average, USA doing OK

Florida nearly got washed away, as did Houston; the west is burning; and what passes for TPP's lawn is crunchy and dry.  So, on average we doing OK.  And of course your choice when  dealing with new plants is simple, water it or let it die.  Both cost you money.  The other problem is that just dragging the hoses around is quite a bit of work, sorry, exercise.  Lots of leaves dropping even from well established old trees, so mowing generated so much dust, TPP thought he was going to stop breathing, oh, actually he sort of did because lawn dust is one of the things he's sensitive to. It's snot like he had a choice.  Maybe the tail end of Irma will wander far enough north to bring us a drop or two of rain.

A bit of water relief

Recent rain "events" have simply missed us, so after a pretty good soaking rain almost two weeks ago, we've had virtually none, although people only a few miles away got soaked. In general it takes a minimum of 1/2" of rain a week to keep plants going, and that's well established plants.  New plantings need more, and since our gardens have plenty of new plants, hose-dragging has been a major activity.  A lot of plants are in their growth phase, so now is the time to provide some fertilizer and keep soil moisture at a decent level.  Last night some spotty storms dropped a couple of showers, but only about one quarter of an inch, half of what we needed this week. Of course, rain or the lack thereof also affects our prairie, and two weeks ago we were slopping around in standing water, not the ground looks as dry as a bone. Of course the prairie is still nearly a meter tall in some places, and our plots are getting hard to find. As night time storms roll in, one of the kitty-girls who is scared of thunder usually alerts us to an approaching storm.  Even the water lilies needed some water because the lily pond has to be kept at a certain level to keep the pump and filter system working. Nothing worse than watering your water lilies.

Horrible, terrible no-good, very bad weather

The weather service predicted violent weather today, and boy they were not kidding.  This weather system spawned not only very violent thunderstorms but some massive tornadoes.  The nearest tornado was NW of us by 30 or so miles, but the thunderstorm that swept through was the most violent TPP can ever remember.  There were gusts of wind in the 50 to 60 mph range that bent tree crowns to the absolute limit.  During heavy rain some of these gusts reduced our visibility to just a few yards.  Tree limbs were dropping like the leaves were dropping just a few days ago.  Hail stones the size of chicken eggs came down leaving 1" deep dents in the lawn.  Our street flooded, over flowed, and watching stoopid drivers try to drown their cars provided some comic relief.  The kitty girls were quite nervous and required much attention.  After the storm passed and while surveying the damage came the discovery that a 13-15 inch diameter section of trunk split off the back side of a large hackberry tree, and the 60-70 feet of crown attached came down across the rear gardens like a giant fly swatter and a number of shrubs and flowering trees will need some serious pruning once we get the bloody hackberry cut out of the way.  My prized parasol pine escaped a near miss by a large oak limb fall.  Lot's of other minor damage occurred, but nothing too serious.  Next year's supply of fire wood has been taken care of.  But others had it much worse. One of my students' homes was in a neighborhood hit by a tornado and suffered some severe damage and loss of power.  The weather service said they were moving at 65 mph!  And she's worried about taking an exam tomorrow.  Naturally she'll be cut some slack, especially if she comes over and drags some limbs to the curb (a joke!). 

Post-hoc thoughts on Sandy

No question about it, Hurricane Sandy socked the greater NY-NJ metro area good and solid.  There are a couple of real good points to consider.  Notice how fragile our modern infrastructure actually is.  There are still people without electricity, and a robust public transport system was shut down so completely bicycles where the most reliable form of transportation.  Naturally you feel bad for people whose houses were damaged or destroyed, and whose belongings were lost.  Tragic, but it wasn't actually a "natural disaster".  It was a human error in planning, pure human hubris, to allow people to build in low-lying, flood prone areas, on stormy coasts, and such.  You're living on borrowed time.  The same thing happens out here in the midwest.  Rivers flood towns, farms, and houses, and it's a natural disaster.  Well, it's natural OK, but you built your towns and houses on a flood plain.  What did you expect!  As the human population grows, more and more people are going to "get in the way" of natural events, so more and bigger damage to our trappings of civilization are to be expected.  Raise sea level just a meter from global warming, and the number of people potentially affected increases dramatically.  All of our edifices have such a feeling of firmness, solidness, and permanence, yet all are so fragile.  If the electricity stays out for even longer, you end up with high-rise tombs.  Expect more of the same, but it's hard to get creatures with short lives, short memories, and even shorter attention spans to look for long-term solutions.  We praise politicians for their reactions, but really their failure to be proactive was the cause of much of the destruction.