Ang's Journal

According to our home weather station, the last time we had a meaningful amount of rain here was July 2, 2025. We had a torrential downpour that dropped 0.56 inches of rain on the house in less than a half-hour. I know, a half-inch of rain isn't a deluge in most places, but that's a pretty serious rain event here.

Since July 2nd... we've had a total of 0.13 inches of rain. The killer part of this is that we usually have 4 to 6 weeks of summer monsoon weather that starts around the 4th of July. Pretty reliable afternoon thunderstorms delivering about an hour of rain, day after day. It saturates our soils, refreshes the snowpack in the high peaks, & tops up the reservoirs. But this year... 0.13 inches of rain.

My meadow is powder-dry. Even the strongly drought-resistant plants are looking stressed. Wildflower season was delayed at least a few weeks & the output is pretty pathetic. The animals are thirsty. I've had to break down & water parts of the meadow where I'm trying to establish some native plantings. The instant I turn on the sprinkler, every bird in the neighborhood shows up for a bath & a drink. I'm sure the mammals sneak in when my back is turned - I am basing this on the vigorous grazing that's making me tear my hair out.

Meanwhile on the other side of the state, Denver has gotten more rain than Seattle this year.

music link

....about gardening in Colorado???



I checked the weather, just a couple of days ago, to see if anything like this was in the forecast before planting. Today was supposed to have some rain - no mention of hail! But then the Denver Post runs this article: Storms brewing in the afternoon with big hail on the horizon: "Severe storms are possible in the foothills and Interstate 25 corridor Saturday afternoon, with strong winds up to 60 mph and hail that could reach 1 inch in diameter, according to the National Weather Service in Boulder."

The second I heard the hail hitting the walkway outside my front door, I grabbed blankets & ran out back. I unrolled a length of heavy-grade chicken wire over the front two rows & threw the blankets over that. My landlord Liz came running out with heavy plastic buckets from shrubs she just planted this week. Those went over the bigger plants in the back row.

The hail seems to have stopped for now, but I think I'll leave the defenses up until morning.

Not today, Satan...

OK, we had an entire weekend of wet, nasty "wintry mix" - some sleet, some incompetent hail, some freezing rain, & some genuine snow that didn't manage to stick to the roads. In the larger sense, this is great because adding some more insurance to the snowpack both delays the onset of fire season & ensures healthy flows in the rivers all summer. But in the smaller sense - STOP FUCKING WITH MY PANSIES! Sheesh.

I hired a local contractor to aerate the lawn on Saturday (despite the conditions, he showed up). $30 for both the front & back lawns. Now the whole yard looks like it's covered in small-dog poops.

I think my compost pile had just enough warm weather to start cooking at some point this month. It has noticeably decreased in size & no snow/sleet/hail/whatevs accumulated on its lid this weekend (though it was accumulating on similar surfaces, like roofs).

Lots of garden projects for next Saturday.

OK, Part 1 of 2 of the G.T.H. (Gone to Houston) move has been completed. We drove down Monday with a U-Haul trailer carrying all of our heavy stuff & perhaps 50% of our boxes. The truck (recently christened "Bubba", BTW) & the trailer were packed to the hilt, & Saabastian the Saab was pretty much at capacity as well.

All of the packing, loading, & driving took place, incidently, in the midst of one of the worst heat waves to hit Texas in the last decade. The temperature in Austin was a constant 100 to 105 degrees. Houston has been about 95-100 degrees, but with staggering humidity. So, thank God hotpantsgalore had the foresight to hire a couple of laborers to unload everything into our new apartment yesterday morning. It took the two of them about 45 minutes, & would've taken me & HPG.... well, it wouldn't have gotten done. We don't have much furniture, but some of it is very heavy.

Our new apartment is SUPER-awesome. It is a 1BR/1BA, but it is over 1,000 square feet of space. It is on the second floor of a four-plex, & is part of a little community consisting of four four-plexes. The four-plexes share a large, fenced area, which is used for parking & as a communal yard. Many people have dogs, & the dogs roam freely within the fenced area. Shadeaux has already made some new friends!



Our apartment has a cathedral-ceilinged living room, & a two-room loft in the attic space. It also has a formal dining room (!), a large if outdated kitchen, & SIX closets. We also have an en-suite washer & dryer, ceiling fans, & beautiful hardwood floors. To me, the building appears to be from the 1930s.

We are living in Midtown Houston, approximately one mile north of Hermann Park, near the Museum District. By Houstonian standards, the area is rather densely developed. There is a stop on Houston's one & only light rail line located two streets away. There are restaurants, theaters, bars, & lots of museums located in all directions. The Midtown Farmer's Market is held on Saturdays, about six blocks away. The University of Houston is 5-10 minutes' drive away. The URS-Houston office is about a 20-minute drive. We can walk to one grocery store & easily drive to two others. Our street is quiet & shaded with beautiful old live oaks. The neighborhood is a trifle shady, but with locked off-street parking it seems safe enough.

My friend B* gifted us with a lovely new sofa & chair, & as I relaxed in the chair yesterday afternoon, watching HPG & Shadeaux snoozing on the sofa, I was pretty happy with our new living arrangments.



G.T.H. Part 2 will take place this weekend, when we return to Austin to get the remaining boxes, a few smaller pieces of furniture, & to clean the old apartment in faint hopes of getting our security deposit back. Then - THEN! - we will be done with moving.

For at least a couple of years, hopefully.

/* Note: I tried to post this around 1:00 PM today, but LJ was ganking on the database connection. Thus, the backdate. */

I finally got through the matriculation process today. Whoopee! I'm officially a student now. What a stupid, ass-backwards process. My basic observation of this country so far is this: Scottish people as individuals are wonderful, fun, generous people. However, Scottish institutions are bureaucratic, obstructive, inefficient, & callous.

We're finally having some stereotypical Scottish weather today too - raining, misty, cold, windy. But I bundled up & grabbed my unbrella & life's OK. I'm off to get some groceries, then I'm going to find a place to buy an answering machine so I don't have to tangle with that STUPID voice mail "service" any further.

One other task accomplished - I joined the student gym (the Centre for Sport & Exercise). So now I can start SWIMMING! Hooray! I'm also considering cross-training on weight machines, but it's been so long since I've lifted, I kind of want to talk over a regimen with a trainer.

Update on the back: it's a little better but not much. I'm getting along without any more Valium, since I simply cannot take that stuff & remain functional. I'm also still saying "No" to codeine. I'm doing my stretching exercises, so hopefully a couple more days will see me through this. I also think swimming will help, by getting my shoulders stretched out.