IDA slowed down in it’s approach to the coast line and just made landfall around 5:30 AM this morning.  It’s still raining outside and the wind is blowing pretty good but nothing really bad.  It’s light out but there is no sunshine LOL  Here’s a pic from the front yard looking into the oaks and the sky:

Of course you can’t tell in the photo that the wind is blowing but you can see some of the rain drops that are falling.  I took the photo when it has stopped raining for just a bit.  Most of the rain is really gone through and we’re left with the wind portion of the tropical storm.

The garden has really gotten a nice watering yesterday and overnight.  This will definitely give my seeds that I planted this past weekend a nice boost :-)  I am working on planning what I will be planting in the remainder of my garden…  I still need to plant more lettuce and more turnips… those are things that we love to eat during the winter months and, they are veggies that also grow very well during our mild winters here on the Gulf Coast.

Well, I need to run and get going for the day.  Hope you have a good one!

Yes, the tropical storm is here.  I just got home from the office (it’s 10:30 PM).  I thought it might be a good idea to head home because we are under a curfew from 10 PM till 5 AM in the morning here on the Gulf Coast of Alabama due to the storm making landfall around 2 - 4 AM.   It’s a bit breezy outside and raining like everything.  On the way home I could see all of the leaves covering the streets.  But really, that’s not unusual this time of year because they are falling anyway.  Maybe the storm will help to make that happen all at once instead of them falling a little bit at a time (which makes raking and blowing the leaves a weekly chore).

The schools are all closed here tomorrow since it’s going to be rainy, windy (tropical storm force winds) and just overall nasty weather.  The news is saying that there will be a good deal of flooding in the low lying areas due to the amount of rain that we’re going to get from this storm…  But where I’m located, we’ve never had any problem with flooding thank goodness.

Well, SAM has been with me almost 100% of the day today.  He doesn’t like to be alone… I don’t know if that is because he lost his owner and is afraid he’ll loose me too or what.  But he has to go where I go… including to the school to take DD and to pick her up LOL.  He’s such a good boy buy I just don’t know how we’re going to be able to keep him with our outside dogs, our one inside Maltese and the one inside kitty.  He’s just not socialized toward other animals, especially any that are smaller than he is.  So, for now, we’re just keeping them all separated and locked up in separate rooms.  I’m kinda thinking about getting him a extra large crate so that when we do let the kitty out of lockup or the Maltese out of DD’s bedroom, we will not have to worry about him attacking them.  I know it’s just nature and he’s a hunter type dog.

Well, first things first.  I took SAM to the vet this morning to see if he had one of those identification chips - and he doesn’t :-(   We tied a rope through his collar as a temporary leash (he chewed the one I bought for him in 2 several times) and I now have rope burns on my arms from trying to keep him under control.  There are so many doggy smells at the vets office and he just went crazy smelling everything.   I’ve looked for missing dog signs that his owner might have put up for him but haven’t see any yet.

After we left the vet, we headed over to the pet supply store for a chain type leash that he cannot chew in 2.  And, it seems to be working because he can’t get loose now thank goodness.  I’m back home and getting ready to take my shower and get ready to go to the office to work.  I smell like D-O-G….

On the tropical storm… IDA is downgraded to a tropical storm with 70 mile per hour winds and the track has moved just a little to the west making the impact point seem to be the Mississippi/Alabama state line.   We’re getting a little rain now but not really much as far as wind goes.  I’m sure that will pick up a little later.  But, with IDA running dead into a cold front, the storm is fizzling out.  It looks like we’ll just get a couple of inches of rain and that will be it.  There will be some localized flooding in low lying areas along the coastline.  But, nothing to worry about.

Hope that you’re having a good Monday!

Just got an update and it looks like Ida has become a Category 2 storm and we are now under “Hurricane Watch” meaning that hurricane conditions are possible within 36 hours.   Here’s  a graphic of the computer models showing where it looks like Ida will make landfall along the Gulf Coast:

And this is the projected path:

Ida has been upgraded to a Cat 2 for now, but the forecast shows that it should degrade down to a Cat 1 before making landfall.

IDA…

Can you believe we are already into November and NOW we’re going to possibly have a storm?  Crazy I tell you LOL

We’ve been very blessed this year and it has been a VERY quiet hurricane and tropical storm season.  I guess that is why I’m so surprised about this one.  Just something to keep an eye on over the next couple of days.  I’ll keep you updated!

Finally we’re going to get a break in this muggy, wet and humid weather we’ve been having.   It’s not that it’s been particularly hot, it’s just that it’s so humid and that makes it feel hotter that what the actual temperature is.  But over the upcoming weekend, it’s really going to start feeling like FALL again!  Yeah!!!

Fall has to be one of my most favorite times of the year.  I love the cooler weather to say the least.  There’s just something different about the air… almost like you can smell the FALL season.

Fall here in the South is great.  The temperatures aren’t too hot and aren’t too cold. It’s a time when all of the oaks (water oaks) loose their leaves.  We have so many oak trees in our yard!  So, it also means a time to get out the blower and the rakes.  Of course, I’m looking forward to some more leaves for the compost bins this year.  Actually, with as many leaves as we get, I might just have to convince DH to build a couple more!  He originally had built 2 for me and then added 2 more bins right beside the first 2.  Here’s a pic showing one set of bins:

We put all sorts of things into our compost bins…. leaves (of course), lawn clippings, spent plants from the garden, clean out from the chicken coop and even cow patties from the cow field.  We kinda clean up after the cows like some people do after their dogs LOL!  But hay, it’s great stuff for the compost bins and eventually for my garden LOL.

With the change that we already had with the cooler temperatures a few weeks ago, along with the shorter daylight hours, the grass just isn’t growing as much as it had been.  That means we’ll have to go ahead and get some hay for the cows this week.  DH has plans on making a run to the feed store to check out the types of hay they have available.  Plus, our friend that we purchased our steers from also has hay that we can buy from him.  DH is planning on building a hay feeder above the “feed” feeder today.  This will keep the hay off of the ground so the steers don’t waste it.  If it falls out of the hay feeder, it will just land in the regular feeder.

Well, lots to do before I get my day started.  Maybe I will have some pics to post this evening of the new hay feeder

I’m up early this morning…. I have a few things to do before I head down to the office this morning (where I’ll be all day and probably 1/2 the night).  It’s a quarter till 7 AM and finally beginning to get light out.    We’ve had a week of almost record-breaking high temperatures but I think the cooler weather is now headed this way.  A band of rain showers moved through last night which is followed by a ;ittle cool front.  I could tell the difference when I left the office last night (after 10 PM) to drive home.  Even though the roads were still wet, the air had a cooler, almost drier feel…   But it will not stay dry for long as we have another band of rain that is going to be moving through today:

I was so hoping that “the project” that I’m working on would be complete enough so that I could have my weekend off…. well, that isn’t the case unfortunately.  I’ll be going in to the office today and tomorrow… so much for this weekend, eh?

I am just so wanting to get outside and spend the day in my garden!  I have so many things that I want to do - like PLANT!  LOL  But, for now, I’m committed to this project and everything else will have to go on hold.  One thing I know for sure, after this project is completed, it will be a cold day in h-e-double hockey sticks before I even think once, much less twice of volunteering for such a time consuming task.  Every day that I’m at the office, all I can think about is how much I would rather be outside in my garden than sitting in an office in front of a computer and paperwork.  Just thank goodness I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Well, it’s light enough to go outside… I’m going to feed and visit all of the animals this morning :-)   I’m checking my chickens to see if they are beginning to molt.  With the changing amounts of daylight hours and the onset of fall, they should start molting any day now.  This will also mean a very sharp decline in the number of eggs they lay.  Molting is a natural process in the life of a chicken - it will just be the first time that my chickens (or ME) have gone through it LOL

Hope that you have a great weekend!  And that you can get out and do some work in your garden (dig a shovel full of dirt for me!!).

Wow, it’s the 20th already?  Dang!  Where has this month gone?

We have another day of stormy weather.  It’s thundering right now and it’s as dark as it is at 7 PM.  

But that’s ok.  We will have alot of work to do inside the house today from the water leak.  Yesterday DH got the kitchen flooring up all the way to the concrete flooring.  We’ll work on the breakfast and laundry room today.  Not only does the flooring have to come up, but also all of the adhesive that we used when putting it down.  So that is taking a bit longer and is making everything dusty.  Yuck!

Something else that is going to take a while is moving the refrigerator and the stove out so that we can get the flooring up there as well.  Then, when we get into the laundry room, we’ll have to move the washer, dryer and freezer! 

This is something that we had planned on replacing anyway, just not this soon.  The flooring right now is linoleum and I would rather have the ceramic tile.  It would be a nice update to the house.

Well, I’ve got to get busy…. hope  you are having a nice weekend!  Were you able to get any gardening done?

Good morning…. how is your day going so far?  I’m at the office working today…. busy, busy, busy LOL  But I’d rather be busy than bored, right?

I didn’t get to post yesterday or last night so I thought I would take a few minutes to post today.  We have had so much rain!  I woke up this morning to even more rain passing through.  I got home kinda late yesterday evening and it was getting dark fast.  I just barely had time to feed the animals.  I didn’t have time to get the eggs that were under the broody hens LOL  But I did collect 3 others that I could get to.  I’ll have to make an effort to get home before dark tonight to get those eggs that the broodys are sitting on LOL

I think we are officially entering FALL!  The night-time temperatures are beginning to cool down and I LOVE IT!  Here’s our forecast for the next 7 days:

Look at that!   Low temps at 70 degrees and dropping to 69 degrees!  It’s time to get those fall seeds into the ground!

Well, I’m finally making it home after a very long day!  How’s your day been?

I was so pressed for time today that I didn’t get to spend much time outside with the animals.  I also didn’t even get to walk through the garden!   All of the chickens had not yet layed (it was still early) so I only found 1 egg.  The two broodys might have been sitting on a couple more though LOL    The cows were doing great…  “mooing” at me because I didn’t feed them first ;-)   They do not think I should take care of the chickens first!

I spent many hours at the office today working…. we all had to take a break though when the 2nd storm of the day blew though around 4:30 PM.   The thunder was rattling the walls!  I disconnected the DSL line and turned off the computers “just in case” ya know?  I had just spent several hours re-doing one of the computers due to a virus that I couldn’t get off.  So I had to reformat the hard drive and start over from scratch.  I surely didn’t want have any of the computers to be struck by lightning or a power surge.   But I did step outside the back door to take a look and wow, the clouds were awesome!  I took a pic:

Our office is in a building that contains a bank at one end.  Behind us is “Wally World” and another strip mall.  But just look at those clouds rolling in!  The news is forecasting more rainy weather for the rest of the week.