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Monthly Archives: July 2008

30-day weather forecast

NOAA The National Weather Service released new 30-day forecasts today. For here in the Southeast, the forecast is for above normal temperatures and normal precipitation. OK. I’ll deal with the heat if it will just rain.

Color schemes for the gothic cottage — help!

I’m in the final stages of negotiation with a builder for the exterior of my gothic cottage. I’ve determined that I just can’t afford a metal roof and that I must fall back to a conventional 30-year asphalt shingle roof. That also means that I must pick a color. One can make an argument for […]

Tomato Christmas!

For weeks I’ve waited for my tomatoes to ripen. Then finally, of course, everything starts happening at once. Here’s my first real picking of tomatoes, July 29. I’ve had cherry tomatoes, actually, for two or three weeks. I’ve used quite a few green tomatoes in curries, or to make fried green tomatoes. I would have […]

Danbury farmer's market

The Danbury farmer’s market is a small farmer’s market, but they have a strict rule that if you sell it, you have to grow it. Today there were about eight vendors. Danbury, by the way, is the county seat of Stokes County, North Carolina. It’s a tiny little town. For watermelons, or for potatoes or […]

The night sky revisited

Light Pollution Science and Technology Institute There’s a nice column in the Wall Street Journal today about light pollution and the night sky. Light pollution isn’t just a cause for anti-suburban types like me. Light pollution actually may impair the body’s production of melatonin, raising our risks of getting cancer. Also, light pollution really screws […]

Uh-oh. New warnings on cell phone radiation…

Wikipedia We know that the recent rumors about popping corn with cell phones were a hoax. But today there are fresh stories in the media about health risks from cell phone radiation (1, 2). It would be useless for me to rant about how most people talk too much on their cell phones. But as […]

The sky is so hard to photograph

I’ve mentioned before how difficult it is to photograph the sky. Conditions have to be just right, and better equipment than I have really helps. But the color of the light at yesterday’s sunset was so unusual that I at least had to try to capture it. There had been storms all around before sunset, […]

Lily

Look who’s come to live with me. Her name is Lily. She was a foundling. She’s 10 weeks old and is the first cat I’ve had in about 20 years.

La Niña's gone, but where's the rain?

NOAA: For most of the country, August precipitation should be normal The National Weather Service released a 30-day forecast yesterday. Water temperatures in the equatorial Pacific have returned to normal, so La Niña is officially ended. For most of North Carolina, the 30-day forecast for August is for normal temperatures and normal rainfall. Farther south, […]

Another batch of seeds takes hold

My sister gave me about a dozen packets of flower seeds this spring. I mixed all of them together and flung them into an area where the soil seemed more productive. I saw the first results this morning. This is a cosmos flower.