Ida Rainfall North Georgia

With as loose as the soil has been, today could be a good day hunting for fallen trees and firewood. Power did go out around 3 AM as two battery backups woke me with their annoying beeping sounds. No power...grrr. If it's local I thought I wouldn't have it back on until later in the day as I'm sure other trees in the area toppled over. Nope. Power restored within two hours.

Big gully washers up near the Smokies in South Eastern Tennessee, as shown in the precipitation map above. I'm located within the white circle right side of the image(click for larger view). I never noticed this Wunderground rainfall total function until recent, but it's pretty darned accurate. My baking pan rain gauge shows 4.25 inches since yesterday morning. Naturally I have to dump it from time to time and make some guesstimate recalculations because it's not square from top to bottom.

Here are the local the Wunderground totals in the Ellijay area...

Yes, the creek is running strong. It's been healthy all summer compared to last years drought. Daffodils bulbs are planted about 18 inches above the water line. They're safe.


Upon closer inspection it appears I'll have to tame this water retention area. Hope the Daffodil bulbs don't rot(orange flags). Rainfall totals were more than mentioned previous. Probably over five inches.

And a pic of my neighbors home that burnt down about ten days ago. Everyone is fine.

Say Good Night Irene - Winter Near

It was an interesting year. Loads of stuff accomplished, but more than likely it's goodbye to the flowers and gardening considering it may dip below 32 tonight. The hanging planters however, are in the new garden room down below...they'll last for awhile. Oh, bulbs will keep me busy this winter. I can see daffodils all over the place come March.

Trying to find accurate information on the Dianthus...the consensus points toward them as being fairly hardy but I'll mulch 'em this week. Dave's Garden Inquiry.

Getting hard to transition for the winter. What will I do, besides going to Florida for a month or so? Still piles upon piles of mulch down the road. Perhaps extend some of the trails in the woods.

Here's a project. A stairway that leads up the hill in front of the house. Two steps (two feet wide)a day and I can get it done in a month (probably 30 steps). A little something I put together a few months ago for a general idea. Lot's of RR ties laying around.

Rain Delay

Not much happening around these parts. Just waiting until the rains go away. No measurable accumulation after the big deluge Tuesday. Drizzle now and then with cloudy skies. Some sunshine Friday, but all the work areas are wet and muddy.

The inspector has arrived, but I have yet to see a report.

One of the heated discussions with UPS. They have failed to perform their duties. Package was due Tuesday. Still no sign of them.

Oh, I have been working on more lawn aeration. Much easier now with looser soil. Visited Buck Jones Nursery down in Woodstock this morning, but it was raining. Nice setup. Lot's of space where you can drive up and down aisles while looking. Sorry no pics but I did pickup some bulk topsoil. Sure beats paying by the bag at Lowes. I only wish the place was closer. $15.95 for a bucket (3/4 cubic yard)

First Gully Washer Since May

One quarter of an inch shy of six inches fell in eight hours today. I've been wondering how my driveway drainage adjustments would fare, or at least the new diversions for rainwater runoff. #1 is an improvement and actually runs under part of the garden area. #2 is the newest one. The two in between fence post 3 and five collect most of it now.

I've also been wondering how the garden shed would hold up to rain. Yikes, not so good. But there are only a few small gaps causing problems, or so it seems. I thought of caulking the top side (two colors, leftovers) then painting the deck instead of the previous idea.

Aeration project about 1/3 complete. Good thing I didn't dump any of that new topsoil I picked up the other day. That would have been a goner much like what happened in late April during a good rain dump.

I hope my eight hour effort and 10,000 holes won't go south either. I had planned to get some good top soil in those buggers, but they could be closing up because of the rains. Maybe it just needs to be raked as the soil under the grass is pure packed clay. Photo below shows after the six inches fell.

Good topsoil and micro organisms is what I've learned about recently. I'm gonna give organic lawn treatment a whirl. Corn meal seems to be a good fertilizer that also offers benefits against lawn disease and critters. Some suprising findings at the Garden Web organic lawn care forum.

See what happens.

Nice Mountain Weather!

The current weather is ideal but how long will it last? The entire month has been mild with no daytime temps over 85 degrees. The past few mornings around fifty and under. I'll take that over a muggy 78 at 8AM in South Florida this time of the year.

Not that I know much about Tomato plants, but this one is thriving, standing six feet high.

Petunias are getting out of control above the wall area. Time to thin them out. They don't want to fall over the wall, stopping at the edge?


A few more pics showing the progress of the gardens. Sprinkled some Miracle Grow on this one a few days ago. It looked like it needed it but check out these hanging baskets.



I forget the names of these thingies but mother calls it the "seed garden."

And I hear it all the time...don't plant grass in the summer time. Some areas have taken the new seed extremely well while others haven't. Being around all day to check moisture levels I now understand why some are doing well while others aren't. Some were left to dry out completely before the seeds germinated which takes about five days. Blame It on the afternoon nap. This area in in front of the garden in particular was almost void of grass four weeks ago. I think it came in great.

And another project that has been taking awhile to finish. Lot's of monster rocks and roots to move or remove. Once I get that done I can have a driveway again instead of a pile of stone.

April Snowers Bring May ??

Snow in April? Considering how strange this winter has been why not? Strange? Okay it's my first winter but all the signs of strange are there being outside of the norm. Massive rain, unusually low temps (5 degrees back in late January).

Ellijay Winter

Folks up here said they have mild winters. Looking at some numbers from Wunderground the past few years I was in agreement with them. However since I left January 10 the lows have been under freezing eleven of those days and January 16 showed five degrees!

With an adjustment for my little place out of the way by taking off another 4-5 degrees the numbers would be around 15 or 16 days under freezing. I'd probably be boiling water for hot sponge baths! I'm going to have to look into those frozen pipes a bit more.

Another cold front hits the area with a chance of snow today. Above pic.

I guess I timed it pretty well. Tempe has been the bright spot with wonderful weather, but I have seen some temps in the twenties when in Roswell NM. And the rain in North Georgia! So much for the drought. January numbers show over 18 inches in the Ellijay area. Imagine if one fifth of that was snow precipitation. One inch of rain equals a foot of snow...correct? 3.6 inches would be three and a half feet of snow.

Looks like it's cold all over. Bundle up if you're not out west today!

Vegas Weather today....high near 70.

Hurricane Ivan Remants

For those unfamiliar, Hurricane Ivan ravaged Alabama and Georgia back in September of 2004 dumping as much as twelve inches of rain in some areas over a two day period. I had been meaning to talk to my neighbor about "what's the highest level you've seen the creek?" He's a newcomer too, but a native of the area.


Although he wasn't here during Ivan a few references were helpful from Ray and Pam (neighbors at the top of the hill) who founded our little community back in 1989. According to their first hand experience about 1-2 feet of water would be in my current storage area. Nice to know in case I need to prepare.

I always wondered how some of this brush (below) got into the middle of the woods and why there are bunches of small twigs (above) lodged in some trees that overhang the creek. It must have been Ivan. With that in mind it looks like my new pathways would be washed away quite easily.

More Snow Video - Narration Of Pics

...and a better view of what is where on parts of the property. I think I can get pretty good at this video stuff. I kinda rushed it. Could definitely do a better job, but learning the functions of Window Movie Maker more than anything. It comes packaged with XP, but I never played with it. Beats that Pinnacle program I bought last year (steeper learning curve but with more options), but navigation is very similar making it easier for me to work with.

The UPS guy made it here before the second small snowfall. My lighting system arrived. This should definately improve indoor photos and video.

This guy was funny. "Are you such and such...better be." I don't think he likes coming down that driveway...LOL. At least he knows where I am after 3-4 visits since I've been here.

Snow in North Georgia - Ellijay GA

See the video wrap up below....

At least it's snowing east of Ellijay, Georgia where I am located. It has to be borderline as the temperature shows 34 degrees on the back porch at 6:15 AM. A few degrees warmer and it's bound to be rain. Another size able round of precip is on the way and should reach within an hour or so. Shown on the map it's moving left to right or west to east. I am located east of the circle and plus sign halfway to the county border.

Thinking back this is the first time I've actually seen any reasonable (more than flurries and something on the ground) snowfall amount since October of 1978 when I spent some time in Flagstaff, Arizona. Some fellow workers and I took a weekend trip to the Grand Canyon and stayed overnight near the campus of Northern Arizona University.

It all that green stuff becomes snow, I ain't going anywhere today. The steep driveway will not be navigable. It's bad enough with wet slippery leaves. Almost forgot UPS is is due. I wonder if they'll make an attempt to get down here. I'll get some pics of him trying to get out...LOL.

Early Winter Temperatures

I wondered if I'd be freezing my begeemas off when the temps dropped under 30 degrees. Having lived in Florida since 1980 I had concerns I'd be sitting in front of the wood burning stove all day long. Not so! But this is unusually cold weather looking back at historical numbers.

How will I feel two months from now at the end of January? Oh...forget that, I'll be in warm sunny Arizona then Southern California. I don't plan on returning until Late February when it appears things start to warm up here in the hills.

7:12 AM today...


The local weather station on the right side of this page doesn't show the actual temperatures where I am. This time of the year temps are about 4-5 degrees cooler while in the summer months about eight. Adding to the confusion is the larger thermometer. It typically reads 4 degrees cooler than the smaller one behind it (the accurate one), but it's handy to have when I don't feel like venturing out before sunrise.

The Wunderground Amicalola falls weather station(apprx 10 miles east) provides more accurate readings; very similar to my little area than others.

Looking back over the last two December months, numbers don't look too bad. At least it's not your dreary northeast type of weather, but there are some cold starts here and there. Temperatures do warm up quickly once the sun appears. Coincidentally I have been surprised to see so many sunny days this year, but as Mom told me "...you're in the south."

Looks like I can squeeze in some golf late in the year.

Wood Heat - Wood Burning Stove

I am quite surprised how much heat this little stove puts off in the cabin. Temperatures barely barely rose above 50 Friday accompanied by a steady and chilly soaking rain. Within six hours the heat from the fire took the temperature from 65 degrees to 74. Now I regret having the tree guys haul off most of what they cut down a year and a half ago.

I'm left with a small woodpile that probably won't last two weeks if I keep the wood burning stove going throughout the day in the winter months. The good news is I've had this on my mind and have plenty of fallen trees on the propety that need cleaning up. It's my way of staying in shape this winter.

Burned Out Lawn. Cultivate & Reseed

Mentioned in the original lawn article, summer is not the time to plant grass. Had I been here all of July I believe I could have saved most of it. Watching the weather reports on the web from SW Florida the area did get about three inches of rain, but it fell during a two day period only.

It's obvious lack of water was the problem. After all, areas where rain water runoff soaked into the soil, grass remained healthy, whereas other areas became brown and burned out. No good pictures are available. A solution was to loosen up the soil with a neat tool I found at Lowes. It's called an extended cultivating tool made by Fiskars who specializes in garden related stuff. I had my doubts and passed it up on a few visits thinking it probably could not handle the hard clay soil I was dealing with.

I should start wearing a hat or go to the hair doctor. WOW! First time I looked at that picture (below). Who is this old guy? On to the story. This tool would not have worked unless the soil was soft. After five inches of rain from tropical storm Fay, time was ideal to give it a workout. I'm the one who got the workout! The yard measures approximately 2,400 square feet. Time spent loosening the topsoil and planting new seed was about nine hours over a three day period.

After six days we have itty bitty seedlings germinating and the lawn is beginning to look green! I'm sure there's such a thing as over seeding and I'm guilty of it. I probably put enough seed down to cover 6,000 square feet. Coming from a contractor background I realize I probably blundered by doing it myself. I've seen far too many DIY'ers in my business fowl things up and have to call in the pros. We'll see if a real lawn doctor has to pay another visit. In retrospect I should have opted for calling in somebody to do some hydroseeding.

A close look at the flagstone path with Tall Fescue growing. This is a great shade type of grass. The area gets very little direct sunlight with the exception of some low angle light in the early AM. Not more than 30 minutes. Growth is approximately three weeks.

In conclusion I'm not losing this lawn. In fact I've invested in a tarp to cover when any downpours are threatening until the lawn has more strength to handle it on it's own. Hurricane Hanna is the next threat with heavy rains predicted for the weekend.

I found this local weather radar page to be particularly useful. I only wish it would warn me with some computer sound when threatening rain develops. Instead I find myself checking every two hours. Homestead (photo below) is located in the first image southeast of the circle with the plus sign in it.

Of particular benefit is the storm track option on this website. Once clicked on, it will show the direction of each rainstorm. You can also zoom or isolate an area by using the mouse with left button down and drawing small or large rectangles/squares. Difficult to describe. Best to check it out.
For illustration purposes I've zoomed in on an approaching rain storm from northeastern Alabama. With this cool tool I can time any rain by about five minutes, unless a thunderstorm suddenly pops up over my house. Using the animation option allows a 30 minute view where storms (arrows will change direction) can be tracked if they are changing direction.

Zoomed closer...

With 17 minutes elapsed from the above photo to below, the storm has changed direction by moving more to the east southeast instead of due east