Of weather and generators

We had a bit of weather come through.

My bride and I were walking Zeus when a neighbor stopped. Normally he would have driven by us. He informed us that we were under a tornado warning.

A tornado was spotted in Bellevue some twenty miles to the west. The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning and we had already heard the sirens from town.

While chatting, he asked us if our power was on. It was. His was not.

I got the dogs into the house and gave Herc his two diphenylhydramide. Mrs ERJ suggested we move to the basement. I will spare you the picture. Herc decided to take a heroic dump once he got down to the basement.

After popping out of the basement I remembered that I have a generator my neighbor could be using. At 2000W he cannot run his entire house but he can certainly run his fridge and freezer.

Being a gentleman, I loaded it into the truck along with some extension cords.

I caught him outside. One of his buddies had stopped by and my neighbor was "loaning" him a container of gasoline.

My neighbor declined the use of my generator. He has FIVE generators. Consumers Power predicted that the power would come back on at nine PM and he couldn't be bothered to hook up his generator(s) and run them. A few hours without electricity does not even count as an inconvenience.

He showed me his generators. Only one of them is working. One was BRAND NEW and the proud owner fired it up without putting oil in it. It ran just a little while before tossing a rod through the side of the engine. Another has carb issues and the third melted when The Mrs-of-the-House (not his wife) flipped the main breaker to see if there was power while the generator was hooked up.

My neighbor is handy around small engines and figures he can get two of them back in business. One needs a new motor and another probably needs little more than fresh gas, a new spark-plug and a can of carb-cleaner.

He keeps the melted one around to show folks what happens when you flip the main breaker ON when you don't know what you are doing. Not only can you fry linemen, you can catch things on fire in your house.

I accomplished what I set out for. I impressed my neighbor with the importance of offering me be COLD beer when I visited. It was so important that I was willing to loan him my generator.

Rain totals

We are somewhere in the neighborhood of +6" of precipitation since June 17. This data comes from a nearby weather station and the weather bucket sitting in the middle of my yard. More rain to come.

My Wednesday fishing date might be from my front porch if the rain keeps coming.

That is an exaggeration. I am approximately 40' in elevation above the nearest open water. However, it will be a while before I can get into the garden with a tiller. Moist soil is easy to compact and it is the devil to get fluffed back up.

Phones

A big shout-out to RVTwireless on eBay. The Samsung Galaxy S5 I ordered from them arrived THREE days sooner than promised.

Seeds

A boo-and-hiss to Territorial Seeds. I placed an order June 13. All seeds were listed as "In Stock". I got a notice on June 24 that it was "in the mail".

Gardening is time sensitive. Two weeks turn-around on a seed order, especially when everything is in-stock, is a problem.

What did I order?

I am a nosey person. I like to know what other people are growing. I am sure than nearly everybody else is a much better person than I am. But...there is one person out there who might want to know:

Much of this will be planted in Mrs ERJ's salad garden. We also have a couple of kinds of Kale self-seeding that we might include in the horse race.