Category: Real life adventures

… or Chile, or South Africa. A plant that flourishes in a west coast desert or mountain meadow is not necessarily going to be happy on the prairie. Some will adapt, others won’t, and the best way to determine which ones will thrive here is to grow them.¹ These are the results of this year’s experiments so far. Please note that I am not an expert gardener, and someone more experienced might have had more success than I did.

From out west:

Gilia tricolor — Germination was near 100% outdoors. The plants grew quickly and bloomed freely, both those that received extra water and those that only got rainwater. The flowers are small, but there are a lot of them. All bloomed for at least a month starting in the middle of May. Those that received regular watering kept going on into July. Not the most brilliantly colorful plant, perhaps, but it rewards a close look, and it is easy to grow. I might try other species of Gilia next year.

Continue reading “Kansas isn’t California …”

Not what I want to see first thing in the morning. I may be spending some quality time with the spiders in the basement tonight.

Update: It’s afternoon now, and storms are starting to pop up. Let’s check the radar:

Oops.

There are actually only three seasons: lawnmower season, leafblower season and snowblower season.²

There’s more information here.

The little inverted purple triangle signifies a “tornado vortex signature.” With luck, it will dissipate before it reaches Wichita, but I was hoping for a nice quiet evening tonight.

Update: There was a lot of wind and rain, but nothing beyond that in Wichita. Although the radar indicated three different tornado vortices during the evening, only one touched down, and that was in a rural area well west of here.

This is getting old. (If Wichita isn’t quite in the red zone, it’s close enough that it doesn’t matter.)

… again.

Whoopee.

It looks like tomorrow will be a good day for catching tigers.

Update:

Spring has sprung. We should hear the sirens any time now.

Update II: The tornadic storm fizzled out by the time it reached my neighborhood, and all we got was an hour or so of hail, none of it larger than half-dollar diameter.⁴ While this was undoubtedly a great disappointment to tornado aficionados, I have better things to do with the rest of the month than find a new place to live.

The greatest danger was inside the house. The only time I listen to traditional broadcast radio is during violent weather, when one of the local country stations intensively covers the meteorological events. They occasionally interrupt the descriptions of hail and flooding for commercials and public service announcements, the latter of which are mostly courtesy of the “Ad Council.” The mean sanctimony of these PSAs is sufficient to choke 2.65 SJWs and incalculably many people of normal sensibilities. They create a powerful temptation to punch the stereo speakers, which would hurt my hand.

How can you tell that it’s early Sunday morning in Wichita?

The people next door are mowing and edging their lawn.