Thursday, August 25, 2022

Welcome Relief, For Some of Us

A resident Mississippi Kite near its nest
Biblically large weather events are becoming the norm, it seems. But for once, our little corner has had some respite from the very hot and muggy, but otherwise very dry days we'd been experiencing for over a month.

The weather that caused the "thousand-year flood" that hit Dallas the other day produced drenching but moderate rain for us, and the soil was able to absorb it without causing any damage to the Farm. The nandinas that I thought I'd lost have greened up, and the grass has needed mowing twice in the last two weeks (after not growing a smidgen for the previous month)--which is about normal for fall. So maybe that's what's going on now. The windows are all open, and we haven't had the A/C on for three days, even at night. The animals (especially the Great Hairy Beast, Nylah, who has shed an entire coat's worth of fur this summer) are coping well. It's still muggy, but cool and breezy enough to keep things relatively pleasant. Especially compared to recent days.

Our mornings out of doors have included entertainment from a couple of Mississippi Kite pairs who've built nests in the same elm tree. We're not quite sure what we're seeing, because we didn't realize that there were probably young ones involved until recently, but we haven't been able to spot a fledgling. So we could just be seeing fledged babies hanging around and testing their wings (and making lots of noise) before they migrate south. There seems to have been another crop of bunnies as well, and a faithful new hummingbird or two, so our efforts to sustain them all appear to be paying off. It's actually been cool enough that the squirrels have stopped spending all day splooting and have resumed their mad scrambles across the yard and through the trees.

Because this is Texas, we have learned to enjoy good weather while it lasts, so I'm not going to count on many more days of this, even though more rain is forecast for next week. [An aside: is anyone but me bothered by the fact that a couple of my weather apps, including the one that comes with the iPhone, have started saying "forecasted"--as in, "more rain forecasted for this afternoon"? Ack!]

Once again, though, even our spate of uncomfortable weather needs to be appreciated with some gratitude for not being even hotter. I do hope that the experience will encourage folks around here to take advantage of upcoming assistance with upgrading to more efficient appliances, electric vehicles, and the like. We will be looking into replacing our gas furnace with an electric heat pump, even though it will be more expensive to do so. But we've been trying to reduce our dependence on natural gas for some time, and although the monthly energy bill will likely go up, we should at last be able to afford the shift. 

TBS's fondest wish, an electric vehicle, is probably not on the menu, however. We only have the one car now (a Jeep Gladiator for pulling our travel trailer), and since we don't drive much at all anyway, we'll wait until after the household energy situation has been modified. When Chevrolet launches its new electric Silverado, though, and if the range is good enough, we may well trade in the Jeep. And then we could use the truck as backup during blackouts. Our portable power station worked well during the heat wave, when we lost electricity for a couple of hours, but one of those trucks (Like the Ford F150 Lightning) can power an entire house for a couple of days. One of the favorite television programs around our house is Fully Charged (also available on  YouTube), where up-to-date, accurate information is available for anyone interested in the whole question of rethinking our grid.

Mind you, my technological skepticism drives me toward more traditional mitigation efforts--like window coverings, water-saving and reclamation efforts, and energy conservation. But as careful as we have been to reduce our use of air conditioning and other efforts to lessen our impact on the grid, we were pretty restricted in what we could accomplish. And we're retired, with no real travel obligations. And some of our food is delivered every week. So we don't have to get out much. Folks who have more energy-demanding lives have been facing enormous utility bills, without many options. Clearly, alternatives to the status quo will need to be explored by lots more people, and not just aging hippies like us.

The end of August is upon us. September is often our hottest month. We'll probably spend the rest of the month, if it stays cool-ish, getting done what we've been putting off--like getting some fall "crops" in. But we're not particularly hopeful that our good fortune will last, so we'll relish the respite while we can. Stay cool, People. Peace out.

5 comments:

Spare Parts and Pics said...

Glad the weather has been somewhat kind to you. I've been thinking more about an electric vehicle. In CA, it's a tremendously complex equation with regards to rebate eligibility.

Yogi♪♪♪ said...

I think enjoying good weather while you have applies to lots of other places like here in Oklahoma.

I read your lifestyle with interest. We run the AC all the time and never open the windows in the summer. Kudos to you is what I think learning to roll with weather's punches.

The grid is on the way to fundamental changes despite some organizations fighting it. The whole thing about using the batteries in electric vehicles to stabilize the grid is fascinating to me.

Enjoy your weekend!!

Tigger's Mum said...

Interesting rethinking - some of the energy options available don't provide what you need when you need it most. We have a sun-heated hot water system. Near to boiling water is virtually endless on Summer days (when all you want is a cold shower), and non-existent in Winter. Not ideal. Lots of homes are installing solar panels on the roof, but it needs to be teamed up with wind powered generation. Vertical axis wind turbines need more development (horizontal axis are too noisy for lived spaces), and energy storage needs to be made workable. There is a whole small town in Scotland on a pilot scheme to use wind power (from out at sea) to turn water into hydrogen and oxygen and store the energy that way for use when the wind doesn't provide. We are interested in that for sustainability and 'cleanness'.

Andree said...

You're pondering all of the changes I have been pondering. I'm getting a new furnace next month (necessity; the old one broke last winter but they kept it alive). Luckily, air conditioning is not needed here. Strange weather, indeed.

Sallie (FullTime-Life) said...

I'm glad the flooding rains didn't reach your corner of Texas. This weather has most everybody thinking about electric vehicles ... we may still want to pull our travel trailer and boat trailer (if things don't get worse) so we'll hang on to what we have for now. Interesting that Chevy is re-branding the Silverado to electric. That was our first truck. I wonder what its pulling capacity will be.