A very interesting thing happened this afternoon and evening. We had a wind storm with winds sustained in the 20 mph range with gusts in the 30s and 40s. How do I know this? It wasn't from the local TV or even the federal weather station site. No, the site in Hanford was off line. I turned on the TV and they didn't even mention the winds blowing like crazy during their weather report. They did mention that Hanford was off line so they were getting radar information from Monterey. Some good that did. Did they bother to look outside?
Now I know the city has different weather than I have out in the country but could they not look at the sky? I can tell what the weather is 10, 20, even 50 miles from my house. How could they just say it's 108 and muggy? Oh, and there is some heavy rain down near Bakersfield.
I have a Kestrel, not the bird. It's a hand held weather machine. Some people have permanent weather stations on their property. I figure that holding up my machine, or even doing it the old fashioned way with a belt weather kit, I can figure out the humidity, wind speed, temperature, etc. A match won't stay lit? I bet it's windy.
Anyway, the wind was blowing like crazy. You could see lightning about 10 miles away. Not one drop of rain at my house. But the tarp cover of the chucker pen tried to blow off. I climbed into the chucker pen and caught the birds and put them into a birdcage in the house. They were not pleased!
I wanted to get a large aviary for them for the yard but the ones I liked cost about $2000. I don't like the chuckers that much. Instead I'm going to make a nice cage for them using the cattle panels. Two years ago I showed a picture of my grape arbor that I made using a panel. http://whatifitistoday.blogspot.com/2011/10/i-was-asked-if-i-could-show-picture-of.html I'm thinking that I could put two of them together and also put a cut in half lengthwise panel across the front and back. Then I could cover the whole thing with 1 inch chicken wire. Total cost for the panels (which I already have) and four t-posts (which I also have) and chicken wire - need more of this would be under $150 if I had to buy it all new. I just need chicken wire. I think I'm going to put this new aviary in the garden. I can plant climbing plants like cucumbers or beans on the outside, or even melons next season. It will provide shade for the birds and food for me.
I was at Back-to-School night when I heard the neighboring towns lost their power. We had a brief moment everything went dark, but the power came back on. Grab some flashlights and kerosene lantern and find a book.
ReplyDeleteGood reminder andchance to see what weknow.