Where are you looking?

This week: Where are you looking when you walk?; It’s the 1st August; Disappointing germination; 2025 weather;

We had some lovely and much needed rain on Saturday night and again on Monday night and into Tuesday morning.

On Sunday I became aware that my main weather station seemed to be under reporting the precipitation amounts and saw there were thunderstorms forecast for Monday.

There were “Red” warnings posted for all Dalmatia, so it seemed like a good time to do a little servicing.

My main recording unit is mounted on a pole 5 metres above the Stevenson Screen in the Citrus Orchard. It high up so that venturi from nearby roofs and trees does not affect the readings too much.

The pole is held rigidly in place with three guy wires, so it is not a straightforward task to get at the unit.

On Monday morning, I de-tensioned the guy wires and lowered the pole. Next I unbolted the “U Clamps” and brought the wireless unit under the patio for a little service.

I installed the system in November 2022, so for the past 2¾ years, it has been at the top of the pole, in all weathers and has worked flawlessly. It is now out of warranty, so if I damaged anything, I couldn’t claim anyway.

There is no maintenance manual, so this was “flying by the seat of my pants” work.

With assorted cross head screwdrivers, I carefully unscrewed the unit to get at the rain measuring device.

This is the simplest kind of tipping plastic bucket. Precipitation goes into the funnel, drops onto the bucket which once there is ⅓ of a gram, the bucket tips and the counterweight magnet passes a reed switch, which records 0.33mm.

This is the first time I have had the unit down to do any kind of servicing, so I was unsurprised to see that the bucket had close to 3 years worth of encrusted sand, dust and debris on its surface.

There were also several spiders and their coccoons inside and although I couldn’t see it, I wondered if one of their threads, which exceed the strength of steel, was restricting the bucket’s movement.

Everything was cleaned and polished. Then I used WD40 PTFE Silicone to lubricate the moving parts and put it all back together.

On the outside there is a “Bee-hive” shaped solar shield to protect the Outside Air Temperature (OAT) sensor. I dismantled this because I could see even more spider’s cocoons.

Once everything was cleaned, including the solar charging panel, I reassembled the unit and replaced the stand-by batteries. Back at the top of the pole, I checked the functions on the control box and everything was working. Another success story!

On Tuesday morning I had registered 38.6mm of rain which correlated with my second rain gauge.

Where are you looking when you walk?

Or perhaps, a better question would be “Where are you not looking when you walk?” The answer is “up in the air”.

I traverse the path down into the Top Orchard at least five times a day when I am carrying a watering can to irrigate, and more times because my Polytunnel is in the Top Orchard.

Going up and down steps, I tend to be looking down not up.

However my workshop window faces the orchard too and this week as I was admiring the play of late afternoon sunlight on the ‘copper beech’ leaves of my Myrobalan Plum, I was surprised to see that a big, high up branch is broken in two and the limb appears to be very, very dead.

When did THAT happen??

Looking more closely, there seems to be one other thick branch which is dying as well. The rest of this perhaps 60 year old tree seems to be doing OK.

I did lose one very large limb during a gale in 2019. We get true “gale force” winds very infrequently and the tree is in a hollow, protected on two sides by buildings.

With my chainsaw, I cut some of the lower dead lower branches. However I decided that I probably need to wait until the (fast approaching) autumn, to position the ladder to trim the broken branch and bring it down to ground level.

The canopy of this tree is huge and I never noticed from my terrace that it was broken. I am sure I would have done so in winter once all the leaves have gone though.

The lives of all living things are finite, although with this specimen, I would have expected that it has the depth and breadth of roots to have withstood the dearth of rainfall we have experienced during recent summers.

Perhaps it is just old age…

It’s the 1st August

Well, yesterday was the 1st August! However, you know what I mean…

Being Yorkshire Day The flags were flying everywhere important.

It is the one day in the year when there is a truce in the Wars of the Roses, and the Customs and Passport checks on the M62 Eastbound at Junction 22, Cleckhuddersfax are waived….

Yorkshire Day, celebrated around the world with Yorkshire Puddings, Yorkshire Curd Tarts, Yorkshire Parkin, Fat Rascals and Yorkshire Tea is definitely celebrated here in Dol 😹

This is one of those “Nationality” things. I’m not British, because Britishness is not a “thing”. I am a proud European, but first and foremost I am a Yorkshireman….

Disappointing germination

Two weeks ago I planted ten individual potlets with Broccoli seeds and I said I was going to plant more at two week intervals.

This week, I was getting ready to plant the second batch, however upon checking the progress of the first lot, just 5 have germinated.

A 50% germination rate is really rather poor!

So for my second batach, I have soaked the next ten seeds overnight in luke warm water, to see if that improves the germination rate.

My order of Organic Brussel Sprouts arrived from Cyprus this week (Fontana seeds), so while I was about it, I have planted ten of these as well.

I hope that I am able to get ahead of the game and have some really strong plants ready for planting out in early September, just as the first Autumn rains should arrive.

2025 Weather

The end of the month is when I download the data from my weather station. My spreadsheet needs updating and then I can do some analysis of the year so far.

Charts, at least simple charts, let you compare and contrast. Here the months of June and July for 2024 and 2025.

You do not need a statistician’s eye to see that we have had drought then flood in 2025! With seven weeks from the end of May until last Monday with barely any rainfall, this is counter to the 10 year average.

We are just above the total average for this point in the year, but I can see from my orchards, that the rain last Monday night has almost all gone again. August usually see some rain, but there is none on the horizon at the moment. It is September when the rains usually begin to arrive again.

The 2025 daily temperatures have been well above the average for June and much of July, but have now started to fall back. They are much more like the average we expect.

This third chart is the important one for anyone with a garden. It shows the 11 day running average.

The 11 day average shows that we are slightly below the average for this point in the year. NCG