Thursday, March 26, 2009

Another Wind Storm Last Night...

Not as bad as the first, but this time we did get some damage. That big plastic sail I taped to the fruit tree tried manfully to uproot the poor thing, not to mention knocking off most of the blossoms I was trying to save in the first place. Bother. A windbreak gate's hinges got torn right out of the wood, doing minor secondary damage as it traveled in a very purposeful windward direction.

In other news, Ghost seems on the mend. He's putting more weight on the paw, though he still goes three-legged when he wants to run. He's obviously in better spirits than yesterday.

It's still quite windy this morning, which is a bit unusual as the storms usually blow themselves out overnight and then resume in the afternoon. So it's possible we're gonna have an entertaining afternoon. Yay!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

A tarp won't save fruit blossoms from frost; trees don't generate internal heat, they don't get warm under a blanket the way us warm-bloods do.

As you discovered, a tarp is a PITA to put on and a threat to the tree.

The tried and true way to protect blossoms against frost is smudge pots. Raise the local temperature in the orchard just a fraction of a degree and the frost will form somewhere else first. You don't have to heat the whole tree to above freezing, just keep the tree a teeny bit warmer than the rocks and other plants that take the frost.

Smudges won't work in a high wind; if that's when your blossoms are getting frosted, well, there's a reason there are no orchards in your part of the world.

Joel said...

Ah, well. It was worth a try.

:-(

Anonymous said...

also a string of chrismas lights strung through the tree would help warm it if you can afford the juice.

String it 1/2 way between the trunk and the outside branches. Not LED kinds of course but regular bulbs. Which makes it not much of a solution for off grid.

fm

Anonymous said...

What about a Dietz Lantern
Zookeeper