Thunder Watch
Tuesday, July 5th, 2022 10:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudioIt's 10:15PM and I'm on thunder watch tonight.
For other people, a Severe Thunderstorm Watch means... I dunno... try to stay home? Be prepared for a tree branch to fall down and knock the power out?
For me, it means... get The S8 onto it's tripod, in front of the front-window, plugged into power and stand by to record!
I did that an hour ago, and have been checking the radar every fifteen minutes or so. There is a gigantic system that's been passing north of us, but slowly drifting southward. So, if it does pass over Aurora, it will be doing so from the north heading south... which means there's a better chance it will actually ignore the hole and move directly over.
And given that it's 86F out there, after sunset, there's enough heat engergy to make this a banger!
But, as always, my skepticism is high.
I began getting phone notifications from NOAA of lightning strikes around 10:05PM. And then I finally heard a rumble outstide at 10:12.
By 10:15, I had turned off the AC up here, opened the window, and hit the record button. The S8 is recording right now as I'm typing, and my mini-fridge is still running... because I'm not gonna go completely silent unless I hear something meaningful.
------------{=0=}------------
10:30PM
Of course, not a sound out there since I hit the reocord button. No rain either.
Meanwhile the radar is showing the massive system reluctant to budge south. It's stubbornly remaining about 25 miles north as it moves through.
The fat, tailing blob of the system... still back out over Iowa... stretches far south of us. But will it narrow up as it get's closer in the next few hours?
This is how it goes!.. hit the record button and wait. Nothing happens. Get hot, because the AC is off and the window is open.
All the lightning strike notifications have stopped.
------------{=0=}------------
10:40
I'm giving up. Stopped recording. Closed the window. Turned the AC back on. Resuming my life.
------------{=0=}------------
In other news, I finished my third audio book today about bugs; Buzz, Sting, Bite: Why We Need Insects by Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson.
I'm a little struck by how all three books; All Creatures Small & Great,Summer World, and Buzz, Sting, Bite, rehashed a lot of the same basic information and anecdotes about insects. For example, small flies called midges are responsible for chocolate, because they're the only bug that can pollinate the Cacao plant.
All three also mentioned that Ivermectin, the horse de-worming drug tauted as a cure for Covid by Donald Trump and his supporters during the height of the pandemic... is actually killing all the dung beetles responsible for returning cow and horse dung on farms back into the soil.
Like, without the dung beetles, the farms would just be swimming in so much shit they'd have to abandon whole fields for decades.
Dung beetles are as important to agriculture as honey bees. But farmers give livestock Ivermectin as a precution... rather than waiting until an animal actually has worms... and it comes out in their shit and kills the beetles.
So... that's a whole other level of world-ending stupidity involving Ivermectin that we didn't even know was going on, before these people started taking it themselves so they could pretend to have an excuse to not wear masks in public or get vaccinated.
Nice!
There is no hope for this planet.
------------{=0=}------------
At any rate, after three bug books, I decided I'd acually like to learn more about the, "wood wide web," which is the network of tree roots and underground fungus that allow trees and plants to communicate with one another, and share resources.
It keeps getting touched on in the bug books, because so many bugs spend a larval stage underground feeding on roots, and some ants farm the fungus, or keep the larvae as livestock. The plant and insect worlds are inextricably bound to one another.
I'm hoping to get a better insight into the ecology of my yard... and also to find out how much damage I really did with all that Tordon in 2021.
--<>--
So tomorrow I'll start, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate - Discoveries from a Secret World, by Peter Wohlleben.
And when I'm done with that one, it's on to, Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest, by Suzanne Simard.
And those should keep me busy for a few days, as the heat wave rages, and I remain watchful for any thunder to record.
------------{=0=}------------
11:15
Big storm system is still up there, 25 miles north, but nothing in Aurora. It's not drifing south as they said it would. It's a straight march east.
NOAA's local prediction for rain and thunder here, has been, "will start in 2 hours," for the last six hours.
This is how it always goes. If anything comes, it won't be until after I've gone to sleep. But, I'm still ready.
------------{=0=}------------
Last bit of news, I got my new PC speakers today and... the wind chime recordings from last week do NOT distort when played through them.
The problem was with my old speakers.
No actual distortion exists on the tracks.
I'll be uploading mixdowns of those two tracks soon.
I also recorded the neighborhood insanity of fireworks last night. I'll upload a mix of that too... as a DIAL, soon.
°¦}
https://soundcloud.com/snoozefestaudio
For other people, a Severe Thunderstorm Watch means... I dunno... try to stay home? Be prepared for a tree branch to fall down and knock the power out?
For me, it means... get The S8 onto it's tripod, in front of the front-window, plugged into power and stand by to record!
I did that an hour ago, and have been checking the radar every fifteen minutes or so. There is a gigantic system that's been passing north of us, but slowly drifting southward. So, if it does pass over Aurora, it will be doing so from the north heading south... which means there's a better chance it will actually ignore the hole and move directly over.
And given that it's 86F out there, after sunset, there's enough heat engergy to make this a banger!
But, as always, my skepticism is high.
I began getting phone notifications from NOAA of lightning strikes around 10:05PM. And then I finally heard a rumble outstide at 10:12.
By 10:15, I had turned off the AC up here, opened the window, and hit the record button. The S8 is recording right now as I'm typing, and my mini-fridge is still running... because I'm not gonna go completely silent unless I hear something meaningful.
10:30PM
Of course, not a sound out there since I hit the reocord button. No rain either.
Meanwhile the radar is showing the massive system reluctant to budge south. It's stubbornly remaining about 25 miles north as it moves through.
The fat, tailing blob of the system... still back out over Iowa... stretches far south of us. But will it narrow up as it get's closer in the next few hours?
This is how it goes!.. hit the record button and wait. Nothing happens. Get hot, because the AC is off and the window is open.
All the lightning strike notifications have stopped.
10:40
I'm giving up. Stopped recording. Closed the window. Turned the AC back on. Resuming my life.
In other news, I finished my third audio book today about bugs; Buzz, Sting, Bite: Why We Need Insects by Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson.
I'm a little struck by how all three books; All Creatures Small & Great,Summer World, and Buzz, Sting, Bite, rehashed a lot of the same basic information and anecdotes about insects. For example, small flies called midges are responsible for chocolate, because they're the only bug that can pollinate the Cacao plant.
All three also mentioned that Ivermectin, the horse de-worming drug tauted as a cure for Covid by Donald Trump and his supporters during the height of the pandemic... is actually killing all the dung beetles responsible for returning cow and horse dung on farms back into the soil.
Like, without the dung beetles, the farms would just be swimming in so much shit they'd have to abandon whole fields for decades.
Dung beetles are as important to agriculture as honey bees. But farmers give livestock Ivermectin as a precution... rather than waiting until an animal actually has worms... and it comes out in their shit and kills the beetles.
So... that's a whole other level of world-ending stupidity involving Ivermectin that we didn't even know was going on, before these people started taking it themselves so they could pretend to have an excuse to not wear masks in public or get vaccinated.
Nice!
There is no hope for this planet.
At any rate, after three bug books, I decided I'd acually like to learn more about the, "wood wide web," which is the network of tree roots and underground fungus that allow trees and plants to communicate with one another, and share resources.
It keeps getting touched on in the bug books, because so many bugs spend a larval stage underground feeding on roots, and some ants farm the fungus, or keep the larvae as livestock. The plant and insect worlds are inextricably bound to one another.
I'm hoping to get a better insight into the ecology of my yard... and also to find out how much damage I really did with all that Tordon in 2021.
So tomorrow I'll start, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate - Discoveries from a Secret World, by Peter Wohlleben.
And when I'm done with that one, it's on to, Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest, by Suzanne Simard.
And those should keep me busy for a few days, as the heat wave rages, and I remain watchful for any thunder to record.
11:15
Big storm system is still up there, 25 miles north, but nothing in Aurora. It's not drifing south as they said it would. It's a straight march east.
NOAA's local prediction for rain and thunder here, has been, "will start in 2 hours," for the last six hours.
This is how it always goes. If anything comes, it won't be until after I've gone to sleep. But, I'm still ready.
Last bit of news, I got my new PC speakers today and... the wind chime recordings from last week do NOT distort when played through them.
The problem was with my old speakers.
No actual distortion exists on the tracks.
I'll be uploading mixdowns of those two tracks soon.
I also recorded the neighborhood insanity of fireworks last night. I'll upload a mix of that too... as a DIAL, soon.
°¦}
