Our *mild* winter has officially returned to normal. Three inches of snow and still falling. A pleasant 35 degrees, but no kind of day to flirt with the mountain passes.

We'll hunker down by the fire and see what needs doing INSIDE, today. No golf for awhile...

Snowing in Western WA lowlands today. Night skiing at Alpental should be great!

No time to flirt with the passes? That's crazy talk. The best time to get some powdah is when the Winter Storm Warnings are posted!

Go for it, Resistance. My brother and family are on their way to Stevens. We'll wait for the reports. (And enjoy the snow falling in the woods.)

During hurricane season they always talk about how warmer ocean temp (even 2 degrees) makes a big difference in storm strength. It would be interesting to see if water temps are warmer at the start of the hurricane season.

If I manage to sell my house and get the hell out of here, I guarantee there will be a hurricane that hits this area this summer or next.

I know it sounds crazy, but disasters come after I leave a place.

Didn't disappoint. Dumped all night. Snow level was ~700 feet on the way home. Alpental got about 6" from 5-10pm, on top of the 6" earlier in the day. Cold, fluffy powdah! Not even a hint of the Cascade Concrete.

I'm going to cap this off as a Year of "No-Winter",, Last week, We had a Shot of cold air resulting in SN,(short lived) melting the next day, (If it lasted that long)...

The "severe" season is knocking on everyones doors, (As evidenced by the Tornado's this past week), The upper-mid-west "could" "maybe" see "some" snow.. Highly Doubtful....

Buck-eye does bring up a very INTERESTING POINT..
YOY, water temps here in on the East coast up to VA, well they just didn't fall into "cold" catgory at all...NORMALLY, Our water temps in the sounds & open inshore waters are at 42....though 45 or so...
This "Winter" If you can call it that....Ocean Temps all the way up past Cape Hat. never got below the 50~52 mark..... Charter boats, (Oregen Inlet) reporting a *Dismal* year for catching Stripers, and NO Blue-fin Tuna showed up this year, the Bait et al, stayed waaaay north...Along with the afore-mentioned fish...
Huge schools of Kings (10 to 15 lbs) are being caught between Frying Pan Tower and the Mouth of the Cape Fear River, (about 15 miles out)... Unheard of this time of the year.....Hickory Shad, (the eating kind), are already running, up river to spawn....

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Buck-eye: During hurricane season they always talk about how warmer ocean temp (even 2 degrees) makes a big difference in storm strength. It would be interesting to see if water temps are warmer at the start of the hurricane season.

That is going to be interesting to note, as Ocean Water Temps effectively have a "head start" by 7~10 degrees from where they are normally this time of year... Could be a interesting, (Intense), Cane season this year...
One final note....
I Still have a Bell pepper "bush" thats still barely surviving from last year's gardening efforts.... Stupid thing didn't die off, so I left it there, As the days are now getting longer & warmer, it's sprouting new growth.... Lotsa Early trees that bloom are already in full bloom..
My Azaleas have been flowering off/on all "winter"....
Pray for a cool summer, hopefully this isn't a sign of things to come...
Dern Skeeters are already out...

Now just about the mildest on record in the northeast. Will be in the top 3 for sure based on the last few weeks forecast into spring. No complaints. **** winter.

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The "severe" season is knocking on everyones doors, (As evidenced by the Tornado's this past week),

This is the part I'm 'concerned' about. Even the Nashville Red Cross is preparing for a very active spring storm season. I don't think the ground has frozen here much below about 1" this winter. With warmer ground temps, the spring storm season could be 'interesting' indeed. The ocean temperatures are going to add to that I'm sure.

As for mosquitoes and ticks...without a serious freeze this year, I think I'm going to seriously consider getting some guinea hens, otherwise we won't be able to go outside at all.

Mpilar,

How funny. There are a gazillion tiny mosquitos at the garden near a pond at the farm. You could see them whooshing up from the soil while I was tilling a couple of evenings ago. I had just about decided to get some guineas to deal with them. As I was reading the start of your sentence about mosquitoes and ticks, I thought "That makes two of us who need guineas." Glad to see you're ahead of me.

Azusgm: Buy a few hundred "feeder" guppies from a pet store. Even order a whole case of them (thousands - but you get a MUCH better deal)

Put a few in anyplace you have standing water (like, dump 1/2 in the pond.)

Your mosquito problem with disappear.

Excellent. I'll try them in the pond. Thanks.

You may have a problem with other fish eating them. Make sure to release them in very think weed growth, or in very shallow part of the pond.

They breed fast as hell though, some predation won't be an issue. They really need a a place the babies can avoid both predators in the pond and larger guppies too (they're carnivorous.) Tight packed aquatic plants where the water level is 6" or less is a great environment.

And when they overpopulate, the other predators take care of that problem.

My father always put an old tire or two in the ponds to serve as hatcheries for the fish. I'll try to release some of the guppies around the tires and hope for the best. All three of the ponds on the property are still low from the drought. Then again, there probably aren't too many other fish in there to bother them.

Rain. Please, more rain.

Edit: BTW, I like guineas. They are so funny and good company when they make their cheerful noises. A friend who gardens with me likes to bring his Australian shepherd with him. There is a video on the web of border collies herding guineafowl. I bet this shepherd dog would do the same.

What a hoot.

Oh, if they're aren't any other fish in there just dump them. It would be best to have a place for the fry to hide from the larger ones, but they should overpopulate to the point they just eat themselves into equilibrium. And your mosquito problem will be a think of the past.

If your next door neighbor (with a pond) doesn't handle his mosquito situation, you fixing your pond won't be much help.

What's the normal range of mosquitoes? Specifically, how far away do you have to be from a mosquito infested pond to not be bothered?

Peter: Buy a few hundred feeder guppies and dump them in there at night.

Their range is no more than 200' or so, IIRC.

Scratch that, with the wind they can travel several miles.

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Depending on the species, mosquitoes range varying distances, with one to three miles being common—and seven miles being none too rare. Longer distances than that have also been well-substantiated.

Yeah, I have a "mosquito eater" (a CO2 generator that laces the effluent with octenol, which attracts them and then sucks them into a bag where they die from dehydration) and it works very well to collapse the breeding sources around your property (coverage for the unit is about an acre) but there are still some bites as there is some carry-through from other properties.

This summer down here is going to be bad news -- we've had a very warm winter, with no real freezes at all, and that is rather foreboding for the summer months in terms of bugs.

Same here for bugs. We had a few cold days, but nothing like normal. I'm looking forward to an invasion of insects too. :/

Tornado warnings in East TN...stay safe out there Asi...this storm has already done quite a bit of damage on the way out there...

Yea, saw that.

Ordered the fish. The fish breeder down here said that the feeder guppies are known locally as fat head minnows. They feed on mosquito larvae. Ordered five pounds (~1250 fish) directly from the supplier for pickup at the local feed store on March 23 (next run from Arkansas). Think I'll make a run to a bait house tomorrow. Not interested in waiting any longer.

Thanks for cluing me in.

Heh - every spring I put guppies in horse water tanks in all the fields to eat any larvae. They also eat the food that horses may have remaining in their mouths that drop into the tank, and keep the water fresher than it would be otherwise, saving me from having to dump the tanks every couple of days before refilling. It saves a lot of water, for those of you in TX or elsewhere you have water supply issues.

Azusgm: Good deal! You'll be surprised how much difference they make.