When California Went to War Over Eggs | Smithsonian
The scramble for eggs drew entrepreneurs to an unusual source: a 211-acre archipelago 26 miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge known as the Farallon Islands. The skeletal string of islets are outcroppings of the continental shelf, made up of ancient, weather-worn granite.
Saturday, September 21, 2024 →
Geese & White Crowns are back. Soon as the weather stays cooler, I hope to be out at the refuges on weekends. And that should mean photos to share! 🤞
The temperatures are in the 70s and it is quite overcast with clouds and smoke. So we took advantage of the fall-like weather and went to Black Butte Reservoir. Here are Western Grebes, a Double Crested Cormorant, a Robin, and an Osprey 
Monsoonal moisture is invading the Northern Sacramento Valley. There are high level clouds now. Normally the wet bulb starts decreasing at daylight. Not today. People living in the South would shrug at 70° wet bulb but for me, it’s borderline intolerable. #CAWx 
If you like Watch Duty, the free (!) iOS app Calamity goes beyond wildfires into major airport delays, bad weather, earthquakes, solar flares & more. A decently presented aggregation of publicly available information.https://apps.apple.com/us/app/calamity-disaster-monitor/id6477748950
Compared to my old Intel 16” MacBook Pro, this M3 14” MBP is dreamy. As everyone reports, the battery life is ridiculously good. 76% remains and still 20 hrs predicted life. Oh, and I can use this as a _lap_top. Amazing. Funny part? I didn’t notice the lack of a touchbar. 📷 #MBApr 
Sunday, March 24, 2024
This is a slightly shorter post today for just Mosaic Canyon.
Yesterday I picked up our wine club box at the New Clairvaux winery in Vina, CA. Couldn’t beat the weather! #Fujifilm 
If the sun can keep breaking through the clouds today, we may see some thunderstorms in the northern Sacramento Valley… looking promising for weather nerds #CaWx 
The weather has been so damp that there’s been hardly any good time to prune. Since we’re finally drying out a bit, I went ahead and pruned our cultivated native grapes. Sunday should be the warmest day, so I will likely prune the fruit trees then.
Good morning from California, where Fall is finally reasserting itself.
Happy new water year! According to WeatherCat software, my wx station recorded a total of 27.91” for Oct 1, 2022 - Sep 30, 2023 water year. Compare that to 13.66” for Oct 1, 2021 - Sep 30, 2022 water year! Nature gave us a 0.5” boost yesterday. I’m in the N. Sac Valley #CAWx
Weather was nice today! Summer is waning and so I guess outdoor photography season can begin. Here are a few dragonflies enjoying an overcast and hazy day. #Fujifilm
I managed to write an ugly Python script that converts MesoWest (via Synoptic download; nice people there btw) CSV weather data to WeatherCat (macOS software) data. I did some QAQC and it’s a good conversion. I’m pleased. Nice to finally have locally stored & accessible historical weather data.
“Potentially historic summer storm event to unfold in SoCal this weekend as weakening Hurricane Hilary threatens to move ashore as tropical storm–causing severe flood risk in SE desert region”
Sunday, August 13, 2023
I figured out how to have WeatherCat work with my Meteobridge that connects to my Ambient weather station. Turns out it is easy to do with Meteobridge’s template system. In the WeatherCat Station Communications dialog, for Station Type select Generic XML (HTTP) and then enter your Meteobridge’s IP address appended with a URL encoded XML template... user:password@192.168.x.y/cgi-bin/template.cgi?%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EAirTemp_C%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[th0temp]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EIntTemp_C%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[thb0temp-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3ESolar%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[sol0rad-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EUVIndex%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[uv0index-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EBarometer_hPa%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[thb0press-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EWindSpeed_ms%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[wind0wind-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EWindDirect_deg%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[wind0dir-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3ERain_mm%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[rain0total-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3ERH%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[th0hum-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EIntRH%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[thb0hum-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E If you want more information on this XML format, see the WeatherCat 2.
Volunteer Sunflowers in the backyard. The scrub jays garden really well. I continue to be impressed with the new Fujifilm XApp for transferring photos from my X-T5. #Fujifilm #Sunflowers #BloomScrolling
Perfect morning in California to cool the mass of the house off with our whole house fan. Normally it’s in the 90s this time of the year with lows in the high 60s and low 70s. Sorry for those in Texas though 😬
We just hit 1 inch of rain today in the North Sacramento Valley. 😳
I juiced & pasteurized two liters worth of mandarins today. The mandarins still on the tree should hold quite a while longer even with the upcoming cold snap. #HomeOrchard #Fujifilm
In X-Plane 12.04 Beta 2 I’m following United 2376 (777-2, EWR-SFO) in an A340-6. I’m barely keeping up with the 777. There's some light chop just west of Laramie, which is reflected at BumpySkies.com. This latest XP beta improved weather greatly. More chores to do in cruise!
I must admit I’m going to miss certain key people & orgs on Twitter no longer showing up in NetNewsWire and likely Mastodon (@ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org ‘s amazing NWS weather bots). My severance from Twitter is nearly complete. Completely caused by the Twitter itself.
There’s potential for large impacts from weather in California over the next week or so. We just inventoried our emergency kit & are charging our battery banks.
I just turned the compost and wow those soaking rains bring the FATTEST volunteer earthworms into the compost (or encourages them to gorge & get happy in the compost). We do have volunteer resident worms in the compost, though in the summer they stay at the very bottom.
Saturday, November 5, 2022
The weather chilled enough that our new Fujitsu 36LMAS heat pump is fully operational transferring outdoor heat into the house (during the cooling season it does the opposite). Our equipment continues to be amazingly quiet, quite unlike the natural gas furnace the heat pump replaced. It’ll be interesting to compare costs with last winter, though heating a house with a fully variable heat pump doesn’t work the same as a single cycle furnace.
0.34” of rain today! Finally, the rainy season has begun in California. 🤞
Today the weather was very nice and we had to make molè. An indulgent start of heavy comfort food season.
06:54 AM and was 82°F & rising in the backyard here in Orland, CA. Amazing.
Pacific Gas & Electric SmartDay today and I bet tomorrow, too. Between 1600-2100, we’ll be setting our A/C to “away” and being more mindful of our general electrical use. For the greater good!
For the next week, ~record hot temperatures! Once again, time to protect our Hosui Asian Pear’s central leader with shade cloth. I had to lash an old pruned apricot branch to the tree stake for height for the shade cloth. The tree put on several inches in the last week! 🌱
