The fine weather continues but the drought has broken

Last night, we finally had some rain. More than a centimetre of rain fell overnight, and we've had drizzle for much of the day. Halleluja.

The vines seem okay and all have survived thus far. The first ten are leafing nicely and Alex was able to mow the main row with our lawnmower after strimming it first.

And the donkeys returned yesterday having completed their annual migration down the road and up the hill without a hitch. They seemed happy to be back and loved the new driveway -- no more slipping on the smooth cement.

Met Eireann has not identified our area as having a drought, even though we've had little rain.
https://www.met.ie/climatological-droughts-and-dry-spells-2020

Brilliant Sunday

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day, cold but not uncomfortable. We walked the donkeys from our fields down the road to their winter home in the barns at ITB Stud. They were complaining loudly and their feet were wet and cold. But when the time came, they refused to leave the field. They like it here. When Alex called to them, they finally came down the road. They know the way.

I then settled in to do some gardening, putting plants into the greenhouse, pulling weeds, and cutting back dead plants. The vineyard is almost asleep, with most of the leaves having fallen. The leaves are still on the trees in the orchard. I'll be leaving everything as is for now, though I'd like to put some natural fertiliser and mulch around the plants to decompose over the winter. I have comfrey in the garden to cut up and soak. But today started out with frost and has remained frigid. I'll wait for another day when the weather and my melancholy clear up.

Post-Lorenzo

Well, we got off lucky. The vineyard suffered little damage, just some broken branches, from extra-tropical cyclone Lorenzo.  The orchard did okay, too, with just a few pears on the ground. The donkeys were not seen during the hurricane at all and we suspect they were hiding in their hollow on the north side. The winds were howling from the SE and then SW all day and all night, but the worst we got was 65 knots (120 km/hr). No damage that we could see to house or land, and our friend's boat was undamaged on our mooring.

Mace Head, at the northern corner of Galway Bay had a little less and our boat did fine in Kilrush up the Shannon River. So all in all, not too bad for the strongest hurricane (Category 5 at one stage) to come as far north and east in history. 

The donkeys have since all been accounted for. All nine came down to say Hi yesterday.

🔴 Mace head in the last hour had a gust of 108km/h and also had an average mean wind speed (10mins) of 87km/h. 🔴

🔺 The 87km/h mean speed would be under Red Warning Criteria. 🔺

Met Eireann's Red Warning Criteria;

Mean Speeds in excess of 80 km/h
Gusts Speeds in excess of 130 km/h

Obviously there was no Red Warning but just shows there may be no wind in some parts of the country but others can be much worse!

Highest Wind gust at Weather Alerts Ireland HQ was 51km/h yesterday.