Friday 3 December 2021

Weird weather

Solaris vines have mostly dropped their leaves now.

Ghost didn't come home yesterday, so this morning I walked down to Stud Cottage and called her name all the way there and back. When I returned home, she was waiting. She doesn't use the road - she has her own route cross country. She is my constant companion. Like a puppy, she follows me everywhere. She especially likes the vineyard. Lots of good wildlife smells there.

I am now also feeding Ginger cat daily. She was starving. I cannot let an animal starve.

Ghost and I walked the land and checked the vineyard. Most of the Solaris leaves are down. But the Pinot Noir and Albarino are still holding on. The trees in the orchard have now dropped their leaves. But the weather has been so strange -- a few cold days then back to warm -- that lots of stuff is still blooming including the roses. The butterfly bushes are growing, the magnolia is budding, the grass needs cutting, and bulbs are already coming up.

I was outside all morning today, cleaning up in patches of garden. I can't start pruning yet as I am afraid the sap is still flowing. Yet, the light is like twilight all day until the sun sets at 4:20. We only get 7h 46m of light today. Feel like hibernating. Even the polytunnel feels gloomy. And we have a new moon tomorrow so nights are dark, too, and tides are high. Heavy rain is due tonight and tomorrow. Sunday is supposed to be clear. The weekend forecast is for gardening with a 99% chance of wine. ;-)

If I can make it to the 21st, we will have turned the corner on the darkness and will start working our way back into the light.

Pinot Noir and Albarino holding on

Rose blooming

Hungry blue tits

Weekend forecast

Weekend forecast:

Gardening with a 99% chance of wine

Thursday 2 December 2021

November Wx stats

The numbers are in for November and, despite the cold snap at the end of the month, the mean temperature for November was still the warmest of the past four years and a full degree above the long-term average (LTA) for the reference period 1981-2010. Rainfall turned out to be slightly higher than the LTA and soil temps quite a bit higher than prior years.

Basically, it's all a bit unpredictable. No tropical cyclones formed in the Atlantic basin during November. However, Tropical Storm Wanda continued from the end of October through the first seven days of November. Based on a 30-year climatology (1991-2020), a tropical storm forms in November every one to two years.

Overall, NOAA reports that the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season featured above-normal activity. Twenty-one named storms formed, of which seven became hurricanes and four became major hurricanes - category 3 or higher. Even though it seemed quiet in the Atlantic this year, it really wasn't - but it was definitely not as wild as last year.

MONTHLY VALUES FOR NEWPORT UP TO 01-DEC-2021

Total rainfall in millimetres for NEWPORT

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2021	225.6	147.6	141.1	45.6	113.5	64.1	59.7	155.6	137.0	265.7	183.3	6.6	1545.4
2020	139.5	342.8	178.2	25.5	54.7	164.5	187.9	137.9	153.4	228.0	206.6	232.7	2051.7
2019	146.8	115.0	228.5	100.7	112.5	76.6	82.7	228.9	175.5	160.7	148.1	220.6	1796.6
2018	274.6	155.6	86.2	94.3	70.4	65.9	58.6	179.1	148.3	140.9	172.6	201.0	1647.5
LTA	166.7	126.5	141.2	96.8	94.7	89.7	100.9	132.5	131.5	176.0	170.4	180.2	1607.1

Mean temperature in degrees Celsius for NEWPORT

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2021	5.0	6.7	7.9	9.0	10.4	13.3	17.5	16.4	15.2	11.9	9.3	7.0	11.2
2020	7.2	6.0	6.6	11.0	12.8	13.8	14.4	16.0	13.8	10.5	9.1	6.1	10.6
2019	6.9	8.4	7.9	10.2	11.7	13.1	16.3	15.5	13.7	10.3	7.1	7.1	10.7
2018	5.9	4.6	5.5	9.1	13.1	16.1	16.1	15.0	12.4	10.9	8.3	8.1	10.5
LTA	6.1	6.1	7.3	9.0	11.5	13.8	15.4	15.4	13.5	10.8	8.3	6.5	10.3

Mean 10cm soil temperature for NEWPORT at 0900 UTC

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2021	3.6	5.0	6.8	8.2	10.9	14.3	17.9	16.3	15.2	11.3	8.6	n/a	10.8
2020	5.7	4.7	5.4	9.7	13.0	14.8	14.9	16.3	13.7	9.5	8.0	5.1	10.1
2019	6.1	6.1	6.8	8.9	12.2	13.8	16.7	15.7	13.5	9.4	6.2	5.6	10.1
2018	4.4	2.9	4.0	8.2	13.1	17.4	18.4	15.1	12.1	9.6	6.6	6.6	9.9
LTA	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a

Sunday 28 November 2021

Big storm, bitter cold

Yesterday we had a big storm with high winds and a big chill -- temps hovering around 0C at night. Today, we had a calm moody day with dramatic skies and warm drizzle. What a contrast.

I walked up to the vineyard after finishing work in the polytunnel thinking the vines might be dormant. I noticed that the Rondo had dropped all its leaves, the Solaris dropped most of its leaves, but the Chardonnay, Pinto Noir and Albarino were still holding onto the leaves. Strange. I guess the shorter season grapes also have shorter season vines. And whereas the Rondo leaves had turned red first, all the others turned golden yellow, even the Pinto Noir. Not yet time for pruning.

Well, it's almost the end of the month and we've increased our rainfall total to somewhat normal but are still way high on temperature average even with several days of bitter cold. In a couple of days, I'll report the final numbers.

Meanwhile, the Omicron variant that was detected in SA has taken off and travel restrictions are being instituted again. Looks like we'll be staying home for the holidays yet again. Glad to have our land.

Sunday 21 November 2021

Brrrrr, the big chill has arrived

Sunset today - so early. This was at 4:17.

Until today, November has been exceedingly mild. The mean temperature was 10.3 degrees for the month through the 20th, which is more than a degree warmer than last year. Last year at 9.1C was 2 degrees warmer than 2019 and a degree warmer than the prior two years (8.3C). Lots of flowers have been blooming right through the month, including amazing roses. Bees have been flying right through to this morning. Alex put up a lovely gate to the Apiary and made a cute sign for it.

This afternoon, it turned bitterly cold. We are to have about a week of arctic chill and Friday we will have a gale. They are saying that it may drop below zero at night but as there is no precipitation in the forecast until Wednesday at the earliest, there is little likelihood of snow. We will have little cloud cover so we may yet get frost. That would be welcome as it might kill off some of the pests and coax everything into dormancy.

It was a beautiful Autumn, with lots of colour. Most of the leaves have now dropped, the donkeys are in the barn, and the sunrises and sunsets have been spectacular. But we did not get to see the lunar eclipse as there was too much cloud cover. We even had enough leaves remaining that we had to rake them today.

The wine is doing well; the bubbling has slowed down. Time to rack the white in particular. The yeast has settled nicely at the bottom of the demijohn. The red is taking longer to settle but it has more volume.

The mushroom kits have stopped producing so I put one out by the alder trees above the 'Avenue' and the oyster mushrooms I put out by the beech tree in the opposite corner. Hopefully, there are enough spores left to populate edible mushrooms in our 'forest'.