Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

I really should read my own blog.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

If West Virginia and San Francisco had a love child.

Even though I know this is a bad idea, I’m off to do it anyway!

He really is that stupid.

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

Be a traveling stable for those who can’t find room at the inn.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

You are here: Home / Garden Chats / Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Solstice Is Coming

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Solstice Is Coming

by | 83 Comments

This post is in: 

marvel Solstice 2015

From faithful garden commentor Marvel:

It’s been a mild and rainy few weeks and we’re happy to see a likely end to the draught experienced by Oregonians elsewhere in the state (here in the Willamette Valley, we’re glad to be replenishing the local wells and streams).

With Winter solstice fast approaching, our thoughts turn to longer days and sunnier times.

***********
Here in New England, it’s been weirdly unseasonable; last local tv weather broadcast I saw said December temps were averaging 10 degrees higher than normal. Of course something very similar happened last year, and then come January…

Still, while it lasts: What’s going on in your garden planning this week?

Reader Interactions

83Comments

  1. 1.

    Jeff

    A mild winter is to continue in Philadelphia PA as soon as the bit of winter that dropped in for the weekend leaves again. My yard thinks it’s late April or early May. The annual poppies have exploded into growth. The arugula is doing just fine. After the last three cold wet winters I’m not minding this one at all.

  2. 2.

    raven

    It dropped below freezing her so hopefully the weird blooming will stop. I’ve put the fences back up so the dogs can use the nice built-in dog door we had installed. I used the picket fence panels I had taken down 2 1/2 years ago but the fence is now less than plump and level.

  4. 4.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven: I’d kinda like to see a “plump” fence.

    As to

    we’re happy to see a likely end to the draught experienced by Oregonians elsewhere in the state

    I’d be kind of irritated by the likely loss of draught, especially all the stouts and ales. In fact, I think I’d have to protest at the state capitol.

  8. 8.

    JPL

    @Gindy51: My knockout roses are still blooming. A few years ago, the forsythia bloomed on and off during December. The spring blooms were blah!

  9. 9.

    Schlemazel

    We have had 3-4 days of at, or below, freezing temps this week after a very long stretch of 40+ days. There was a snow storm a couple of weeks ago but that is all gone. We had a huge lightning storm on Wednesday, don’t remember the rainfall totals but it was coming in buckets for a long period. A very weird year.

  10. 10.

    Raven

    Now that the Bohdi can’t play ball hey gets bored after about 15 minutes of me reading theTimes and attacks my arm!

  11. 11.

    evodevo

    Thank you El Nino !! Very mild winter here in Ky, especially as compared with last year’s horror. This time last Dec. we had already had WINTER with at least 5 or 6 inches of snow for at least two months, and then had nasty weather last till the next May 1. AWFUL winter…

  12. 12.

    Satby

    @Schlemazel: We’re having similar weather, and like Anne Laurie, I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop in January. The dawn this morning is a deep pink, sailors take warning.

  13. 13.

    Satby

    And I’m feeling a bit melancholy when I consider all the things I’ve planted that I will be leaving. I won’t be able to keep this house for when my time in Florida with my mom is over so all my plants and planning will be enjoyed by someone else. I hope.

  14. 14.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Daffodils in bloom, the warmest ever December: how worrying is the world’s strange weather?

    December temperatures in London have been warmer than July’s. Scotland is balmier than Barcelona. Artificial snow covers European ski slopes. Africa faces its worst food crisis in a generation as floods and droughts strike vulnerable countries.

    With unusual weather from Britain to Australia, scientists are blaming climate change – but also the natural phenomenon called El Niño, which is raising temperatures and disrupting weather patterns. A double whammy then, but how disturbed should we be as the records tumble?

    …..

    We are nearing “peak El Niño”. The UN’s World Meteorological Organisation said it expected the warming of equatorial waters in the Pacific to peak in a few weeks. But the medium-term consequences are difficult to judge. Secretary-general Michel Jarraud said: “This event is playing out in uncharted territory. Our planet has altered dramatically because of climate change. So this El Niño event and human-induced climate change may interact and modify each other in ways which we have never before experienced. El Niño is turning up the heat even further.”

    I’d guess we’re going to find out

  19. 19.

    Scout211

    Marvel, what a festive use of your wonderful produce!

    I lost my remaining 3 tomato plants weeks ago to freezing temps. We have been having periods of unseasonably cold temps here in the west as the east is having unseasonably warm temps.

    I read last week that the snow pack in the mountains is at 85% of normal here in NorCal. And this was before yesterday’s snow in the mountains, with more to come this week. This is very good news.

    With the El Niño coming in 2016, we are hoping that the drought is over here in NorCal. It will remain to be seen how the El Niño rains affect the snow pack, though.

    Fingers crossed.

  20. 20.

    ThresherK

    @SiubhanDuinne: Yes, it’s a treat. And also a reminder for those of us who might not get enough fresh produce this time of year (raises hand) without trying.

    Roasting a Hubbard squash today for what will seem like an endless supply of quickbreads and muffins.

  26. 26.

    ThresherK

    @Baud: Voters want a presidential candidate with a thorough knowledge of time zones. You’d better prepare for the pop quiz from Katie Couric.

  28. 28.

    MomSense

    @Baud:

    Thanks. I hope so too because we can’t deal with the 100 year snowfall every year!

    All the dogs in the neighborhood are barking now.

  29. 29.

    Elmo

    Mobile site is borked again. The down arrows to expand the posts no workee, and it doesn’t remember me! Waaaaa!

  30. 30.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    In Detroit it got down just below freezing yesterday. It was very windy so of course it felt much colder. The volunteer snapdragon plant on a dirt pile in the corner of the yard finally gave up. That was the last flower. I planted snapdragons 10+ years ago and every year now they pop up somewhere different. It’s like an easter egg hunt to find them. Same with feverfew. My sister gave me a transplant 8 years ago and now it just appears wherever.
    I hope precipitation holds off a while longer. I have to be in Ajax ON, up north of Buffalo by noon Monday. That’s a 6 hour slog in good weather. If it snows, it could be days getting back.

  32. 32.

    ThresherK

    @Baud: Will Baud Mean Time lead to more head-on locomotive crashes? Because I forsee the oppo bumper sticker:

    BAUD: He made the trains crash on time

  33. 33.

    Schlemazel

    @Matt McIrvin:
    Looks like we will be bumping up against 40 all week. That is unusual but not unheard of around here but the lack of snow is unusual. This weather is not good for the native plants and animals. I do enjoy the heating bills but I believe we are going to have an even larger bill due, it not nice to fool mother nature.

  35. 35.

    Schlemazel

    @Baud:
    HEY! If various popes and kings could make up new calendars why not baud?

    Now that I say that I realize I need to print out a bumper sticker today:

    WHY NOT BAUD?

  36. 36.

    Schlemazel

    @Botsplainer:

    It took me a bit when the kid was in Afghanistan that they are 12.5 hours ahead of us here on the tundra. It’s the half hour part that got me.

  37. 37.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    If you can make your own time, you can also fix it so it doesn’t feel so horrible to have to get up early, right?

  39. 39.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Scary, especially for our friends living south of Orlando: The Siege of Miami (via LGM)

    To cope with its recurrent flooding, Miami Beach has already spent something like a hundred million dollars. It is planning on spending several hundred million more. Such efforts are, in Wanless’s view, so much money down the drain. Sooner or later—and probably sooner—the city will have too much water to deal with. Even before that happens, Wanless believes, insurers will stop selling policies on the luxury condos that line Biscayne Bay. Banks will stop writing mortgages.

    “If we don’t plan for this,” he told me, once we were in the car again, driving toward the Fontainebleau hotel, “these are the new Okies.” I tried to imagine Ma and Pa Joad heading north, their golf bags and espresso machine strapped to the Range Rover.

    But enough with the schadenfreude.

    “We have a triple whammy,” he said. “One whammy is sea-level rise. Another whammy is the water table comes up higher, too. And in this area the higher the water table, the less space you have to absorb storm water. The third whammy is if the rainfall extremes change, and become more extreme. There are other whammies probably that I haven’t mentioned. Someone said the other day, ‘The water comes from six sides in Florida.’ ”

    And in a state led by climate change denier in chief Rick Snyder, you have the ‘sane’ people believing in rainbow farting magic unicorns:

    “Some people get swept into office,” Levine joked when it was his turn at the mike. “I always say I got floated in.” He described the steps his administration was taking to combat the effects of rising seas. These include installing enormous underground pumps that will suck water off the streets and dump it into Biscayne Bay. Six pumps have been completed, and fifty-four more are planned. “We had to raise people’s storm-water fees to be able to pay for the first hundred-million-dollar tranche,” Levine said. “So picture this: you get elected to office and the first thing you tell people is ‘By the way, I’m going to raise your rates.’ ”

    He went on, “When you are doing this, there’s no textbooks, there’s no ‘How to Protect Your City from Sea Level Rise,’ go to Chapter 4.” So the city would have to write its own. “We have a team that’s going to get it done, that’s going to protect this city,” the Mayor said. “We can’t let investor confidence, resident confidence, confidence in our economy start to fall away.”

    …..

    “I believe in human innovation,” Levine responded. “If, thirty or forty years ago, I’d told you that you were going to be able to communicate with your friends around the world by looking at your watch or with an iPad or an iPhone, you would think I was out of my mind.” Thirty or forty years from now, he said, “We’re going to have innovative solutions to fight back against sea-level rise that we cannot even imagine today.”

    Rainbow farting unicorns like

    I asked about the limestone problem. “That is the one that scares us more than anything,” Mowry said. “New Orleans, the Netherlands—everybody understands putting in barriers, perimeter levees, pumps. Very few people understand: What do you do when the water’s coming up through the ground?

    ….

    Mowry said he was intrigued by the possibility of finding some kind of resin that could be injected into the limestone. The resin would fill the holes, then set to form a seal. Or, he suggested, perhaps one day the city would require that builders, before constructing a house, lay a waterproof shield underneath it, the way a camper spreads a tarp under a tent. Or maybe some sort of clay could be pumped into the ground that would ooze out and fill the interstices.

    As a caver I have a wealth of experience with limestone and all I can say is “Ummmm, no.” Go read the whole thing. And if you think you are immune just because you don’t live there, just imagine the hit on the economy when some of the most valuable real estate in the country becomes literally worthless.

  40. 40.

    Josie

    @Satby: Your comment struck a chord with me. Since I moved, I find that I don’t miss my house at all, but I do miss the plants that I nurtured there – the pretty little shade tree, the rose bush, the rosemary and basil. Also, the little green lizards that used to keep me company while I gardened. I look forward to the time when I again have a permanent residence where I can plant stuff and know I won’t have to leave it.

  41. 41.

    Schlemazel

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    a bit tangential – I have never carved limestone only alabaster & soapstone how is limestone to work with?

    The obvious thing to me though is, lets pretend you go stop the water from coming up through the limestone . . . where does it go? How much pressure will be built up? This looks like a ‘crazy eddy’ a solution worse than the problem it is designed to solve.

  42. 42.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    If you can make your own time, you can also fix it so it doesn’t feel so horrible to have to get up early, right?

    I recall reading that Mao decreed one time zone for all of China. Because Mao. People ignored the clock and just got up at dawn at ‘1:00 am’ or whatever and got on with their lives.
    Recently I read an article proposing that the US should have 3 time zones for the convenience of business. Convenient for businesses but cruel for kids getting up hours before dawn of going to sleep with hours of daylight left.

    http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/11/china-only-has-one-time-zone-and-thats-a-problem/281136/

  43. 43.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: On Baud Mean Time, one is never late.

    @Schlemazel: I suspect you can ask Baud “Why Not?” till the cows come home and never get an acceptable answer. After all, he’s a politician now.

  44. 44.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    Work is changing my hours in January (from 12:30-9pm to 8am-4:30pm). I’m dreading this more than the first ice storm.

  48. 48.

    ThresherK

    @Baud: If there’s one way for you to get the RWNJ vote, it’s promising that mass transit will fail of its own accord by executive fiat of the trains crashing head-on.

  49. 49.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Schlemazel: Not a stone carver but I can say it depends entirely on the type of limestone you are working with. Some is brittle as all get out and very dangerous to rig off of, while others are as solid as… as…. as rock! Seriously some of the worlds greatest monuments and buildings are made with limestone and marble is just metamorphosed limestone.

    The whole idea of filling the limestone with something to stop the water from flowing thru it is laughable not because it wouldn’t work tho that is at best very unlikely for a # of reasons, but because of water pressure building up underneath it. You will end up with a whole ocean of water pressure pushing up, and somethings gonna give. Water always finds a way.

  51. 51.

    Schlemazel

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Thanks. I have seen & felt limestone buildings but neber worked the material, was thinking maybe you knew some tricks. I work only with hand tools so harder stuff, like onyx for instance, is not in my reach.

    The thing about the pressure was exactly what I was getting at. Are they really so naive as to believe they can just put a cork in a fire hose & not have a reaction?

  52. 52.

    Schlemazel

    @Schlemazel:
    won’t let me edit – I meant to ask when you say “rig off of” are you building or climbing? There might be some interesting stories for us to hear there too.

  53. 53.

    Mustang Bobby

    My chili pepper vanda orchid is in bloom again — horny little bugger! — and its neighbor is getting ready to pop, too. The hibiscus blooms constantly. One of the nice things about living here in South Florida is that orchids are basically no-maintenance. Set ’em and forget ’em.

  54. 54.

    Poopyman

    @Schlemazel: Seems like it’d be the same as parging the inside of your basement wall and expecting it to keep the water out when the water table is halfway up the wall.

    IOW, yeah, they’re either incredibly naive, or they hope their constituents are. Given the environment around there, I’m thinking that hope is pretty forlorn.

  56. 56.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Schlemazel: One of the most beautiful churches in STL is made (almost?) entirely with limestone (St Francis De Sales). The gargoyles are things of beauty (to me anyway) As to S Florida elected officials, magical thinking is all they have left. Without it, there is no hope.

  58. 58.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Poopyman: You know why they leave in ground pools full during the winter? They like to pop out of the ground after periods of heavy soil saturating rain.

  59. 59.

    WereBear

    @Ultraviolet Thunder: Recently I read an article proposing that the US should have 3 time zones for the convenience of business. Convenient for businesses but cruel for kids getting up hours before dawn of going to sleep with hours of daylight left.

    Ancient diety with on a motorcycle with ape-hanger handlebars (trying to cut down on my swearing) are they going to throw people into lead mines next, and not worry about their fretting about daylight?

    My recent sleep troubles were successfully solved by rising and waking according to natural cycles of available light. I was fortunate that my job was adaptable to that, Science has strongly suggested that teens naturally need to sleep late to adapt to the changes in their brain, but we still run high school as though all the people need to get home to milk the cows.

    When will people rise up and demand to not be treated as faceless cogs?

  61. 61.

    WereBear

    We attended our annual Solstice Party with like-minded friends, and all agreed it was the best yet. Still need to fine tune our potluck efforts: classically, everyone brought enough for everyone to be fed. And so we will be living on cold cuts for several days.

    Which we can do.

  62. 62.

    Schlemazel

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I remember rains down there that were so hard and fast that the ground couldn’t drain and there would be an inch or so of water standing in the lawn. If they seal off the exits they have 2 problems, where does the water coming down go? as well as how much pressure can the ground water generate before it fractures the rock of finds a place to shoot out?

    I have said for a few years (with my always positive attitude and hopeful nature) that these assholes will deny there is a problem until it become an emergency & then demand fast & easy solutions. Its the solutions that will kill most of us before the climate change does. Stories like this feed by confirmation bias. Sadly.

  64. 64.

    Mustang Bobby

    @Ultraviolet Thunder: A Florida state legislator (a Democrat) proposed putting the state on permanent DST because the difference between winter and summer in terms of daylight isn’t all that much. Never mind that it would put us in the same time zone as Puerto Rico and out of sync with the rest of the East Coast. Nothing wrong with being in sync with P.R., but really?

  65. 65.

    Peale

    @Schlemazel: you see problems where I see tourist $$$$s. People pay good money to be carted around in boats in Venice. And pay to see water spurting up out of the ground in Yellowstone. Import a few bears and bison and Florida becomes you’re great wilderness adventure.

  67. 67.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Schlemazel: Caving, which involves climbing underground. Most people tend to think of caves as close, dark, damp, cramped places, and they certainly can be, but the deepest pit I’ve dropped is Sótano de las Golondrinas which from the high side is a 1,200 ft rappel and is large enough that as the wiki page says “A skyscraper such as New York City’s Chrysler Building could easily fit wholly within it.” On my first trip to it I got to climb out while the swallows were flying in which is an interesting experience being 5 or 600 feet off the floor while these 2 oz birds go zipping by you at over a 100 mph and every now and again one would hit the rope. (thank the dogs they weren’t African swallows, otherwise we might have had to worry about falling coconuts too!) The deepest underground pit I’ve done is Fantastic Pit which is in Ellison’s Cave in Georgia, which due to the waterfalls can have it’s own weather. One of my worst trips ever, I got stuck at the bottom of the pit for 12 hrs when the falls were really flowing and the mist was so thick it was more like rain and there was no getting out of it except by going into the cave (12+ miles long) which I was unable to do because of issues with the rigging and other issues with people on rope.

    I had a lot of good times underground (and bad times) but as the bumper sticker says: “Too old, Too fat, Don’t care”.

  68. 68.

    bystander

    @Baud:

    By executive order, I’m planning on instituting Baud Mean Time…

    Sounds like BM Time will have a whole new meaning.

  69. 69.

    Mary G

    We’ve gotten some little bits of rain here in SoCal, would rather have a bit more, but it’s better than flooding El Nino downpour s. There should be some California poppies and other wildflowers this spring!

  71. 71.

    WereBear

    And we finally got a rather anemic snowstorm, but with plenty of cold temps. Noticed yesterday the gas tank was half-full, and pulled over to fill up. Exactly the kind of shift that creates condensation in the tank.

    You don’t want that. Time for the six pack of dry gas.

  72. 72.

    rikyrah

    SheriffFruitfly @sherifffruitfly
    hilarious watching hillary effectively run unopposed and people act like she’s such an awesome campaigner

  73. 73.

    Emma

    @OzarkHillbilly: Part of the problem is that in spite of all the babbling, the state isn’t really willing to spend on infrastructure. My house sits on a piece of the Miami Rock Ridge (technically it’s something else I can never remember). We have two aquifers under us, at different levels. Right in front of the house sits a huge pump that is used to empty out the water when we get flooded. You know what the problem is? The drains. Tiny, narrow, easily clogged. Near us there’s a development known as Saga Bay. Used to be nicknamed Soggy Bay for years, until someone finally got wise and new full size drains were put in.

    Sometimes it feels like Miami was originally built as a resort/retirement town with several satellite communities where the peasants that serviced the tourists and retirees lived. Then a middle-class veneer was put on top. But there’s never been, IMO, an attempt to really treat it like an urban ecosystem. Too expensive and besides, “those people” aren’t really politically powerful.

  74. 74.

    rikyrah

    The New Attack on
    Hispanic Voting Rights
    After the Supreme Court decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act, tactics
    to suppress minority voting are flourishing — especially in states where
    Hispanic voters are reshaping the electorate. Part two of an ongoing series.

    Disenfranchised
    By JIM RUTENBERG DEC. 17, 2015

    In September 2000, Oscar Del Toro of Monterrey, Mexico, arrived with his wife and three children at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston to start a new life in the United States. Del Toro, then 38, had spent his whole life in Mexico. His mother and father were naturalized American citizens who lived near Houston and had wanted to bring him to the United States with them. But because he was already an adult, with a wife and a child, he was subject to a long waiting period for a green card. He went on with his life in Mexico, building a business selling laser printers and buying a comfortable four-bedroom house. He had more or less forgotten all about the prospect of moving to the United States when, around Christmas in 1999, his mother told him she had a present for him: an Immigration and Naturalization Service letter inviting him and his family to apply for permanent residency.

    Del Toro’s parents lived in Pasadena, an oil town on the outskirts of Houston. He moved there, too, to a cramped three-room apartment on the north side of town, above the informal dividing line marked by the Spencer Highway. The north side of Pasadena is a mostly Hispanic area, its streets lined with signs advertising carnicerías, peluquerías and abogados de inmigración. In recent years, so many Mexicans have moved there that some Spanish-speaking locals have taken to calling the area ‘‘Nuevo León,’’ for the Mexican border state where many of them, including the Del Toros, came from. As the older part of town — ‘‘historic,’’ goes the official city designation — its compact neighborhoods have streets cratered with potholes, and sidewalks that are slanted and buckling and overgrown with weeds.

    ………………………….

    His timing was good. Many Spanish-language businesses were starting from scratch, too, and as they expanded they would need office equipment. What they lacked in money, they made up for in numbers: In 2000, Pasadena, then with a population of about 140,000, was 48 percent Hispanic, on its way to 63 percent today. Here was his real market. Back on his feet, he bought a four-bedroom red-brick house with a yard and a two-car garage, joined the local Chamber of Commerce and, in 2006, secured his citizenship. This was the American dream Del Toro had envisioned. ‘‘I was kind of blessed,’’ he told me. ‘‘I got to start all over again.’’

    As a new member of the growing Pasadena business community, Del Toro became more attuned to the sense of inequality that residents felt on the north side. His customers complained about the sinking sidewalks, about the antiquated drainage systems that turned streets into lagoons during rainstorms. In 2008, Mayor Isbell gave a speech to the Chamber of Commerce in which he linked a new policy cracking down on traffic infractions — drunken driving, driving without insurance — with another policy reporting the immigration status of all those arrested to immigration authorities. To Del Toro’s ears, Isbell was scapegoating undocumented immigrants for all the city’s problems: They drink too much; they cause accidents but they have no car insurance. Del Toro walked out. In his view, Isbell was trying to distract people from what really mattered, the way the south side had flowers and the north side had weeds.

    In 2009, one of Del Toro’s customers, Dana Philibert, a white insurance agent, decided to run against Isbell, promising voters to spend city money more wisely. Del Toro offered to help her by going door to door in the Spanish-speaking north, the way he had for his own business. She lost, but Del Toro realized he had an appetite for American-style politics. Philibert was a Republican, so Del Toro, a golf-playing member of the N.R.A., attended a couple of local Republican meetings, but he quickly decided the party was not for him: not only because Isbell and other Pasadena Republicans had become increasingly bellicose about undocumented immigrants, but also because of its stance on abortion rights and, he emphasized, gay rights — ‘‘I always admired the United States in that aspect,’’ he said. ‘‘You are fine the way you are. You don’t have to be something else.’’

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/20/magazine/block-the-vote.html?_r=0#

  75. 75.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Schlemazel: Indian Standard Time is on a half-hour relative to UTC as well. (In fact, it’s one hour ahead of Afghanistan.) When you’re working in IT/software, that tends to come up a lot.

  76. 76.

    Gvg

    As far as water pressure building up under the limestone, that would actually be desirable. Florida is already a sort of floating upside down limestone bowl on top of our large aquifer. When we have droughts or too much water is pumped out because of population growth, the roof collapses causing random sink holes and saltwater intrusion happens. We actually need more water to go down to keep us up. The problem is making sure it’s clean water. There have been proposals to pump cleaned water into the aquifer but nobody trusts the companies suggesting it so far. We have a problem with subsidence and saltwater intrusion which is worst is Miami so I don’t think that part is the problem it would be in other areas.
    In a lot of ways I think the problem is the lack of political will to rezone causing value loss. It’s going to happen though, but probably by belated market choices later not sooner.

  78. 78.

    Emma

    @Gvg: Salt water intrusion is the reason why sometimes the pump in front of my house doesn’t get turned on for a day or two after a major storm. We’re so close to the water that they are afraid the ocean would overwhelm the outflow and flood the aquifer.

  79. 79.

    PurpleGirl

    It occurs to me that the brains thinking you could line building basements with a lining or fill in limestone with a sealant maybe thinking of the Bathtub that was designed for the first World Trade Center foundation hole and then rebuilt for the new buildings. I don’t remember what the Bathtub was made of but its purpose was to keep the foundation from flooding with water from the Hudson River and from the numerous underground stream in lower Manhattan. Of course there is ONE thing they aren’t realizing or accepting — Manhattan bedrock isn’t limestone, it’s Manhattan Schist. A very different and much harder stone. And you can follow the lines of Manhattan Schist because those areas built on Schist can support the tallest buildings. Where buildings are shorter, the bedrock isn’t Schist.

    ETA: But then you have to listen to the geologists and their science. And we all know that RWNJ don’t believe science and scientists.

  80. 80.

    max

    I trudged the last of the plants inside night before last. Then, because it warms up next week, a bunch of them will be going back outside.

    max
    [‘This weather would be perfect if it wasn’t for the intermittent freezes and lack of sunlight.’]

  81. 81.

    Jager

    We moved from Boston to SoCal almost 10 years ago, so it’s been weird watching the weather this year, our night time temps have been from 5 to 10 degrees colder than New England. Wednesday it was in the low 30’s at the beach with winds in the 20 mph range and yes, there were surfers. We live up in a canyon and we are 3-5 degrees cooler than the valleys, day and night. We’re burning a lot of firewood.

  82. 82.

    Satby

    @debbie: Late to answer, but no. It’s way underwater, so the rent to cover the mortgage would be too high for the market. I have to walk away with a short sale because I won’t be able to pay for two places. St. Pete rents are higher too.
    But you know, if I came into some huge windfall I would want to move a little closer to a walkable town anyway, so it’s ok. I’m just still adjusting to the changes that I need to make.

  83. 83.

    Satby

    @Josie: I hope you get a permanent place soon too. I will be renting in Florida and it will be the first time in over 40 years I won’t have my “own” home. I know that’s not logical, because of course I will, but I won’t own it.

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