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Weather diary page

Oct 1, Kanagawa: Excellent weather. Mostly sunny, highs in the high twenties but with low humidity of 50-55%. Very nice. Out of curiosity I checked out Taiwan's temps and saw that Taipei is supposed to hit 35 tomorrow. Dang.

Oct 2, Kanagawa: Another excellent morning. 20C when I left for my walk at 7:00, up to 22 by 7:45 with 72% humidity, a bit high, but with a nice breeze to counter that. Very nice indeed. High today forecast at 30 with sunny skies.

Oct 5, NR: Pattern of rain systems coming through about once a week but nice weather in between. Relatively cool - still lighting the fire though last night may have been the last time. One of the wild tomatoes has started blooming - which is incredibly fast - but the wrong sex. Channel-billed cuckoos are back - been back for a few weeks - though not in big numbers. Still no major re-leafing on pecans. Another big rain-even coming though looks like the worst of it will be south of us. Taipei has had an Oct heatwave with temps in mid-30's.

Oct 6, Kanagawa: Major cold front stationed over us for the next couple of days. This is the first day of the fall that that highs haven't broken 20. High today was probably just 15 or so. Right now it's 13 at going on 8PM. Should get down to 12 or so tonight, high of 15 tomorrow with clouds, wind, and rain, then it will start warming back up to seasonal temps of mid 20's. It looks like we may still get a few days in the high 20's. Will it break 30 again this year? Time is quickly running out. The apples are hitting the shelves along with other fall fruit.

Oct 7, NR: Forgot to mention the swamphens - they appeared to have settled in but one morning about a week ago, only one showed up for morning feed time (they like the grain i sprinkle out for the parrots). The one that did show up appeared agitated - doing a kind of war dance and calling loudly. The chooks previously had it over the swamphens but gave him a wide-berth when they saw how fired up he was. At first i was worried that something bad had happened to his mate - they're primarily ground birds so always a danger from dingoes or goanas - but later i did spot the other one in the reeds. Now appears that they are nesting. The aggressive posturing from the male was likely signifying that he is on guard duty. It's quite comical - involves him puffing up the white feathers on his bottom, strutting around, making violent, threatening movements with his wings. Meanwhile, also noticed the rails mating - unlike the swamphens, they usually operate individually - only coming together to mate. Some goodish news: the arthritis flare-up from early Sep has finally flared-down. Was starting to worry coz it was feeling like next stop was hospital for a hip-replacement. This flare-up went much longer than previous ones. I did rest it for two weeks but it didn't really improve, but in the last couple of days it's trended better - touch wood. Second hen has gone broody - technique is to isolate them in a situation with no eggs for a few days. It's like going cold-turkey for the hen with this mother-instinct raging in their heads - but it does pass in 3-4 days. Egg production is insane - 9 chooks - 9 eggs per day (until one went broody). Never seen chooks lay so regularly. Weather is nice - big rain event happening but it's south of here. Temps unseasonally low - still had heater on last night - low 20-s during day.

Oct 11, Kanagawa: Temps are back to seasonal highs of mid 20's, lows mid teens to 20. Unstable weather. Yesterday we had strong winds out of the north in the AM and out of the south by noon. Overall agreeable weather.

Oct 12, NR: Wood ducks must have young nearby - walked out this morning to see one of them doing a very convincing act of being injured. It wasn't - just a technique to lead me (potential predators) away from the nest. Guess they're in small pond behind work-shed. Pretty nice weather - continuing cool for this time of season - which is welcome. Storm action seems to have dropped south - which is also very welcome. Floods in mid-central NSW - big rain for VIC today & tomorrow.

Oct 20, NR: The news is all bad i'm afraid. Forecast of an inch at least a day for the next several days with a massive low moving in from the west - and with BoM's unreliable forecasting, that could balloon out to anything. All the major rain events over the last two years have been wildly under-forecast. The big one started out as 30-50 mil, ended up as 1500mm. Even if it stays within the forecast range of 15-35 mm per day, although that won't cause floods here, the feeling is it's priming us for another big flood by raising the water-table. Pecans re-leafed over a week ago (Oct 10?) - happens fast once it starts. Cut grass a couple of days ago knowing the rain was returning - the theory of leaving the clover coz it won't grow too high and will block out the grass growth was ... wrong. Don't do that again. It grows so thick that's it very hard to cut. Had to use highest blade level at max power - still a struggle to chug through it - needs to be cut again on lower blade level but that won't happen until rain stops. Other problem with long grass is Swamphen is getting quite tame - lines up every morning with the parrots for a bit of seed - even calls out of it wants to be fed. Peas finishing up.

Oct 22, kanagawa: October has been pleasant overall, but unstable. We've had fairly large fluctuations in lows of the low teens to low 20's, with the low in the coming few days to be 11. The last few days have been partly sunny, windy, and mild with highs in the low 20's. All in all it's been pleasant weather.

Oct 23, NR: New East Coast Low has formed in usual spot just off coast off Sunshine Coast. Lot of potential feed-in moisture from Coral sea - worryingly similar to the floods of Feb-Mar. BoM has bumped its rain prediction to 150mm suddenly (it had been 30mm, then 80), which means it could be anything. All depends how quickly the ECL moves through. Ground is extra-saturated (if that's possible) so won't take as much rain to flood this time.

Oct 25, Kanagawa: 11.5C at 5AM today, far below normal. High today of 14 only. Windy.

Oct 25, NR: Survived the latest ECL without too much drama. It is worrying though coz you know it's coming but not the extent. We received about 150mm - Alstonville got 237 in 24hrs. It's a fine line coz much higher than that would cause flooding. Although it rained heavily for over 24 hrs, we were spared the torrential downpour which is crucial. Have only checked closest stock fence - it's taken some hits but is still standing. In theory, the others should be similar. Wild tomatoes are blooming - started a few days ago.

Oct 26 NR: Temps have jumped since the last ECL - hit 30 today for first time since last summer - predicted to be 30 every day for a week. Two days ago i was still using heater. Found one wild mushroom today. Had the earth-moving guy in to re-lay the access road with road-base - in fact he was meant to come months ago but when i called to remind him he said he would come this morning. At first i was worried coz road hadn't dried from recent downpour and it involves trucks backing up the road to dump their loads, but we got through it ok. Bloody road-base price has jumped by about 40%, like a lot of things.