Yeah, it's muddy and sloppy, and I really don't enjoy working out in the stuff, but it was too dry most of this summer, so it does my heart good to see everything getting soaked down.

We dug a few holes up there putting up a woodshed, and the holes immediately filled up with water. That's in the clearing part of the existing woods. It's a little higher and more well drained where the bulk of my seedlings are going, but suffice to say, water is adequate at this time!

+oM

suffered thru 10 weeks of drought in my sand ... during the very hottest part of summer ....

ma nature has decided to make up for it this fall ... 1.5 inches in two days last week .... probably about 3 since 9/15

hopefully that will help avoid winter damage related to prior summer stress ...

ken

K4

A local landscaper gave me a 12 foot red maple and planted it for me (a bit of a long story about why he gave me this tree). The men dug a very deep hole for the tree, and I couldn’t see much if any moisture anywhere in the soil.

We are forecast to get up to a half inch of rain tonight. I just hope we get some good rain before the growing season starts next spring.

We are in a rain shadow here. Washington, D.C. to the east gets an annual average of about 44 inches. Where my timberland is to the west, the annual average is a bit over 50 inches. In Winchester city—at the airport—the average is about 35 inches, and I think we get an inch or two less here about 15 miles north and a bit west.

But in this area much of the soil is good and retains moisture well. And, after trees get established, they can grow OK. They don’t grow as large around here as they do where the rains are better, but if one has patience and lots of water, most trees can get established just fine and survive the almost annual droughts.

--Spruce

Dave

The best guestimate for this coming winter shows a continuation of weak El Nino tendencies. This usually puts the main storm track further south and then up the east coast. I hope this is wrong! I want snow like the last two winters gave us. By Christmas time both of the previous years, we had huge snowbanks everywhere. I'm weird like that!

+oM

Tom: you like snow? Hah! Maybe not like I do. Want a storm story? I grew up in NJ. I loved snow and we had a sledding hill right in front of our house. Christmas night, 1947, our family was returning from Christmas visits. It was late. I looked up and saw clouds blowing in front of a full moon. Boldly, I said, "it is going to snow tomorrow!" No one paid any attention. Next morning I woke up, and it had just started to snow. I ran into my brother’s room and said, "I told you it would snow." He said, "no, it is not really a snow storm unless the tips of the grass in the lawn are covered. No, it hasn’t snowed yet."

It snowed all day and all the next night. We woke up the next day and there was a full—no exaggeration—36" of snow. I was 8 years old and couldn’t walk through it. Newark Airport nearby had an official 33 inches in the storm. You can look it up. Central Park in NY had, I think, 26". The biggest snow ever to hit the area up to that time. Hah!!

Then a week later, New Years night, freezing rain started. We got well over an inch of ice. Trees down, power out. Snow covered with ice that you could stand and jump on and not break through. The whole world was a skating rink. You see, the snow was too deep for anyone to walk through, so it was undisturbed. We sledded for unimaginable distances on the ice on top of the snow. But it was dangerous—too fast, couldn’t stop easily.

I still love snow. We get a good bit at my timberland place in far western MD, but here in VA a good snow is rare.

--Spruce

Speaking of snow, I've spent a good deal of time in Michigans' Upper Penninsula, including some X-C ski trips quite a few years back. It was always striking to be in A) Such a snow-laden area, and B) An area comprised nearly entirely of forest. Because there was essentially no wind at the forest floor, you could read the snowstorm history on every fallen log, stump, and rock. Each accumulation would still be there, differentiated by a layering effect. You have probably seen this as well. Down here in farm country, it gets too windy for that. Instead, it's big drifts. But any woods in any snowy area will tell the same story.

+oM

Dax

Amazing that I received 16 inches for the entire 2005 and 24 inches in 2006. I hope I won't ever face that again.

Spruce couple questions for you, have you had a killing freeze out there yet...and I've wondered, do you see any pattern of characteristically southern vegetation surviving longer on south slopes than north slopes...? For example, crepe myrtle, camellia...and heck I'll throw Pinus palustris in there to make the list conifer acceptable. Of course the mountains aren't really oriented to give them many broad south faces. I've wondered about this because when I was moving to a semi-rural area to build a garden I thought I'd have to be on a south slope out there, if that was the direction I headed. As it was I decided the better approach for me was to get closer to the Atlantic/Ch. Bay. Slopes, of course, have better air drainage, and I'd hazard a guess that the valleys out there have had a killing frost but there are some gardens on the hillsides that haven't yet.

Some container nurseries prefer to be in a dry area and irrigate, because of course that means more control. You can always add water but you can't subtract when it rains too much. I think this is why Andre Viette perennials and some other big wholesalers are out there.

The rainshadow is a fact of life here in the Shenandoah Valley. There are seasonal patterns worth noting, in summer we have W or SW winds and often the rain will dry up west of the Alleghenies. Winter brings more storms up the coast with easterly winds and better rain although we can often be in the rainshadow of the Blue Ridge. In winter all the weather is lower (cold air packed tighter to the surface) so the lake effect snow rarely makes it over the mountains but a good nor'easter can dump quite a bit of snow against the mountains and throughout the valley.

Yes, like you I like to see snow fall on top of previous snows, building up layers. I attended MSU in central lower Mich, and saw that effect there. By mid-winter on we generally had a built up snow "base" of 10 inches or more. Just once in a while we would have a mid-winter thaw that would melt it all. Here in VA snow lasts for just a short time and we rarely see new snow fall before the previous snow has all melted.

David: no killing freeze, or even a frost here in VA yet. As for more southerly vegatation on south facing slopes: I am not realy sure--I have never done any careful botanizing to find out. As you say, that is not the usual orientation of the mountains here, and I have never really spent much, if any, time on such slopes.

The same for the mts of western MD. But I think I have seen fraser magnolia just south of where my timberland area is very high on the south facing slope that leads down to Parsons, WV. This is not a exactly southern form, but you would never see it on the plateau at somewhat lower elevations.

The rain shadow here in the valley is interesting. I am an intense weather observer, so I watch the radar pictures as well as the sky. Often the summer storms approach from the west or SW and die out just beofre they reach us. Then I see them re-form just to our east and give rain to the eastern part of the valley and the Blue Ridge. This is terribly frustrating when we are in a drought. I think the eastern part of the valley gets somewhat more rain than we do. There is a giant white oak in front of the Episcopal church in Millwood--I have never seen a tree like that in the western side of the valley.

Palmer: We are generally too far south for the typical nor'easter to affect us very often, but during the storm in march of '93 the valley got absolutely buried.

We are on a ridge here--fairly low, but high enough to avoid much of the frost that hits the low spots. The effect here is the wind--it is amazing how the shape of the ridge we are on accelerates the wind. Our new house is constantly having sheathing, siding, downspouts, etc. blown off by the unimaginably strong winds. If Winchester city has 50 mph gusts, we have 70 or 80 mph. These winds even tear the branches of my young black locust trees, even in winter when the leaves are off!! But we never have to rake any leaves--they all blow away.

--Spruce