Texas Heat!

[NativeSon]

Grass fires are really getting bad. Locally we're having about 3-4 a week. Some are rather small (30 acres) and some get pretty big (hundreds of acres). It's so dry that almost anything will get it started. The VFD's are doing a great job especially in this heat. God Bless them.

Charlie

 

[jinman]

That might be bugs. Stressed plants are particularly susceptible to insect damage, and insects love warm temperatures. Check with your local extension agent. It may be that watering in some diazanon would help.

Larry, while I agree with you and certainly liked to use Diazinon in the past, it has been removed for residential use by the EPA since 2004. Dusting with Sevin might help, but probably the only effective treatment in a watered lawn is a liquid fertilizer applied two or three times weekly. I had a battle with chinch bugs a few years ago and found them extremely hard to control once established. I used a combination of dish soap and insecticide to kill them, but I learned that doing pre-infestation treatment is a good thing and will prevent them becoming entrenched before discovery.

This morning when I got up it was 76.5 degrees out. Perhaps the clear sky has allowed cooling overnight. Too bad that to enjoy the day, I have to get up while it's still nighttime (oxymoronic statement?). For most nights recently, the nighttime temperatures have been above 80.

EDIT: When I said to use liquid fertilizer twice a week, I must have had brain gas.:confused2: I meant liquid detergent. Sheesh!

 

[Bird]

Diazinon was my insecticide of choice for many years. And when we lived down in Navarro County, I could go to an ag chemical place and buy gallon containers of a higher concentration than what was found in most retail stores. And of course it was also cheaper. But as jinman said, it's been removed from residential use.

 

[mikim]

MAN -- HEAT --- all I did was hang 3 new bird houses and 1 bat box and I'm soaked. It wasn't even working hard -- just piddling....can't get anything done in this heat. all projects on hold for cooler wx.

 

[Bird]

My 81 year old next door neighbor is in the hospital and his yard was a disaster area, since he hasn't been taking care of it. I had mowed it several times this year myself, but not in quite some time because I knew he had at least one electric extension cord and two garden hoses buried in the grass and weeds. So I learned from his son Thursday that he was in the hospital and yesterday I spent about two and a half hours working on his front yard. The trouble was that it was after 10 a.m. before I was able to start, so after noon before I finished and the heat nearly got me.

So this morning I started on the back yard shortly after 7 a.m. and finished just before 10 a.m. Almost 2 hours of running my string trimmer at almost full throttle; burned up two tanks of gas. Last year, he tilled up about a 30' square of the backyard for a garden, but then abandoned that project later, so it was better than knee high thick grass partially laid down; really worked that Stihl FS55RC hard. Then only a half hour on the little Toro ZTR.

And I still need to do some pruning of another "volunteer" tree in a big rose bush. I hope that doesn't take too long tomorrow.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Mike, you still getting cows jumping over to your place?

I saw where 9 horses tragically died up in north Texas somewhere. The owner had a caretaker suppossedly looking after them and the water trough had broken. Somebody is going to jail.

I see cattle trailers more and more frequently travelling the roads around here. We are still on an "island" of dryness, as it has rained a small bit around us, just not on us. It looks like Arizona around here only not so much cactii (sp?).

According to the Hydromet, we haven't had a drop of rain since June 22nd, at 7:55am. I would bet there has been maybe 1 or 2 days of below 100 degrees weather. Sad, very sad.

Historical Hydromet Data

click on Giddings and I think you can set date up to 6 months back.

 

[mikim]

cows are home -- if he hasn't sold any - dunno -- he fixed fence, and got 2 big trucks of hay from Kansas - so I guess the cows are happy at home for now. rain rain rain where are you.....not here. I've complained to my old boss about getting a hurricane brought in. He made mention that if he could get it done he'd never have to buy another beer. everybody he knows would be buying for him.

 

[mikim]

so Bird ----where's that son? ....my wife right now is at her Dad's doing weekly house duties...guess that will be on us now that her Mom passed. Her brother's no help.

 

[Bigfoot62]

Texas doesn't have the corner on the market for hot, dry weather. Over here, on the "right side" of the Sabine River in Louisiana, we're suffering too. As of right now, we've only had 13" of rain, so far, this year. (our average annual rainfall is about 57") To add insult to injury, our rainfall has been short for 4 years in a row. For 2010 alone, we were about 36" short. The effects of the drought and heat have been terrible. Huge oak trees dead, large areas of pasture grasses dead, creek beds dry or very low. I have over 50 acres of hay meadow, but I've only had 22 rolls of hay this year. (4'x5' rolls)

It's so hot and dry here, I'm afraid my bull nettles may be dying!!
I'm kidding. But, for those who don't know what a bull nettle is: Cnidoscolus texanus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Bird]

so Bird ----where's that son? ....my wife right now is at her Dad's doing weekly house duties...guess that will be on us now that her Mom passed. Her brother's no help.

Yeah, Mike, it's odd how some family members help, some only in certain ways, and some don't help much at all. In this case, the son seems like a nice guy and only lives about a mile from here, but he's past 60 himself and I don't know whether he has health problems or just why he hasn't helped with the lawn maintenance. I'm not sure whether he's still employed or retired. I know his wife works at Baylor Hospital, downtown Dallas, but I'm not sure what she does. I think she's a nurse.

 

[jinman]

It's so hot and dry here, I'm afraid my bull nettles may be dying!!
I'm kidding. But, for those who don't know what a bull nettle is: Cnidoscolus texanus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That's funny!:laughing: Last week my wife and I were driving down the highway and commenting about how dry everything is. I asked her if she knew what the very green plants were in the fields with all the white blooms. She didn't really know because she didn't get a good look at them, but I immediately recognized bull nettles.

Have you ever eaten bull nettle seed kernels? They are delicious and bigger than sunflower seeds. You pick the dried seed pod and then break off the needles. Open the individual seeds (3 per pod) and remove a hard skin on the seeds. It's a little work, but if I was hungry and didn't have food, I'd be feasting on bull nettle seeds. YUM!

 

[Bird]

I haven't been stung by bull nettles since I was a kid, but you guys made me look back at an old log and on 6/17/93, I was doing a gas leakage survey at Sayre, PA, and had to walk through a big patch of them going down to the Susquehanna River. I was wearing blue jeans and they didn't bother me, but the gas company guy who was with me was wearing thinner uniform slacks and they got him good. I felt sorry for him. I don't know if the nettles there were the same as our Texas bull nettles, but the effect was the same. I think there's a little difference and the ones up north may be called "stinging nettles."

 

[Bigfoot62]

I haven't been stung by bull nettles since I was a kid, but you guys made me look back . . .

Can't speak for Jim, but I'm glad to be of service to you. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, just knowing that I made an old codger's brain function, even if only for a few seconds. :laughing:

Sorry, I just can't help myself. I was born a smart-alec!

 

[Bigfoot62]

. . . Have you ever eaten bull nettle seed kernels? They are delicious and bigger than sunflower seeds. You pick the dried seed pod and then break off the needles. Open the individual seeds (3 per pod) and remove a hard skin on the seeds. It's a little work, but if I was hungry and didn't have food, I'd be feasting on bull nettle seeds. YUM!

Yep, we used to do it all the time. Just put on a pair of leather gloves and get after it. Alternately, you can take a propane torch and singe the nettles for a few seconds. That also has the effect of almost toasting the nuts. Makes 'em taste better. :licking:

BTW, you and Bird are aware of the standard "treatment" for bull nettle stings?

 

[Bird]

Even us old codgers learn something every once in a while. I never heard of eating the seeds.:laughing: But fortunatly, it's been so long since I was stung by the bull nettles that I've forgotten what cure there was besides time.

 

[Bigfoot62]

. . . But fortunatly, it's been so long since I was stung by the bull nettles that I've forgotten what cure there was besides time.

Urinate on the affected area. The ammonia in the urine kills the sting. I'm not kidding.

 

[Bird]

so Bird ----where's that son? ....my wife right now is at her Dad's doing weekly house duties...guess that will be on us now that her Mom passed. Her brother's no help.

Mike, my wife keeps up with all the neighborhood news better than I do. She just told me our neighbor's son had a heart attack 3 or 4 months ago, and that they have a son in Iraq in the military, and their daughter-in-law and grandbaby living with them.

I do know that, even though they live right here in town, they have a half dozen hens, Rhode Island Reds, I think, and he's mentioned his garden about burned up except for the okra. They've brought me a few dozen eggs and they're very good eggs, but when I buy eggs, I buy the "Jumbo" eggs, so the brown eggs they bring me sure seem small.:laughing: But of course that's OK, too.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Urinate on the affected area. The ammonia in the urine kills the sting. I'm not kidding.

The juice of a dock stem will also ease the sting.

 

[NativeSon]

Urinate on the affected area. The ammonia in the urine kills the sting. I'm not kidding.

That's the cure my half-Cherokee Grandmother used on us when we got hung up in the bull nettles. Works on bee stings too.

Charlie

 

[txdon]

It's so hot and dry here, I'm afraid my bull nettles may be dying!!
I'm kidding.

I'm not kidding, Ive lost 80% of my nettle crop. Here is what they look like now.