Is summer over yet?

[Sprinkus]

The heat was hot and the ground was dry but the air was full of more heat, and humidity.
Yeah, this summer is a bummer.

[txgrassguy]

You want to know how bad it has gotten here in C. Texas - I'll tell you, and this is a real "noshit" story.
Yesterday I along with my main laborer are at a r-o-w maintenance account. Tell the guy to start hand trimming. Not quite four minutes later, using a goddamned handtrimmer we start a grass fire. Using nylon line no less. Exhaust was not the cause, loose rocks were.
Called my bros at the FD, a grass truck comes out and extinguishes the fire - I kept it under control with the 50 gallon sprayer I hand in my truck but didn't have enough water to fully extinguish.
At 3:15pm, as I am driving through a local town the temp was 106*F with the heat index 113*F.
The newsies in Austin are moaning like a three dollar crackwhore who has to make change about seventy days over 100*F, well it's been almost eighty straight days in my A.O., no rain.
On average in my A.O. the days over 100*F are maybe forty. Worse drought/heat conditions since accurate records have been maintained since 1925.

[Wet_Boots]

there's no global warming
there's no global warming
there's no global warming

[FIMCO-MEISTER]

Texas has never had a drought until global warming was discovered by the left.

[txirrigation]

It has been so dry that even people with sprinkler systems are shutting them down and giving up. "We will just try to get it back next year, no point in wasting any more water or money."

[TexasFire221]

Day number 73 with temps over 100. Was 108 yesterday and suppose to be 107 today. Out of 80 or so lawn accounts I have 5 left. We went to stage II water restrictions yesterday and will be at stage III in two weeks which means no outdoor watering, no landscape installs, no washing cars, and so on. I had an $11,000 landscape bid at that just went void because of water restrictions so im pretty much done. No too sure what to do. I have already starting cutting expenses and hope I can make it into spring if we even get rain then. I have customer with oak and pecan trees that are dead. I hauled 750 gallons of water to a customers place last week and water a dozen of his oak trees but they probably wont make it.

[DanaMac]

Summer can't be over yet, I'm actually going to look at an install bid! First one in a few years. High end area and things are slow, so I don't mind if the price is right.

[FIMCO-MEISTER]

Originally Posted by TexasFire221

Day number 73 with temps over 100. Was 108 yesterday and suppose to be 107 today. Out of 80 or so lawn accounts I have 5 left. We went to stage II water restrictions yesterday and will be at stage III in two weeks which means no outdoor watering, no landscape installs, no washing cars, and so on. I had an $11,000 landscape bid at that just went void because of water restrictions so im pretty much done. No too sure what to do. I have already starting cutting expenses and hope I can make it into spring if we even get rain then. I have customer with oak and pecan trees that are dead. I hauled 750 gallons of water to a customers place last week and water a dozen of his oak trees but they probably wont make it.

Man that sounds awful. Losing some shrubs is one thing but losing our oak and pecan trees is a serious matter. I'm dreading my next trip home to see the damage.

[bcg]

I think a lot of those oaks and pecans are probably going dormant more so than dieing, I've had them do that to me before. They're definitely taking a hurting though, any of them without irrigation look very bad. Magnolias are really suffering this year as well, even with irrigation.

Even if they do recover, its going to be a few years before they're healthy again. Anything that isn't irrigated looks like crap right now anywhere in the state. Houston is about as green as Nevada where it isn't irrigated and the City of Houston has requested their water from Lake Conroe to the tune of 150m gallons a day, just to keep Lake Houston at current levels and meet the demand on the water system. That equates to 1/2" of water per day, in addition to the 1/2" per day lost to evaporation so Lake Conroe will be dropping about 6 feet a week, give or take. It's already several feet down.

Next on the list will be Lake Livingston, which the City of Houston also owns a large part of. If they have to start pulling from Livingston, I think it will be the first time in history.

The central Tx lakes are all really low as well. I read an article that said the original Bluffton, on the banks of the Colorado river, had resurfaced in Lake Buchanan. I think it's like 25 or 30 feet below pool now.

This summer sucks. I hope its a VERY wet winter but I'm not going to get my hopes up.

[Stuttering Stan]

Bernie, looks like a good time to refocus on lighting. Sounds like irrigation is headed towards a dry spell (cricket, cricket, .....that was a dry joke)