For more than a decade, I've used a clothesline to dry all my laundry, or, occasionally, when I really needed to, I've gone across the street to the laundromat to use their dryers. I tell myself that it's cheaper and more environmentally friendly, which is true. But finally -- finally -- I decided I'd had enough. I'm tired of planning my laundry schedule around the (often highly unpredictable) weather, and then having to wait hours for it to dry. I'm especially tired of it this month, when we've had rain, or the threat of rain, pretty much every single afternoon. And, for various reasons, I had a goodly amount of extra cash in the ol' checking account this week. So I finally said "screw it," and went out and bought me a dryer. Yaaay!
Except... Except, while the thing comes on just fine, and air flows through it just fine, there's no heat whatsoever. Sigh. It's possible the machine is defective, but I strongly suspect it's an issue with the electricity supply, especially as I've never had a reason to use the 240-volt outlet before. So now I'm going to need to call an electrician. Which is going to be fun, because I'm just about to start on two weeks of night shifts. Why is it every time I try to make an improvement to my house and/or life, it just ends up causing me extra headaches? I think the world is extremely unfair this way, and someone really ought to have a word with it,.
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You're getting lots of rain in New Mexico? B.C. is going through something of a drought right now (and this is supposed to be rainforest territory!)...
ReplyDeleteOf course, what constitutes a drought for you would probably be a staggeringly wet year for us. :)
DeleteThis is our usual rainy season, and I don't think we're actually getting more rain than usual during it, but this pattern of a brief shower nearly every day is a little weird, and seems more appropriate to Florida than New Mexico.
I dunno, we just went to a Level 4 drought situation here, and a couple weeks ago the wildfires across the water put a big cloud of smoke over the city, which led to some last-minute changes to the program at the sports day camp that my kids were attending. (They had to reduce the amount of running the kids were going to do, lest they breathe in too much bad air.)
ReplyDeleteHere's a chart showing how the water levels in our reservoirs have already started falling below the "normal range": http://www.metrovancouver.org/services/water/conservation-reservoir-levels/reservoir-levels/Pages/default.aspx
Here are some photos of Vancouver before and after the smoke: http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2015/07/vancouver-wildfire-smoke-photos/
Here's a satellite image of the smoke cloud: http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2015/07/satellite-view-shows-massive-plume-of-wildfire-smoke-over-metro-vancouver/
And here's a story that went up today, on how the heat is affecting our crops: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/fraser-valley-farmers-forced-to-abandon-ripe-crops-1.3158084
Well, a quick google and some calculations show you've had something like 20 inches of rain this year to date, and our yearly average is 9. (Also, sadly, smokey haze from wildfires happens so regularly here that we kind of take it for granted.)
DeleteBut that's not remotely meant to be an, "It can't be that bad; we're still dryer!" kind of observation, just one about how wildly dissimilar our climates are. Drought is an entirely relative state, of course, and falling far below usual levels can be plain old catastrophic, whatever those levels are, since that's what local agriculture, and local everything else, is adapted to and depends on. Hell, if we got your average rainfall, we'd be completely flooded out.
It certainly sounds (and looks!) like you're hurting,in any case. And you're definitely not the only ones. California's in a bad state, too. I mean, California almost always seems to be in a state of drought, somehow, but this year is especially bad.
Come to think of it, it didn't rain the entire time I was in Portland, either... I suppose I should have realized that was a sign of something.
Oops - the Weather Wizard strikes again! I'm not quite like the truck driver on whom it rains all the time, but maybe I should consider hiring myself out to whichever state needs rainfall and then move there. (Once they pay me, of course. Otherwise, I'd have to lure their children away, as the Pied Piper did, but what do I want with all those children?)
ReplyDeleteWell, hey, I can testify that Vancouver's a very nice city to visit, if you want to go and help out with their drought. :)
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