Category Archives: Kentucky

Oh Deer

tough_deer

Ouch! This Paul’s Himalayan Musk rose cane and a couple of others just like it have been topped by one of our local, and getting braver by the day, deer. The picture is on the fuzzy side but look at those thorns for goodness sake! They are huge and red to boot. Isn’t red the color of ‘danger! warning!’? What kind of mouth does that animal have that he/she can top these bad boys? I am afraid to get within a few feet of this rose, a few yards during a windy day. I can’t imagine those thorns felt very good going down.

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Weather Station

Ok so I was finally able to get the weather station that I ordered from Amazon a couple of weeks ago installed. I paid $44 but it looks like they’ve bumped the price up to $99 as of today. I’ve been looking at the box sitting in my room for well over a week and anyone that knows me knows patience is not one of my virtues. Between the weather (very rainy) and the vehicles (1 new water pump + new rear brakes), today is the first day I’ve had that I’ve been able to get outside and get the post in the ground and get everything hooked up. Now if I could only find that compass I could get the wind thingy to report the correct wind direction. One thing at a time…

I decided not to sink the pole in cement yet as I am not sure it will end up staying where it is. The anemometer (aka wind thingy) is only there temporarily. It will end up on the old antenna mast once I get that mess taken care of. The rain unit will end up on top of the pole so there is nothing blocking it. The temp/humidity sensor is inside the inverted bowls. I used some directions I found on the net, $3 worth of Dollar Store bowls, a little hardware and we are good to go. The idea is to keep the temp sensor out of the direct sun. The bowls have holes allowing air circulation with the sensor in the middle. I’m not looking to be the next Rich Apuzzo so I think this should give me what I need. The temp and rain sensors are the ones I care most about. I want to know how much rain we are actually getting here vs what Williamstown (several miles away) is getting. Knowing the temps will come in handy this fall when the frosts begin.

I have the base unit in the house and right now it is receiving data wirelessly. Yes those are wires on the pole, the anemometer and rain gauge are connected to the temp/humidity sensor/transmitter via wires. I can then go wired or wireless from the transmitter to the base unit. The benefit of the wire is that you get more frequent updates from the sensors but the downside is I have to bury the wire and hope the moles to mistake it for a worm.