Gareth
Self-reinvention is a way to stay young, as long as you can remember what you were.
I recall being an author, journalist, photographer, truffle grower, climate change writer, magazine editor and publisher, but who can be sure?
Born at 313ppm
- The land of grey and pink
- G & P 2
- Foggy for some…
- Need some good news? There are glimpses in the gloom… open.substack.com/pub/sammatey...
- Deer me! The answer to a longer, fitter life may lie in antlers. "Chunyi Li noticed something odd that happened when deer regrew antlers each year. This coincided with healthier-looking animals that showed much faster healing of their wounds and less scarring." www.newscientist.com/article/2513...
- Here's the weather station in question - on a fencepost between truffiere and vineyard. Non-standard location, but pretty accurate when compared against others in the area. Probably under-records wind speeds. No sign of damage.
- So I climbed up on the bike and checked the rain gauge. Nothing obviously wrong - but spider webs aplenty. Gave the whole thing a clean, checked the contacts in the station, resealed it. Checked the wind last night. It was calm. The mystery remains.
- The rain measurement is by a "tipping bucket" flipping from side to side as it fills with drips from the collector. Each flip is 0.01 of an inch (it's US-made) of rain (IIRC). To get last night's intense "rain" something must have either made those buckets flip back and forth like crazy, or ...
- ... the counter must have malfunctioned. Maybe water somewhere where it shouldn't be? We'll have to wait and see. If I see any particularly muscular possums shaking fenceposts, I'll be sure to post a picture.
- The news from China is... encouraging. open.substack.com/pub/sammatey...
- Renewables to the rescue. "Ten years ago, if a heatwave as intense as last week’s record-breaker had hit the east coast, Australia’s power supply may well have buckled. But this time, the system largely operated as we needed, despite some outages." theconversation.com/renewables-o...
- My favourite Australians are having their diets restricted by climate warming... theconversation.com/potoroos-dig...
- Important read for anyone interested in our electrical future open.substack.com/pub/uncharte...
- Today's rain gauge mystery: shortly after 3am, and again shortly before 9am, the rain gauge reports two big spikes of incredibly intense rain - 380mm per hour and 250mm ph - totalling 210 mm of rain since midnight. A biblical cloudburst, that would have washed away much of the farm. Didn't happen.
- So what caused it? A possum's prodigious pissing? A magpie taking exception to the gauge? Investigations will ensue.
