They are STILL coming !!!

[Detector Man]

I have two Hmong (dont call them Laotians, they dont like that) families at each corner opposite to my house....a few times a year TONS and i mean TONS of cars show up..literally dozens of vehicles come --- you need to understand that its extremely rare to see cars parked on the street for any reason--but i rarely see any visitors there during the year...a young lady at the residence was getting married and this is the celebration.,, I was invited to join but i declined. My bad excuse was i do not speak Hmong. The interesting part, as far as i can tell, the two Hmong families do not visit each other or communicate ..after all they are across the street from each other.

I learned early on for whatever reason they like California and Minnesota....they do not stay in the South or East Coast....oh im sure there are some...i was educated by a Hmong co worker......Dont call me Loatian....im Hmong.....we came from China not Laos...a different tribe from China i guess...however, they are probably all born in Laos. Gets a little confusing....just an FYI
Vang Pao was a major general in the Royal Lao Army, he resided in Fresno and died in Fresno(2011). He was the general that fought the Pathet Lao for the CIA and the USA
i encourage all to go to Wiki and find out more- if you like to

 

[Dave J.]

Brings back fond memories of working with people from Laos and Vietnam. Thanks, DetectorMan. And hey, I like your cactus garden! Tryin' to guess what species of tree that is ya got hangin' in the 3rd picture.

When I lived in Los Banos my favorite "trees" were a calamondin in the back yard (what a taste treat!) and a species of Mexican bean tree (Caesalpinia? don't remember). The latter was a nice bloomer of course, but there are others. What made it unique is that when the beans finally dry, they're under so much torsional stress that when the pod pops like a gunshot, it flings the beans distances of 30 feet or more. I was "beaned" a few times, no other plant has ever done that to me!

BTW, if you've read from "experts" that jumping chollas don't jump, that's just like the "experts" who say poison oak immunization drops don't work. I know all about this stuff from firsthand experience, the "experts" are just parroting what other ignorant "experts" told them. The "experts" also say that you can't get poison oak from another person. When I was a kid, one of my buddies who should have known better told me it can't transfer. I'd had the rash for several days, and told him I'd prove him wrong. He insisted he was right so I scratched the rash and then scratched his arm. Several days later he was a lot smarter.

I got bit or nearly bit by jumping cholla enough times to actually investigate how they "jump". The mature joints are very loose, even the vibration of the ground from your footsteps can cause one to fall. The spines are very stiff and bouncy like a good hairbrush. When the joint hits the ground it bounces sideways. That's why they almost always bite you in the ankle or lower calf.

Both the bean tree and the cholla are examples of how plants propagate laterally to occupy more turf.

 

[Ron J]

n/t

 

[Detector Man]

note the lack of activity and of automobiles, pick ups etc

 

[Detector Man]

Im a cactus nutcase...i keep telling myself i have more than i can handle! but i keep finding interesting species. and sometimes i need to replace some due to short life expectancy due to me...lol
since you been out here you im sure have seen similar tree but much smaller ...i believe the name is chinese elm tree .and its about a good 50 ft tall...great shade....ive been here since the late 70s and it lived here before i did
I tell my new neighbors that if they like raking leaves they should move because they ll get my leave and everone elses on the block...they laugh at me until fall comes.....ha ha ha

 

[Detector Man]

I tell my new neighbors that if they DONT (i was in a hurry) lol...........
like raking leaves they should move because they ll get my leave and everone elses on the block...they laugh at me until fall comes.....ha ha ha
aa.jpg

 

[Dave J.]

Whew! not Siberian elm! Hate that stuff!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulmus_parvifolia Chinese elm, good landscaping tree
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulmus_pumila Siberian elm, horrible weed tree

In a former life I was a bit of an expert on plants of arid and semi-arid regions, especially those of economic interest and with agricultural potential. In 1976 did a research project for Weyerhauser on the potential for cultivation of jojoba, did all the fieldwork myself estimating the relationship between climate (precipitation), per acre yield, and labor involved in harvesting. They couldn't have hired anyone else to do it, I knew other people involved in commercialization of jojoba but I was the only person investigating jojoba from that perspective. .......A few years later Ken Kourik published some of my research in the first edition of his book on drip irrigation. Second edition emphasis was more on hydraulic nuts & bolts and don't think my work showed up in the 2nd edition.

I was pretty serious about the climate and water end of it. Worked for two State Climatologists, Goodridge (California) and Durrenberger (Arizona). Worked up a bunch of simplified yet accurate climatology and micrometeorological methods that otherwise didn't exist. Several days ago a friend of mine who's on the International Boundary Water Commission (not sure that's the exact name of the agency) was wondering how rare the Houston precipitation event was, and I ran it through my simple pencil and paper model and came up with a return period of 1,000 years for the wettest day and about 10,000 years for the storm total. Haven't heard what NOAA has pronounced on it yet.

I wanted to be a natural scientist, but every time I actually landed a job it was because of my electronics skill. So I decided that was going to be my career. Miss the olden days but electronics has been very good to me. Especially metal detectors, because it's so multidisciplinary and even includes geology/mineralogy and getting paid to play in real dirt.

 

[Detector Man]

i believe they called it a 500yr storm.....i could be wrong. and they blame the asphalt and paved roads in Houston because the water had no where to go.

 

[Dave J.]

i believe they called it a 500yr storm.....i could be wrong. and they blame the asphalt and paved roads in Houston because the water had no where to go.

The return period of a storm and the flooding that results from it are two separate issues. And, at those kinds of return periods that extrapolate well beyond the actual meteorological record, they could be wrong and I could be wrong and climate change could turn all such prediction into so much foolishness anyhow.

That having been said, the storm magnitude difference between 500 years and 5,000 years in a climate like that of Houston is only about 20-25%. Assuming that "climate" is a constant, which it is not. By comparison, a 500 year storm is typically about 3 times the magnitude of storms with a 1 year return period. The relationship is slightly skewed in southern Texas because that's a region where hurricanes are not frequent, but when they happen they're somewhat prone to get stuck between the easterlies and the westerlies and just loiter there instead of just passing through in a hurry like they do in most places. In my own calculation I threw a 30% correction factor for Houston based on extreme values in the data base I used to construct the overall curve which was supposed to be a worldwide average, but if NOAA got it right and I got it wrong then a correction factor of more like 10% would evidently have been more appropriate.

In the end, it's like Mark Twain said, "Everyone complains about the weather but nobody does anything about it."