Beautiful sights

Beautiful sights
Horses at blue water Lake state park

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Wind----or is it WIND?

Yesterday was a wind storm.  Today was a bigger windstorm!  Blowing dust, cooler temperatures, hats flying, no American or New Mexico flags flying.  At work, the wind didn't cause me much difficulty.  I was nicely safe in the  concrete and steel visitor's center, and my pets were safe and warm in the motorhome, but my dog fence was blown over!  It's happened before but I was surprised to see it.  I worked on getting it back up and was relieved that I could let the hounds out to frolic in the yard.  When I first get home they are so very excited and rambunctious!


dusty sky during windstorm


I tried to prop the fence with my yard chairs, but the wind was blowing the chairs out of place and then then the fence would fall over, too.  I finally got out some tie down straps and fastened one end through the fence and hooked it to a chair, and then fastened the other end of the strap to the post on the picnic table shelter.  That seemed to be sufficient to keep that side of the fence stable.


Chair is outside fence and strapped to picnic table pole



I still need to figure out a "fix" for the other side of the fencing.
I tried propping a chair against the fence to support it, but the chair got blown over. So I added a second chair, but they both blew over.  I have to come up with something better. I finally got everything I owned which could be weighted down. I had the idea to pile up rocks in the yard chairs to give them weight for resisting the wind.  So far it has worked well! Sort of... the black chair gets blown over every day even though I have added more and more rocks to both the seat and the legs.



Bike, black chair, purple chair, and walker all weighted with stones



Tomorrow is supposed to be another windstorm, with 60 mph gusts, dust, school closings, etc.  I have been planning to put more rocks in the chairs that are holding my dog fence.  I have realized that the high winds are uncomfortable for the dogs to be in when they want to use the "loo", and if I have no fence then I am needing to be outside to hold their leashes, and they think the leashes mean "going for a walk".  If I can open the door and let them outside, at least the routine is the same as usual, just the wind is different.


9 comments:

  1. Boy mother nature can sure make work for us can't it?? Makes extra work for sure. I might take some of your wind and give you some rain.

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  2. I wonder if you could get some metal 'u' pegs and put them over the bottom of the fence and into the ground.

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  3. How fabulous just to up sticks and travel such freedom!

    Not sure about the windstorms though must make everything so difficult and messy! mind you all we seem to have here is rain rain rain and muddy paws so a different sort of mess.

    sue and the Taylor hounds xxx

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  4. Those are strong winds! Hopefully your trouble is short-lived. The only thing I can think of is to check outdoor crafter & artist sites to see if they have good ideas or clever products for keeping things upright when displaying their wares at outdoor shows.

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  5. Mother Nature seems to be throwing one big tantrum everywhere. They were evacuating people in boats just down the street from us thanks to flooding yesterday. I'm ready for some nice, normal weather!

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  6. Hi Hazel,

    You need ground stakes to anchor your fence.
    See link below. Wind in the southwest is
    so unpredictable.

    http://tinyurl.com/azfhdsa

    mj

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  7. The wind can be wicked and it looks dry! Tough combination to grow plants and hard on the dogs. Wonder if there are jackrabbits around.

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  8. I love New Mexico but those winds make me a little batty...

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  9. Yikes! About the wind. Hopefully you are somewhere less windy today. Crazy weather everywhere this spring!

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