Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Rain, Rudy and Shortages

 It rained!  It's not enough, but we did get precipitation yesterday.  The desert is so dry, the deer are back in droves eating the leaves off the orange trees.  This is the worst eating they have ever done.  Fortunately, they do not like the lemon trees, probably due to the thorns, and those are the only fruit I'm concerned about.  

Look at this poor tree, all the leaves on the bottom are eaten by the evil deer.

We actually had a weather alert yesterday.  It wasn't all that bad here, there was no hail and we're happy about that.


So all of that was exciting, and then we had a decent sunset, which was unexpected.
 



This morning dawned dark and stormy, the weather system was not quite gone.  About 11:30 the sun came out and we decided not to be such loser slugs, and so got dressed and out on the bikes.  It was a good ride.  By the time we got back the wind was up pretty good.  Then it rained some.  The hummingbirds are not liking this, they all look like tiny drowned rats.  But now the sun is out here, and we are much happier.

That's a mourning dove on the flower spike.  He's a little puffed up due to the chill.

So, they served search warrants on Rudy Giuliani this morning.  They were at his house at 6 am.  This just tickles the living snot out of me.  They also went to his law office.  Apparently, people from Ukraine have been in New York spilling everything they know about Rudy.  One person gave the investigators his email and phone passwords and spent about 10 hours going through each and every text and mail, explaining their significance.  I really hope they nail his worthless hide to the wall.

Moving on to first world problems. 

 Last summer here was pretty hot.  We literally had weeks of 110 degrees.  So, we've been thinking about a summer house since all the RVs have been sold, and all of the slots in the RV parks have been booked until the end of time.  So, we thought how about the PNW?  They have good summers generally, unless there are fires in British Columbia.  We've all heard about how nuts the real estate market is at the moment, but we did not fully appreciate just how nuts.  Tiny, old, dumpy houses are going for 20 to 25% over asking on Whidbey Island and everywhere else in the area.  Brokers put the houses on the market Friday.  Everybody spends the weekend touring these dumpy little houses, some of them are actual old fishing shacks that have been remodeled.  The following Friday, the owners review all of the multiple offers they have received for these tiny dumpy houses, and choose the one they like best.  We were interested in one house, but the agent told us it was going to need a lot of work, and it was going to go for way more than we wanted to pay.  So, we're done with that thought.  

In Hawaii, tourists are renting U-Haul pickup trucks for transportation because the cheapest car rental if $773 a day for a Toyota Camry.  Yes, that's a day.  Rental cars are in short supply because the car rental places dumped their inventory because no one was traveling in 2020.  New cars are in short supply because of the global chip shortage.  Prices of used pickup trucks are sky rocketing.  Additionally, gas shortages are predicted for the coming summer travel season.  It's the perfect storm of lack of demand for gas in 2020, which lead to layoffs of the people who drive tanker trucks and deliver gas.  Many of those people were approaching retirement and decided to pack it in.  The schools that train those drivers closed during the pandemic, so there are not any new drivers in the pipeline.  So, there's gas, but no one to bring it to the pump.  Finally, chlorine shortages are predicted for the summer.  One of the plants that makes chlorine burned down.  Apparently, there aren't many of the plants, so there's now a huge hole in that supply chain.  Pool maintenance will be difficult.  It's more of no matter what you want, you can't have it at the moment.

So, things are not dire for us, but it does look like another summer in the Hot Pueblo. 



9 comments:

  1. Getting interesting isn't it? And very limiting. I feel grateful to have a house in the cold north at the moment and you are so right, real estate has gone crazy beyond crazy . Forest fires might be more destructive than ever this summer. We have dropped over the precipice of global climate change , free fall forward and down. Adapting is the deal, I guess. here we go!

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  2. Well, let us Hope that Rudy gets what he deserves and a certain Orange Blob too... long overdue for both of them. Shortages and escalating prices, well, it could be way worse in that at least we're not having 3rd World problems with the Pandemic like India. But, if that's any precursor to what could happen if we are not careful and vigilant, our 1st World Problems might become a lot more concerning. We bought our Forever Home just in time last February, so dodged a bullet there.

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  3. Wow -- I learned so much from this post! LOL! I had no idea about the Hawaiian car shortage. (Fortunately I'm not going there anytime soon.) Real estate is insane everywhere, it seems.

    I wonder if the hummingbirds actually appreciate the moisture, even if they don't look too happy about it!

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  4. $700 dollars a day for a rental car?? That's crazy. I haven't looked at real estate options lately but I do notice that there is a lot of building of luxury condos and apartments. I always wonder how they will fill all those places.

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  5. So interesting, the many ripples from 2020 that are continuing to have an effect. I know a class of business school graduates on their way to Hawaii for a post finals fling, I wonder if they know what's in store?

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  6. You could come to the north shore, Lake Erie. Granted, I have not looked, but I think I could bet you there is no summer real estate out of the price range of everyone. I hope we recover from 2020, and stay recovered!
    I listened to a lovely PRI interview tonight about leaders appearing after a period of no leadership. She cited Biden as a leader.

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  7. no thorns on your orange tree? my neighbor and an orange tree when I lived in the city and it had thorns.

    real estate is crazy everywhere I guess. same thing in Austin I hear, houses going right away for over the asking price. good thing I don't plan to move even though summers are getting hotter and longer. we finally got some rain too. started in the wee hours this morning with a downpour and lightning. just raining lightly now but supposed to rain all day and tomorrow too.

    as for Rudy, it's a beginning. the corrupt bastards are going to pay. and did you see the bit about Barr putting the kibosh on a warrent for Rudy two years ago? all tied up with the SDNY firing. it's all going to come out, slowly but surely, just how corrupt that administration was. Go Merrick Garland! payback is a bitch.

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  8. We've had a little over 7" of rain in the last 2 days and I'd be happy to encourage it to travel west to AZ. My brother lives in WA and says housing prices there are unbelievable and go up every day.

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  9. I didn't know about some of those shortages as I have been totally myopic on everything else while focusing on the lumber shortage and run-up in prices. Almost 300% price increase since last summer has us reeling. We may have to stop our house at the foundation stage and just put a big top circus tent over the whole thing and camp!

    I do know, from watching real estate sites around here, how that is going. Multiple offers above asking, very few days on the market, and all that. Too bad we never managed to sell in such a market. Buy high and sell low, that seems to be our motto!

    I loved seeing Rudy start to get what is coming for him. Well deserved indeed.

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