In her post I Married a Weather Geek from Outer Space my dearest, most lovely Spouse, Blondie, affectionately (I hope) called me a weather geek. When I read her post, however, my initial reaction was one of mixed sadness and disappointment. I had hoped that she would have been both pleased and excited by the prospect of Serendipity Farmhouse having its very own weather station. Instead, her words were filled with dissatisfaction with regards to my pursuit of this technical enhancement of the SFH Blog. Here’s what she said:

“Mr. Monte and I have had our fill of this blasted obsession. Look at what he’s done with our once beautiful blog. Post after post, here and here and here and here, are filled with the most boring, and ridiculous weather nonsense. Why can’t he just get a life and talk about good things like food and family and his beautiful and creative wife.”

Fortunately, over time, sweetest Blondie, grew to appreciate the data provided by the weather station. Every morning she would either check out the indoor monitor herself or ask me about total rainfall or humidity levels. Factually, it was Blondie who was first to observe that the outdoor sensor unit had died during the night of July 25th and was no longer communicating to the indoor monitor.

It was on January 3rd, 2019, when I assembled Weather WiFi OSPREY station; mounted and activated the device; activated the monitor panel; enabled WiFi connection; and activated the Weather Underground account for Serendipity Farmhouse Station. For over three and a half years, the sensor unit had functioned faithfully. The manufacturer states that the sensor unit can operate up to ten years, but, in a humid, wet climate such as we have here at SFH, the life expectancy is only about three years. So, the inevitably inevitable occurred – the sensor unit had died.

All senior members of the SFH staff met and unanimously decided that money should be allocated to purchase a new sensor unit. We waited anxiously for the arrival of the UPS delivery truck. Chores, errands, and family matters made it necessary to wait a day before the new unit could be installed.

The initial installation in 2019 required eight hours of frustrating labor. Many technical problems were encountered, and special workarounds and solutions were developed. The morning of August 4th, 2022 was an entirely different matter. Just a little more than a half hour was needed to install the new sensor unit. As you can see below, the official SFH Weather Station was up and running at almost precisely 10:00 AM. – – There was great jubilation and celebration here! – – Former doubters and naysayers, Blondie and Mr. Monte, were beaming with joy. – – I humbly accepted their praise and adulation.

The Odd Event

I must admit that, even though I have posted many times about the official SFH Weather Station, there have been virtually no comments from our followers concerning those posts. I myself find it quite difficult to believe that people aren’t as interested in weather reporting as I am. I suppose it’s a matter of ‘each to his own.’

Given the seeming lack of interest in weather reporting, I was absolutely dumbfounded on the morning of July 26th when I found thousands of emails in my inbox, all bemoaning the fact that there was no current weather data from the official SFH Weather Station. Many of the emails specifically complained about the loss because they rely on the data to know when thunderstorms are coming – they needed the information to find shelter in a timely manner. – – This, dear Friends, was one of the reasons why we at SFH made such a rapid decision to purchase the new sensor unit.

A good blogger knows that it is necessary to constantly analyze the needs and expectations of his audience. With that in mind, I studied the huge influx of email and noted the two following points:

First: There were a total of 23, 417 emails noting the loss of the weather data.

Second: The names of the emailers were oddly different from what I usually see when studying blog-related correspondence. Here. Let me show you some of the names: Oliver, Gizmo, Leo, Cosmo, Milo, Cactus, Charlie, Max, Blossom, Simba, Cinder, Jack, Loki, Jackie, Dumpling, Ollie, Erso, Jasper, Buddy, Baggins, Smokey, Fluffy, Oscar, Toby, TiIvy, Boo, Roxy, Belle, Ella, Suki, Zelda, Mochi, Alice, Lucky, Thor, Frank, Midnight, Benny, Tome, Tom, Ginger, Angel, etc.

Another odd thing was that, while I was studying all the email data, Mr. Monte jumped into my lap; looked intently at the computer monitor; and purred most loudly, in a manner that seemed to express deep satisfaction. – – I’m very puzzled by all this. But that’s the way life is here at Serendipity Farmhouse, always puzzling yet always interesting.