Tag: Weather

Rain, Rain, Go Away…

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It’s been raining for seven days straight.  It started with temperatures in the seventies and as the storm pushed through it was closely followed by temperatures in the thirties!  The air at ninety-seven percent humidity suddenly becoming so quickly chilled causes it to condense on the inside of the window panes.*  Like a cold drink in summer it collects and runs over the panes and down to the sill.  The windows were wiped four times day before yesterday, and still it collected.

The wind blew, the rain kept coming, and it has just stopped raining as I type.  The heavy clay has become a mire, slick, slimy and dangerous.  It has rained so much that the earth could no longer take it in.  The rain fell and then lay in an inch deep sheet covering the surface of everything on the ground, then flowing to the lowest places it sat and produced puddles and ponds where none should be.

There is more rain predicted, ‘freezing rain’, ‘chance rain’, and ‘possible snow’ as the day continues, and all of it under leaden skies.

We needed the rain after all those summer days of drought, but getting it all in one go is hard to take.  These endless gray days seem to seep inside you, make you sad, dull your senses…

I dream of spring and a sunny day.

Today the sky is throwing little frozen snowballs down to earth.

Some the size of peas

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They collect in the crevasses, and pretend they are snow…

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In the meantime,

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I keep the little lights on to chase away the dark that lurks in the corners,

and Benny Goodman is keeping me motivated not to just crawl under the covers and sleep the winter away.

Benny Goodman Sextet, with Peggy Lee singing

On The Sunny Side of the Street

😉

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*The inside humidity would not normally have been equal to the outside  humidity, but for the smoking dinner in the oven three nights ago, which set off the smoke detector, thus causing us to open the windows and doors to clear the air.  The smoke cleared, but the open house let the hot, wet air in.  With the house then closed the outside temperature plummeted forty degrees in less than two hours and this caused the inside condensation to occur.  We learned our first year here, that too much moisture allowed to sit on the sills will cause mold to grow there.
😐

Photo Friday: I couldn’t help myself

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This fall has been particularly lovely.  I can’t tell you if it is only my perception of the season, or if in fact it is truly better this year, but I find that I can’t help but add just one more view…

I stand looking out my window and see that the rain has washed away the dust from the far-reaching windstorms generated in Hurricane Sandy’s fury.   This wet and overcast view enriches the fall color.  It is an enigma to me that with all the rich, warming, color of the season, I should have to bundle up to go outside, but I want an unfiltered view for my portrait.

Thus bundled and standing on the front porch I set up my camera and try to capture that warmth, saving it for this winter when it will be truly frigid and seemingly bereft of life.

Finding what I’m looking for, I capture the moment.

CLICK…

I study the treeline trying to decide on another suitable view, when suddenly the cloud cover breaks allowing a single shaft of light to fall in the center of the trees.

There in the middle of all this loveliness burns the heart of fall, and I think to myself,

“This will do.”

NOTE:  Today’s images are best viewed full size.  Please click the photos for best color and clarity.

~*~

UPDATE:  For those who can’t get enough fall color you can find plenty more from all over the US on Growing the Home Garden’s website ~  www.growingthehomegarden.com/2012/09/the-fall-color-project-2012.html

Photo Friday: the aftermath

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Here in farm country the roads are few and some travel the same paths they have since the early 1800s.  Granted some new ones have been added, but not too many.  Hence, no matter which road you travel you will inevitably run into tornado damage.

We try to avoid it, to not become a hindrance to the efforts to clean up and get on with life, but it is impossible, you see it everywhere.  We are being told to avoid the worst hit places and we do.  Though many do not.

The day after the storm broke with sunshine and the most brilliant blue skies.  We needed that warmth and brightness to sustain us…  it was a gift from God.

Even knowing He is with us we and our neighbors are nevertheless finding ourselves shell-shocked and depressed.  We are grateful of course to be spared the devastation of the storms, but we are deeply shaken in a way that you probably will not understand.  Though we did not suffer devastation, we are brought to an understanding of how it really was for others during the storm.  We knew it was bad, we now know that if the storm came to our home we would most likely have been taken.  We were the fortunate ones.   We spent almost a week with no electrical power, no gasoline, no groceries.   A week when we were running our generators, and trying to find out the news… find out where to go for necessities, for help…  We are trying to get back to our routines, to help those we can and to return to the “normalcy” of everyday life.

We see the pictures on television and realize there is no normal at times like this.  We fear the devastation, are grateful for not having to have suffered it, and our hearts are breaking for those who did suffer.

The wonderful news in all of this is that I found the owners of the “Storm Mail” and Mr. Garrison told me how much he appreciated that I called to check on him.  He lost a cousin who was swept away while at work on their chicken farm.  He told me his cousin “…didn’t think it was anything to worry about.”  Dale and his wife Marilyn have lost all they owned, home and business.  He said he had received several calls from people like myself who had found some of his things.  We talked for a while and he told me his story.  Before hanging up  he asked for my address.  I am so glad I called and that he and his wife are alive.

It is all so horrific, surreal, mind numbing to see.  The areas of worst devastation are blocked to all but those authorized to help and the people who live in the area.

Healing will take a while.  The reminders will be here for a very long time.

The ancient oak was possibly here when the Native Americans owned this land, It may have witnessed the first settlers, the cotton fields and slavery.  That it witnessed the Civil War, and resultant freedom of the slaves is a certainty.   It stood tall and sturdy through other storms that came and went.  It provided shade at the bend in the road and we all admired its beauty.  It grew less than one-quarter mile from our home.

No matter where you travel you will see the piles, carried or bulldozed to the sides of the streets and roads.  Everyone has a pile that is waiting to be hauled away…

A porch, its rockers, and a painted pony lay in a heap.  The destruction of the property of those effected is pushed to the curb as rubble.  Strange but true!  The power that took all of this, peeled the roof off of the barn,  leveled the garage, and pealed the brick off of the side of these people’s home…

left their bottle tree untouched.

Accompanied by a truck full of rubble, the old silo now lays in the field like a crushed soda can at the side of the road…  waiting to be carted away.

~*~

Needing a break from the sound of generators and the news on the television, we drove out and into Tennessee.  There we found that in spite of it all, the sun still came out and Spring continued to sing her song.

This pasture was filled with the sweetest scent imaginable.

~*~

You can help the victims of these storms both here in Alabama and in Mississippi by donating to the Red Cross.

~*~

An aside:  Want to know more about Bottle Trees?  What’s a Bottle Tree you ask?  Click on the link  —> HERE    You will find that Bottle Trees have an interesting tradition.