Musings

It rained last night, pretty heavily at times. This morning, the winds came with the rain, whoosh for quite a while. Small branches fell and we heard some ominous sounds from afar—thankfully for the afar part. I went out to photography the white azalea that’s in full bloom and found the branches droopy under a heavy load of precip.

To get away from the roof and diminish the scary wind noises, I did some reading downstairs during the w-o-r-s-t of it, and came across the following in Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable Miracle: A Year of Food Life (2007). Here’s the setup. Spring is coming, and the turkeys that weren’t sacrificed for Thanksgiving and other feasts—meaning the hens—begin to experience the springtime tide of rising hormones, but BK doesn’t understand that that’s what’s going on with the hen with droopy wings. She finally figures it out and hies off to the internet and the library for the animal husbandry information she needs, and which didn’t arrive with her two-day-old chicks the spring before. Since most modern US turkeys come into the world via artificial means, hatch under heat lamps, and are sacrificed before they reach their own springtimes, appropriate council, she discovered, is…rare. She finally digs up a fifty-year old agricultural self-help book and gets some advice (p. 322):

I had more than just sentimental reasons for wanting to see my turkey hens brood and hatch their own babies, however unlikely that might be. I plowed on through my antique reference for more details on nesting and brooding, and what I might do to be a helpful midwife, other than boiling water or putting a knife under the bed. My new turkey-sex manual got better and better. “Male turkeys,” I read, “can be forced to broodiness by first being made drowsy, e.g., by an ample dose of brandy, and then being put on a nest with eggs. After recovery from the hangover, broodiness is established. This method was used extensively by farmers in Europe before incubators were available.”

Got it?

Posted at 1:43 PM | 1 Comment »

In acknowledgement of the many tornado watches and general bad weather, the network stations stayed on local reporting for hours during the late afternoon/early evening. Right here, we got a bit of hard rain, maybe momentary hail, and lots of dramatic skies. Basically, the scary stuff was around us, rather than over us.

Fine with me!

* The weather maps broadcast by the station we watched most of the time displayed purple dots, or sometimes blotches, which we were told was where hail was falling.

PS Normally I like purple!

Posted at 10:22 PM | 1 Comment »

This morning we enjoyed Fun with Delta.

They sent us to stand in the hallway, having checked our tickets, but without letting us out of the building. Then after maybe ten minutes while JetBlue passengers to Orlando were sent ahead of us, they let us out of the building and onto the tarmac. And stopped us again. We waited in the cold breeze, most of us underdressed home-bound Atlantans (I’m guessing). After maybe five minutes, they sent us back into the boarding lounge. Not good. After a couple of minutes they said the flight was indefinitely delayed. Really not good. Then they told us to line up for them to find us alternate flights. Majorly not good. And this was in an airport already backed up from flights that were cancelled the day before. Super not good. Then, the dam broke and they wisely wheeled a plane over from the opposite side of the field, and let us board. Happy people! We got seated and the pilot came on and said that the toilet was leaking in the discarded jet, and they couldn’t get it stopped. For our flight anyway. Lucky us, there was a backup plane!

We walked home from the MARTA station, noting that pine pollen season has begun and that the, tada!, dogwoods are almost all in bloom!

So, today we left the ice-storm weather behind and returned to springtime!

Posted at 8:35 PM | 6 Comments »

Despite the in-and-out/now-and-then rain, we did get a good walk in, well, good if you’re a young toddler—fine for the rest of us. Still, we got to hear the wind in the treetops and to scuff our feet in the muddy road, and we noted that the puddles that had been almost dry yesterday had been renewed.

Posted at 6:45 PM | Comments Off on Dripping pricker plants

Forsythia: half aging blooms, half new leaves a’comin’.

Ornamental fruit trees: full bloom.

Daffodils: still vibrant, but almost ready to begin fading.

Redbud: almost out to full out.

Rainy walk today, but fun, ’cause it wasn’t that warm, so pleasant to stroll bundled against the precip.

Posted at 10:14 PM | Comments Off on Spring report

This was sunset yesterday, with the sky uplit from reflections off the blanket of snow on the ground. I’d forgotten how much reflection all that fresh-white can make.

Tonight, just about the only snow left is 1) in the shade (deep shade), or 2) on the grass where there was no sunshine this afternoon.

So, the sunset sky today? Oh, pretty much the same-ol’ same-ol’ and not particularly interesting….

Posted at 10:31 PM | 2 Comments »

At 1:45 pm, the big flakes came down like this was Alaska—you can see them above. But, no! This was only Virginia-Highland!

By 5 pm, we’re back to rain, which is washing the slush off the streets. And, scarily, the wind is picking up, and it’s supposed to be gusty all night….

Oh, no!

Posted at 5:22 PM | Comments Off on Winter’s white

Or, more accurately, I blahgged too soon.

Alternatively, now that it’s March, winter is back, even here in the Sunny South.

Update: thunder snow!

Posted at 12:17 PM | 4 Comments »

The sun-angle is changing. I have hope for summer’s arrival.

Posted at 10:22 PM | 1 Comment »

You can’t see them waving, but they are.

You’re looking at the tops of the trees in our backyard at 6 pm. Storm warnings. Wind warnings.

Sure makes me nervous!

Posted at 6:10 PM | 1 Comment »