Memorial Day, 2019...A Memorial Day to Remember

Steve visited with us on the Memorial Day weekend.  The morning and afternoon of Memorial Day Monday were beautiful but a trifle humid.

In the morning, Steve and I went to Herrlinger Park, a little park in Troy where he celebrated several birthdays when he was younger.  A railroad track runs beside the park and everyone who knows Steve knows he loves to railfan.

This year he has a short-wave scanner so he can hear the railroad dispatchers and engineers talking as the trains pass various points along their routes.  The scanner was a birthday gift from his dad.

Listening to his scanner made railfanning much more interesting to me.

After lunch he was picked up and headed home. The afternoon was a quiet one for Tom and me.  And so was the early part of the evening.  Tom was already in bed when our evening became more scary than our evenings usually are.  Our cell phones blasted out warnings.  Tornado warning.  I turned on the local TV channel.  A tornado had touched down north of us.  Later in the week the National Weather Bureau listed it as a EF-3

The meteorologist could barely keep up with what she was seeing on her weather displays.  Tornado after tornado.  Tornado to the west, to the east, to the north and to the south.  All this happened Monday evening.  It took until Thursday for the newspaper to report what the National Weather Bureau had decided had occurred.

Below is an enlargement of the diagram of where the tornadoes hit and their strengths.

Since this newspaper was published one tornado has been upgraded to an EF-4.  The number of tornadoes has been increased to at least 14 after more checking by the National Weather Bureau.

We haven't had a severe tornado since 1974 when one destroyed a portion of Xenia, a nearby town.

Unfortunately our granddaughter's house was one of those severely damaged.  She and her pets are temporarily staying with friends.  She thought one of her cats was lost but it showed up on Saturday.  It was hiding among the debris in her damaged attached garage.  Friends have been helping her clean up the trees and utility poles and the rest of the mess.  She called today.  She says there is a lot of cleanup still to do but a lot has been cleaned up and a lot taken to the disposal site.  She says she is alternating between feeling lucky she still has a house and feeling overwhelmed by the entire experience.

And despite severe weather  in all directions, Tom and I never lost electricity  and no branches fell from any of our trees.

Spring Has Arrived in My Heart, 41 Days Before the Official Calendar Spring...February 4, 2019

The Skunk Cabbage is blooming.

For me, the first day of spring is the day I see the buds on the Spadix inside the Spathe.

And every year I check inside the front cover of  Newcomb's Wildflower Guide to be sure I know a spadix from a Spathe.

Got it.

Next post...more about my walk to the swamp at Brukner Nature Center.

The Day After Tom's Birthday...January 20, 2019

As I wrote in my last blog, January nineteenth was a horrible day. For most of the day we had rain, turning to ice when it hit the roads and trees and lawns.  Late in the day, the rain turned to snow.  By morning we had about five inches of powdery snow on top of ice. The temperature had fallen to 9 degree Fahrenheit. For people like us who had no reason to venture out, the world was beautiful.  The sun shone and all the trees and bushes glittered with ice.  Tom took all the photos in this blog.

This is my favorite of the ice covered branch photos..  Click on it to enlarge it.

This Carolina Wren is cozy under his puffed up layers of feathers.

Tom was focused on the cardinal.  He didn't notice that a house sparrow had done a photo bomb until he looked at the  picture on the computer.

These are the neighbor boys who made some pocket money clearing off drives for us old folks.

December 31, 2018...A Strange Late Afternoon

It was wet when I went to Foodtown for a few last minute groceries...outside

and inside.

When I went back to my van there was a strange vehicle parked next to it.

An inflated alien was sitting in the front seat.  There were two more aliens in the backseat.  Guess they were going to a party in town.

Our First Noticeable Frost, Oct, 18, 2018

I looked out the dining room window...a skim of ice on the birdbath.

I looked out the garage door...orange-red leaves on the neighbor's treetop.

In the neighbor's yard...white frosted tips on the evergreens, white frosted grass on the ground.

I walked out to the prairie patch...Frost on the seedheads of the bergamot.

Fall is here.

Second Winter Storm On Its Way

This is the way our front porch looked on Wednesday.  Despite the snow, the day was warm.  After stocking up on groceries because another storm was predicted I decided to walk at Charleston Falls. 

I could hear the water falling under the icy cover.  

On Thursday, Marsha came to paint.  Both of us have been neglecting art because of other activities.  It is easy to do.  Marsha painted a barn along a rural road, one of her favorite topics.  She wasn't happy with it when she left but she said she would work on it at home.  "At least," she said, "I'm painting."

I decided to do a small drawing.  One of my grandsons has been posting a drawing every day for over fifty days in a row.  I decided if he could be that productive I could at least try to draw every day for the rest of January.

This is drawing one.

I enlarged the children and worked from the enlargement.

While Marsha and I were busy, the change in the weather arrived.  It was raining hard by the time she left.

This morning it was still raining.

By 2:30 today, the rain had changed to snow.

Tom made baked chicken with vegetables and cheese for lunch.  I put clothes in the washer and started on a drawing.  I worked and worked and worked.  The photo I am working from is of three of our grandsons taken when they were visiting us for a few days.  As sometimes happens I couldn't get a good drawing of all three grandsons so I posted the drawing of one of them instead.  Maybe I'll have better luck tomorrow.

Friday Afternoon, Saturday Morning...Changes Overnight at the Falls

 It was about 35 degrees F (1.66 C) late on Friday afternoon when I walked at Charleston Falls.  I was surprised to see long icicles at the falls.  The icicles had to be the results of the last two  nights in the 20s. (6.66 C)  Before that, we had had a string of warm days...forties(4.44 C), fifties (10 C), even a sixty degree day (15.55 C).  I thought it would take more than two cold nights to produce such a sight.

I was in for an even bigger surprise on Saturday morning.  It was 46 degrees (7.77 C) when Jeanne and I walked and when we arrived at the falls this is what we saw.

Obviously, we had not had cold temperatures overnight.

The falls have been interesting to watch this winter.  There has been a lot of change from day to day because our weather has been yoyoing up and down.  We rarely have as many warm days as we have had this year.

No Rain for a Few Hours, Time Enough to Walk

Our weather is continuing to be odd for January.  We've had enough cold weather so the falls are frozen but it was fifty degrees Fahrenheit today, a pleasant day for a walk.  And there was only a light breeze not strong gusty winds like we have had for the past two days.  I met a pleasant woman who visits the same places I do (Aullwood Nature Center and Brukner) who took this photo.

One of these days, that evergreen on the edge of the falls is going to topple.

I took a photo of it from the trail behind the falls, too.

The trail behind the falls was littered with fallen twigs and branches brought down by the gusty winds of the past couple days.

This morning we are up to sixty degrees but Tom said he can see the next cold storm front making a streak across the sky.  By afternoon, it will be considerably colder.

Backyard story, January 7, 2017

It was cold this morning...5 degrees Fahrenheit on our thermometer.  Tom and I have been holed up for a few days.  Both of us are sick though I think today we are feeling better.

The platform feeder has been mostly empty for three days although the Darkeyed Juncos are still showing up and finding a seed here and there.  I decided to refill the feeder this morning while I had the energy to do it.

I heard a Blue Jay calling his warning call from a Black Hills Spruce along the lot line.  I looked up but couldn't find him.  But I did find the reason for his shrill warning.

In the tangle of branches of the walnut tree sat the Cooper's Hawk.  I hadn't intended to but I was giving him a chance for a meal.  The Blue Jay was doing his best to warn the little birds that flock to the feeder.

I didn't see the end of the story.  I love the small birds but the predators are part of the cycle, too.  Nature's balance works fine as long as we humans remember that it exists and respect it.

December...Snow and Cold Temperatures

Tom took this photo on Tuesday evening.  Snow fell almost all day, sometimes big fluffy flakes and sometimes smaller ones as the temperatures sank.

Wednesday morning was beautiful.

Our old-fashioned lilac bush.  Tom's dad gave us the original bush.

The garden phlox.  My mother gave me the start from which these have grown.

We enjoyed watching the birds from our dining room window and were glad we were inside.  It was 11 degrees Farhenheit outside.  Last year on this day, the temperature was 60 degrees Farhenheit.  Both temperatures are unusual for December in southwestern Ohio.

 One of the Chickadees, picture by Tom

One of the White-breasted Nuthatches, picture by Tom

One of the Dark-eyed Juncos, picture by me.  My camera didn't give me a sharp photo under the conditions I had but I like to look at these tuxedoed fellows.  We start seeing them sometime in October and they leave by April.

There were other birds, too... Mourning doves, English sparrows, a Song sparrow, House finches...

This morning the temperature on our thermometer was 8 degrees.  Usually the official temperature is lower so we may break the record for low temperature this century.  I will know when I listen to the Dayton weather on the news tonight.

Spring Explorations...C.J. Brown Reservoir and Garbry Big Woods Sanctuary

Tom and I started our spring nature explorations this past week.  On Monday, we looked for ducks at and around C.J. Brown reservoir and on Tuesday we walked at Garbry Big Woods Sanctuary.

Tom didn't have his Canon EOS T-3i on Monday.  Of course, we saw a pair of Hooded Mergansers so close I could get pictures with my little Olympus Tough.

We also saw...

mallards

a swan near the far bank

and an immature ring-billed gull beside the driver's side door.

There were the usual pairs of Canada geese and flocks of mature ring-billed gulls as well.

Tom took photos on Tuesday although he hasn't downloaded them so the following photos are mine as well.

Our mission was to find Harbinger of Spring.  We found them.  Because they are tiny, we had to search hard over the leafy cover to find them.  They were fresh blooms which I know because one of the sites I checked on the Internet says the anthers are red when the blooms are new but change to black very soon.  The black anthers give the plant its other name, Pepper and Salt.

I put the key to the van beside these blooms to give you an idea of the size.

On the blooms to the left was an early pollinator, a fly.  Flies have a bad reputation because of those we find around barns and in our houses but there are lots of flies who never come near our homes.  They are part of the cycle of life in nature.

March 2, 2016, March 3, 2016 What a Difference a Day Makes

Picture of early crocuses in my neighbor's yard yesterday.

Picture of early crocuses in my neighbor's yard today.

And that's the way our weather is in March.

On the bright side, temperature is supposed to be  60 degrees Fahrenheit next week. (15.56 Celsuis)