Category Archives: Weather +Climate

Bees, Faith and Spirituality, Garden, Politics, Sierra Club, Weather +Climate

A Year of No Winter, Now With No Spring?

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Imbolc                                         Woodpecker Moon

OK.  So, there was this place that used to have winter but had it replaced by a season of cloudy skies and what passes for cold in the southern states.  Then, that season ended and summer began.  Minnesota 2011-2012

Not kidding.  It’s 60 degrees here today, March 11th.  And this doesn’t seem to be an aberration, the temps go like this for highs:  59, 65, 70, 67, 68.  And that gets us through Friday.  It may throw the bee season into a conundrum since my package bees don’t arrive until mid-April and the bloom cycle could be accelerated by as much as a month.

This is also a year when I didn’t start any vegetables.  Not a one.  We moved the hydroponics into the garage for storage so we could consolidate the dog crates in one place. I imagine the places I buy plants will have used the same calendar as usual and we could waste a month or so of available warmer weather.  In other words we could have a growing season up to 6 weeks longer than normal.  But we’re not ready for it and won’t be.

The Great Wheel continues to turn, but the holidays may usher in different weather than usual.  Climate change is well under way.  I hope the climate change deniers have a ringside seat in hell to the catastrophe they’ve created.  I know, that sounds extreme, but I mean it.

The deniers will not and never could change the basic science behind global warming, all they could ever do was slow down humanity’s response to it, a slowing down that amounts to a criminal act, a felony against generations yet to be born.  They need to be held responsible for their greedy, stupid, infantile actions.

But they probably won’t be.  They’ll die off before the worst of it hits.  That’s why I hope hell has a special viewing room for these shrunken souls.

Would you like me to tell you what I really believe?

Weather +Climate

Yes, Virginia. It Still Snows in Minnesota.

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Imbolc                               Woodpecker Moon

The night came cold and wet, slush frozen, then snow piling up, now in the morning branches sag heavy with soggy white.  A late season snow.  The kind for basketball tourneys or interrupting plans.  Just right for that.

Still, it’s a nod to winter, a sort of, yes, we still know how to do this kind of thing notice on the part of the weather gods.  Not good for the trees or the shrubs, but, water, if it can get into the ground.  Good in that way.  We need more plus some.

(my photo from December 11, 2010.  Photoshopped.)

After the pedal to the metal push over the weekend on the Sports Show, I’m reluctant to dive into the next big thing, finishing the novel.  That’s definitely next.  Yesterday evening I did do some Latin in what would have been my Tuesday exercise slot.  That’s the new plan.  Made some headway, too.

Last night the last Photoshop class of four.  Asked how long it took to get good at Photoshop, our instructor said, “Oh, years.”  I believe him.  This stuff does not come cleanly, quickly for me.  More like Latin, a struggle, two steps backward, then another one. Maybe later, progress.  Well maybe not that bad, but it felt like it last night.

Partly I drove over in the rain and thought what a nasty drive it would be back home if the temperature slipped below 32.  All that rain and slush.  Ice.  No one’s driving condition of choice, except 19 year old boys with muscle cars.  So, I left a half an hour early.  And got back home just as the below freezing temps hit and the rain turned to snow, the slush to ridged ice.  Still had to take the trash out.  Of course.  But nothing like driving in the stuff.

 

GeekWorld, Weather +Climate, Writing

Whoa. Just Backup.

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Imbolc                                       Woodpecker Moon

Woodpecker hacking away this morning as I awoke.  Yesterday the crows cawed, setting on the branches of our big cottonwoods, 40 feet or so off the ground.

A few snow flakes fluttered to the ground, but nothing like the original forecast.  Now they’re talking slush and smelting snain.  Yuck.  I’m in favor of snow, more snow.  And cold.  Show me the winter.

When Kate and I came home Saturday night after the birthday dinner with Anne, I noticed the neighbor had a fire going in the large depression between our homes, a storm water runoff feature.  He did some brush clearing over the last week or so and stacked up a good sized mound of branches and limbs.

Since the significant feature of this winter has been drought, his fire worried me a bit since a woods occupies about an acre and a half of our property.  When I cataloged what I would lose in case of a fire (all this as I tried to go to sleep), after getting the dogs and Kate and me to safety, I sat up and thought, my novels!

The answer is, yes, I do backups.  But.  The backups are on external hard drives physically connected to my computers.  They protect against system failure, but not against fire.

The next morning I went downstairs, took out my 16 gigabyte thumb drive and backed up my entire documents folder.  That was about 2 gigs.  While I was at it, I added another 10 gigs of photos.  Now the question is what do I do with the thumb drive?  Carry it with me all the time?

Gonna have to check out cloud based backups.

Weather +Climate, Writing

Yearning for True Winter

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Winter                   First Moon of the New Year

Cloudy with sun.  Another cheery day here in Denver.  At the moment though my heart yearns for the closed in, snowy gloom of a true northern mid-winter.

This is good weather for taking Ruth on a fabric shopping expedition and granpop will tag along to have lunch with grandma and granddaughter. I look forward to this and will enjoy it.  Probably quite a bit.

But.  It’s not the interior landscape brewed up by howling winds from the northwest, temperatures plunging far below zero and snow so thick going anywhere just can’t happen.

Those days find me in my Herman Miller chair, sandwiched between my desk with its two sloped editing and reading stands and my bookcase with reference materials for art history, philosophy, my current novel, the reimagining faith project and work with Latin.

A crackling fire burns in the green metal gas stove at one end of the small rectangle while my computer and printer punctuate the other.  There’s a tea kettle nearby for heating water to a precise temperature for brewing different kinds of tea.

Here, my body and mind have learned, work happens.  An odd sort of work, I admit.  Work of the heart and the mind, a wordsmithy, data and information in and paragraphs out.  No leather aprons or bulging biceps required.  Nimble fingers help.

Yes this sort of work happens in all seasons and in all manner of weather, but there is none more suitable than the quiet of a snow silenced, cloud darkened day.

The desire for this weather and this place comes, in part. from missing fall and returning to a weak, almost non-existent winter.  More than that though that yearning reflects a sense that I have identified my work, that I have it underway and I want to stay at it.

That is, however, my feeling this morning, here in the Best Western, before we connect up again with the grandkids.  When we do, this will be the best place to be.

 

 

 

Family, Friends, Weather +Climate

Playing Cards

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Winter                                 First Moon of the Winter Solstice

Oh.  The card gods had it in for me tonight.  And about time, too.  I got cards that were almost good enough, but not quite.  And I kept playing them.  And playing them.  And then some more.  I had a great time.  It’s fun playing with these guys, win or lose.

On the way back from the game I felt great.  Realized at this point that this feeling lifts me up and the serious, more work ahead feeling after political meetings, not so much, and I want more lift me up in my life.

Driving back there were snow flurries, the temperature was either 17–the truckometer, 12–the sign on 35W just after 694 going north or 28–HOM furniture, which always runs hot.  Around 13 by my educated ears.  Windy, too.  Downright chilly.

Felt great.

Off to Denver in the AM.  The Great Western Stock Show.  Grandkids.  Time with my honey.

Media, Travel, Weather +Climate

A Puzzle

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Winter                                 First Moon of the New Year

Here’s a puzzle.  Tuesday night is trash night here in Kadlec Estates so I trundled out both the regular trash and the recycling.

The moon, at about 3/4’s full, was there, the lesser lamp, but the greater in aesthetic impact; Orion had risen in the eastern sky, now his usual upright self after his disturbing Southern Hemisphere headstand; and, there, on the western patch of lawn, the portion that abuts the driveway and goes down to the street, were regular bare patches, about 6-8 inches wide, then a much broader band of icy snow, a pattern that repeated several times as the yard slopes up toward the garage.

What could cause such regularity?  Baffles me.

Soon I’ll have several more chunks of photographs posted about the cruise at www.ancientoftrails.tumblr.com .  Going through them brought back a lot of the trip, its diverse geography, flora and fauna.  This trip will take a long time to settle in.  My eventual goal is to post my ancientrails entries in tandem with the photographs, but that may not happen for months.

Humanities, Literature, Myth and Story, Weather +Climate, Writing

A Morning During Our Long November

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Winter                            First Moon of the New Year

Our long November continues.  Patchy snow, mostly bare ground and leafless trees.  Occasional sunshine, like today, otherwise gloomy and gray.   I’m disappointed in the season since I believe we have to earn our springs here and I’m not sure we’re going to this year.  Of course, last year may have counted for two.

Action method and Evernote have both made my work on the computer much more productive.  I can switch seamlessly among projects now without having to do a lot of hunting for files and resources.  Since my days have become more and more study oriented this means a lot to me.

(remember last winter?)

Kate’s out having lunch with a friend, Penny.  I worked on Ovid, finished up my ten verses for this week.  This afternoon I’ll check out my objects for my two China tours tomorrow and probably enter some more of the material I wrote last March at Blue Cloud.

I’m getting close to having that finished.  Once I do, I’ll go back over my notes and start writing again.  I expect I’ll have a rough draft finished in February if things go well.  I’ll start on Book II after that.

 

Aging, Health, Weather +Climate

It’s Beginning To Look a Lot Like…March?

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Samain                                 Moon of the Winter Solstice

It’s beginning to look a lot like….March.  Geez.  Rain?  In mid-December?  47 degrees.  Come on guys.  We need that climate deal now.

(this was the scene out my study window on December 11, last year)

How would Robert Frost write “Stopping by Woods on A Snowy Evening” for the Winter Solstice?  Somehow the carriage sunk in mud while the rain beats down just doesn’t carry the same poetics.

Annual physical finished.  Tom Davis, the internist whom I see, enters the State Fair art contest every year in photography and has never got admitted.  He has one of his pieces in his office and it’s pretty damn good.  A pensive work in Galena, Illinois.

Each year after the physical, since fasting is required, I go to Hell and have breakfast.  Hell has its Minneapolis location in the basement of the building next to the Medical Arts parking ramp.  An all punk wait staff, classic movies projected on a big screen and broadcast over TV’s, and an imaginative menu make Hell a bigger draw than you might imagine.

 

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Holidays, Humanities, Weather +Climate

Hello, Darkness

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Samain                                   Moon of the Winter Solstice

The holidays.  We’ve got no decorations up.  No Christmas or other holiday music plays here.  We did all of our shopping online.

When I was at Best Buy a week or so ago while hunting for a device to download pictures to Kate’s i-pad (no joy on that front even now), Christmas music played and, as I said here after that, I responded, singing along, even getting the little uptick in the heart that comes with the commercial or family holiday all Americans celebrate at this time of year.

I do miss some of the over doing, present wrapping–ok, I don’t miss present wrapping, decorating the tree–well, I don’t miss getting the tree, putting up the tree or the occasional nasty surprise like the one my friend Mark discovered when he watered and watered this year’s tree only to discover the pan had cracked and water had leaked out under the tree skirt, nor do I miss taking down the tree, cleaning up the fallen needles, Christmas music–responding in the store meant something to me, but only because I’d spent 40 days away from the US and this is one strong cultural tradition, over saturation spoils the effect, church services–well, I bailed on those a long, long time ago.

So, maybe I’m not too sad about our ascetic approach to the holidays.  Besides, the holiday that now means the most to me, the Winter Solstice, comes along now, too, and I do celebrate that one with candles, meditation and writing.

There is, though, a powerful need for reflection, for love, for warmth in all its manifestations.  Sergio, our guide on a tour in Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the Americas, explained that winters there, where the nights are long long long, often results in depression.

Another argument for a Ge-centric faith, one that acknowledges the darkness, relishes its nurturing power, rejoices at the return of the light and doesn’t have to get overly metaphysical about it.

These brave festivals of the light like Deepavli, Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule and even New Years all respond to the same fundamental astronomical fact, the lengthening of night and the ancient fear that the sun may not return.  In that sense they’re all good, but why not acknowledge, first, the fundamental reason for the season, axial tilt?

Aging, Bees, Family, Friends, Garden, Our Land and Home, Retirement, Travel, Weather +Climate

Mi Casa

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Samain                                     Moon of the Winter Solstice

Much as I enjoyed the travel, the close time with Kate, the ocean, new cultures and places, I find this computer and my own keyboard, my reference shelf and my library, mementos from past trips, family, collected art like slipping into a pair of comfortable bedroom slippers.  At its best travel allows for renewal, challenge, broadening, but an unexpected and forgotten pleasure, perhaps never noticed before, is this lifting up of home.

Home as reality and as metaphor carries a special valence for all of us, one way or the other.  I moved so often for the first 40+ years of my life I never had the time, the digging into a place where I could really feel home.  Here in Andover, although the burb itself is nada as place, the home Kate and I have created nourishes both of us.  We have space for our mutual creative work, space for mutual work outside and in, leisure space and fitness space.

Over the years, as is the case with most family homes, our sons have developed memories here, now grandchildren and in-laws, too.  Animals, both present and past, inhabit the hallways and the woods.  Storms past, challenges met and overcome, Thanksgiving, Hanukah, Christmas, birthdays, honey harvests.  All here.

Home.  This trip made me appreciate it more than I ever have.