Category Archives: Weather +Climate

Bees, GeekWorld, Weather +Climate

Bee Protein and Surge Protection

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Spring                                                                        Bee Hiving Moon

Pollen patties came today. (see right) I’ll be out with the bees tomorrow, weather permitting.  They need the pollen patties for protein which they can’t yet find in adequate supply.  That means the season will have well and truly begun.

To add to that sense we had, as we might expect in late April or early May, thunderstorms this morning around 5 am.  They woke the dogs, who began barking, barking, barking.  Well, I had to get up anyway to shut down our complement of electronic devices, so I let the dogs out.

I’ve been shutting down computers and modems and routers for 18 years and have never had a problem.  My suspicion is that this is something I no longer need to do; but, like an old hoss, I always follow the path to the barn.  Even though the barn got pulled down years ago.

When we first moved in, I had the electrician install surge protectors in the main junction box to forestall any lightning caused jump in current from frying our computers.  He thought this was the silliest idea, but I was paying so he did it anyhow.  That’s why I say I think I no longer need to do it.  Those surge protectors are still lit up after all these years.

The route in that’s not protected is the cable from the cable junction box which sits at the northeastern edge of our property line.  If a lightning bolt hit it, that could fry the modem and the routers.  Again, never a problem.

 

Weather +Climate

Thunderstorms on the Way

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Imbolc                                                    Woodpecker Moon

Thunderstorms on their way.  Today and tomorrow.  Once we get thunderstorms the potential for tornadoes increases along with them.  That means the traditional ritual of shutting down computers, paying attention to weather warnings.  The whole superbowl of warm weather.  Since we also have superbowl caliber winter weather (usually), Paul Douglas, local weather guru, dubbed us the superbowl of weather.  Period.

We have a continental climate, that is, a climate unmoderated by oceans and therefore subject to wilder swings.  And that’s without global warming.  Plus we sit directly below the Arctic with nothing between us and the pole but tundra and lakes.  That makes for the winter weather.

In the summer we get blasts of humid sub-tropical air carried north from the Gulf of Mexico which mixes with weather from the west and can create gigantic thunderstorms and spawn tornadoes.

This all used to wait until after Memorial Day, but this year it’s getting cranked up well before Easter.  I know what we should all give up for Lent.  Carbon emissions.

Aging, Great Work, Sierra Club, Weather +Climate

Another Beautiful Day. Bah.

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Imbolc                                                Woodpecker Moon

Another beautiful day. Yes.  But.  What dark forces work to push the boundaries of weather around like so many children’s blocks, a lego castle on wheels rolling north, careening over everything in its wake?  As I hope I’ve said here before, efforts to control global warming are NOT about saving the planet.  The planet will keep on whirling around the sun as long as gravity and spacetime remain.  Well, not quite, there is that whole red giant business, but it’s a really long time from now.

No, good ol’ h. sapiens will catch the fever.*  Of course, those with an eye to irony or just desserts might not see this a totally uncalled for solution; but, hell, I love our funny two-legged species, roaming around making babies, art, war, sport, roombas, nailguns and rainbow ponies.  What will the universe do for a laugh when we’re gone?

Fans of schadenfreude will rejoice.  Though whether one can be very schadenfreudie when you’re baking along with the ones responsible for delaying action, I don’t really know.

So, as a paid up member of the northern European gene pool, I’m tellin’ you it’s no wonder I’m melancholy.  The world is going to hell in a Hummer, not a handbasket.

 

*Scientific American

LONDON (Reuters) – Global greenhouse gas emissions could rise 50 percent by 2050 without more ambitious climate policies, as fossil fuels continue to dominate the energy mix, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said on Thursday.

“Unless the global energy mix changes, fossil fuels will supply about 85 percent of energy demand in 2050, implying a 50 percent increase in greenhouse gas emissions and worsening urban air pollution,” the OECD said in its environment outlook to 2050.

The global economy in 2050 will be four times larger than today and the world will use around 80 percent more energy.

But the global energy mix is not predicted to be very different from that of today, the report said

Weather +Climate

Enough With the Weather. OK. This Is It. For Now.

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Imbolc                                    Woodpecker Moon

The rain fell gently here last night; the air smelled of earth and composted leaves; the woodpecker moon backlit the clouds.  What could be a better spring evening?  In, say, Kentucky, at this time of year.  Imagine this.  That big tourney storm?  Yeah, lightning, tornadoes and torrential rains.  15 inches of snow is way better.  Way.

Conflicted.  Yes, I’m conflicted.  On the one hand, the weather is what the weather is.  My wishes and expectations have no affect on it, only on my mood.  Mature me says, get out there and enjoy the crocus and the snowdrops as they emerge a month early.

Immature me says, but I don’t want to.  I want the cold and the snow and the driving winds and slate gray clouds.  If I wanted a longer growing season, I’d live further south.  I don’t want the south coming to visit me, I want to go visit the south.  If I want to.

Over time the mature me will win out and I’ll adjust my planting schedules, my bee management for a different set of weather conditions; but, right now the guy who moved north to live among pine trees and snow drifts is feeling a bit shafted.

 

 

 

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.