Category Archives: Weather +Climate

Faith and Spirituality, Garden, Weather +Climate, Writing

Spaghetti Squash and a Scimitar Cucumber

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81  bar steady 29.93 1mph NE  dew-point 51  sunrise 5:59  sunset 8:38

New (Corn) Moon

Tao is the way without a way;
It is the path with no tracks.
You start walking the way of Tao when you erase anything – good or bad – you learned about Tao.

“If you steal from one author, it’s plagiarism; if you steal from many, it’s research.” – Wilson Mizner

This quote from Mizner amuses me since I’ve just read many authors to tease out the history of Unitarian and Universalist churches in Minnesota.  Research, not plagiarism.   I put down Freedom Moves West this morning after read it, mostly, from beginning to end.  It is rare when researching a topic as outside the mainstream as this one to find a whole book exactly on point by Freedom Moves West is such a book.  It offers up the history of the Western Unitarian Conference from 1852 to 1952, the period when Minnesota churches came into being and the context nationally and regionally that surrounded their creation.

Of course, such a lot of material on point requires a good deal of sifting and weighing, matching with other sources, like church histories written by individual congregation, still it provides an overall narrative that makes the whole task better.

After my nap, I plan to sit down and organize my notes and thoughts on Heresy Moves West (yes, I sort of borrowed the notion from the book).  If I can, I hope to get to writing.  If not, tomorrow.  That will feel good.

Last night I harvested a spaghetti squash and a long, scimitar shaped cucumber.  This morning I pulled golden beets and Nante carrots.  Later on I’ll pluck one of the drying onions off the screen and a head of garlic to use in cooking supper.  This will be a vegetarian meal, one made in  honor and celebration of Lughnasa.  Celtic holy days lasted a week or more, occasioned as they usually were by markets, dances, rituals and general collectivity.

A lovely, blue sky day with reasonable dew-point and temperature.  Good deal.

Family, Garden, Weather +Climate

Integrated Pest Management

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78  bar falls 29.68  2mpn NW dew-point 65  sunrise5:57  sunset8:40  Summer

New Moon (Corn Moon or State Fair Moon)

NOAA awakened me with its trademark ululation, alerting me to the thunder storm watch declared for Anoka County.  Such notices are rare in the morning, mostly coming in the late afternoon as the heat of the day punches up cumulus clouds into congestus, then into the anvil shape of the thunderhead, sometimes 5 or 6 miles high.

This allowed plenty of time for Kate and me to conduct our family business meeting.  This included Kate’s announcement of the fourth large quarterly adjustment in a row.  She works hard and gets compensated accordingly.  She’s off right now having lunch with Penny Bond at the Istanbul Bistro.

Last night while checking the crops I found an infestation of aphids in one corn stalk’s tassel.  After checking others and only finding the one, I ripped that one of the ground and moved it far away.  This morning I found another tassel with a few aphids, this one I squeezed between fingers and thumb instead of discarding.  I’ll check it again, but I imagine that fixed it.

Watching for disease and pests is an important part of gardening.  Another important part is not overreacting. I used to overreact, head straight for the pesticide or fungicide.  Since then, I’ve learned that plants can sustain damage with no harm to their overall purpose.  The trick is to know when the balance shifts from the plant’s natural defenses to the invaders.  Even when I react, I almost never resort to pesticides (I use cygon on Iris Borers in the spring.).  Instead I look for hand removal, plant elimination or measures such as squirting with high pressure water.  That approach has served me well for the last four to five years.

Integrated pest management (IPM) encourages this kind of response.  Good cleanup in the fall, creating a soil and growing condition favorable to healthy plants and either starting or purchasing strong plants also goes a long ways toward a manageable pest and disease environment.  These are also part of an IPM strategy.

Politics, Weather +Climate

Stop in the Aisle, Say a Prayer

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75  bar falls 29.78  2mph  SSE dew-point 52  Summer, warm and sunny

Waxing Gibbous Thunder Moon

These are the dog days, so called because the Romans believed that the bright Sirius, now in night sky, added its heat to the sun, magnifying Sol’s effect. (affect=verb, effect=noun most of the time.  I have trouble with this one.)

While in the dog days, thunder storms are welcome.  They drain the heat up into the atmosphere where it cools into clouds; rain drops form and, if they get heavy enough, fall to earth.  The whole process results in cooler near earth weather.  Like today.  Yesterday in the 90’s with a dewpoint in the high 70’s; today 75 with a dew-point in the 50’s.

During the dog days my gardening energy declines and I work on inside projects like the Twin Cities/Minnesota UU history I’m crafting right now.

It is so easy, to walk the aisle in an American grocery store.  So easy to take the abundance and its affordability for granted.  Those of us raised in the US since WWII have not known want, at least those of us in the working class and up economically.  Mercados take the place of grocery stores in much of the world.  We visit farmer’s markets for the quaint experience of buying food from those who grow or raise it.  Most of the world knows only that or their own garden, their small chicken coop.  A few still hunt and gather, yes, but most of the world has entered some form of economy based either on barter or cash.

Millions have no food to buy, no clean water to drink, no sanitation to stop disease, no medical services.  We have healthy water, food to put in a grocery cart, plumbing and doctors.  No, everyone does not have access to all of these, but at least here it is because the culture is too indolent or too callous; in other places the services themselves are simply not available.

It’s worth it, now and then, to pause in the aisle of your favorite grocery and say a prayer of thanks to mother earth and to the dumb luck that put you here.

Family, Friends, Garden, Weather +Climate

Vegetables Amidst the Flowers

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70  bar steady 29.82  6mph SE dew-point 54  Summer, cool and sunny

Waxing Gibbous Thunder Moon

The storm has passed and the air shines, cleared of dust.  Clarity is a July morning after a rain.

The lilies open more and more with each passing day.  The squash and cucumbers we planted in the perennial beds beside the patio have begun their long and winding way.  Yellow squash blossoms promised fruit to come.

In several places now we have combined perennial flowers with vegetables.  In one raised bed Asiatic lilies have risen and now bloom amongst heirloom tomato plants with sturdy branches, heirloom beans and a few leaves of lettuce not yet picked.  The beets and the carrots have a Stargazer lily and a daisy in bed with them while the green peppers grow amidst bearded iris, Asiatic lilies and Russian sage.  The garlic grow only with their own kind, likewise the onions though the corn has bush beans in between the rows.

This mixture appeals to me because it defies expectation.  It is wonderful to see plants with such different missions growing alongside each other.  Is it optimal for either?  Maybe not, but who cares.

Kate sewed yesterday.  She has made Gabe two small suits, same pattern with different cloth.   He will be quite the little gentleman in them.  She’s happy to be back at the sewing, creating.  It’s important to her sense of self.

Groceries this AM, then more UU history.  Later on a party at the Stricklands for Kate and Clair.

Weather +Climate

Mammatus and Derechos

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66  bar steep rise 29.68  0mph NW dew-point 64  Summer, muggy night

Waxing Crescent of the Thunder Moon

Another line of storms moved out of the north west, along I-94.  They hit us about 8 PM, the skies green like pale mashed peas.  Kate noticed some mammatus clouds and a lightning display in the east, already headed toward someone else.  There were tornado touchdowns, far away this time.  These storms are our tsunamis, our earthquakes, our hurricanes.

They come here because of our location, our spot on the globe.  They usually spawn from cool arctic air meeting humid Gulf of Mexico air drawn up by circulating lows.  Their paths have a general line, north west to south east, but the specific spots along the way that experience damage varies wildly.  A couple of storms ago a tornado touched down south of us about 2 miles.  A couple of years ago a tornado hit an eastern part of Andover.  That may have been the storm which hit us with hail, requiring new siding and a new roof.

If a tornado hits your house, it may as well have been a tsunami, a hurricane or an earthquake.  The damage will be considerable, your life in danger.  Straight line winds generated by wall clouds can and do reach ground speeds of 90 mph.  In the first four years after we bought this house we had two straight line winds that took out several large trees in our woods.

In certain instances these are derechos. The bow-shaped echoes that get meteorologists excited are distinguishing characteristics.  So are sustained straight lines above 58 mph, over a long front.  These are mostly a North American storm.

Faith and Spirituality, GeekWorld, Great Work, Weather +Climate

Say a Little Prayer for the Miracle of Mother Earth

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70  bar steep fall 29.80  6mph NW  Dew-point 62   Summer, a thunder storm watch until 6PM.  One’s already rolled through our area.

First Quarter of the Thunder Moon

The Thunder Moon has seen its first storm even before it became gibbous.   When I went downstairs today to shut off and unplug the computer, as I always do before a storm, it made me think.

In cities it is possible to live a life pretty isolated from the natural world.  Yes, you get wet when it rains if you can’t drive from covered parking to covered parking, but it’s usually a short term experience.  Out of the car.  Dash across the parking lot or sidewalk into the shelter of a building.  Yes, up here in the northland you can’t avoid the snow and the cold, but there again, unless you go outside with snowshoes or hiking boots, your exposure does not interrupt your day very much.

Out here in the exurbs, where the cities reach has become tenuous, houses have 2 acres, 5 acres, 10 acres between them.  When the thunderstorm looms, it looms over you.  A lightning strike on or near the house would send a surge throughout our circuitry blowing out sensitive devices.  The computer holds so much of my life and work that I protect it.  But, from what?

Yes.  Mother nature.  She’s whimsical and unpredictable.  No matter what we do somewhere the river rises.  Electricity coming in a storm carries a voltage of 100 million to 1 billion volts.  It can reach 50,000 degrees fahrenheit.   Four times as hot as the sun’s surface.  A hurricane generates unbelievable power and as they intensify they endanger increasing amounts of our wealth and health as a country.

Just think back over the last couple of months.  The cyclone in Burma.  The earthquakes in China.  The worst natural disaster in our history, Katrina, was not long ago.  These events kill and or disrupt the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.  The earthquake in Pakistan or the Kobe earthquake in Japan.  Huge, nation altering events.  The tsunami in the Indian Ocean.  We remember these not only for their human suffering and property loss, but because they remind us that we are not in control of the planet.

Our own little apocalypse, death, comes from the evolution of life.  Life comes with a sell-by date.  We are not in control even of our own lives.  This is either frightening or invigorating.

I choose invigoration, so when I head downstairs to shut off the computer I say a little prayer of thanks for the miracle of mother earth and my chance for a brief stay here.

Faith and Spirituality, Great Work, Weather +Climate

A Sabbath

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87  bar rises 29.71 0mph NW dew-point 63  Summer, hot and sticky.  Clouds forming.

Waxing Crescent of the Thunder Moon

Unless I miss my guess, the Thunder Moon will have a namesake event to celebrate its waxing phase.  The day was hot, the dew point high and clouds have begun to build.  In fact, I’ve come downstairs to see if I need to unplug the computer.

After the picture printing in the AM, I have focused the afternoon on reading Sierra Club political committee material.  It’s a well thought out approach, developed at the national level.  It’s primary aim is to influence electoral politics on behalf of an environmentally sensitive agenda.  As such, it works at the retail political level and at the election atmosphere level, too.  Don’t know yet what my role will be since there has been only one meeting and I couldn’t make it, but I’m looking forward to rolling my sleeves up and getting back in the fray.

Otherwise a laid back day, a non-workout day.  A Sabbath.

Garden, Weather +Climate

USAF Officers Attacked!

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81  bar falls 29.99 0mph S dew-point 59  Summer, sunny and hot

Waning Gibbous Flower Moon

Each year in late June a convergence of heat, humidity, sun intensity and the growth of weeds combine to make gardening an early morning task for me.  The toddler trees, planted last year, had a considerable collection of weeds around them.  They had to go.

The machete makes short work of the nettles, the most troublesome of the weeds.  They grow tall and block the sun.  They grow from rhizomatous roots, so they send up new plants when the old ones are cut down.  Their main defense, formic acid, makes humans want to stay away from them, hence, the nettlesome person.

Virginia creeper and grapevines also sap a lot of food from the growing area of these young trees and must be pulled up like a zipper, taking out the length of the vine as well as its immediate spot of rooting.  Then there are the other weeds, names unknown to me, that gather in numbers.  Up they come by the handfull.

Last and hardest to remove are the tall grasses, the exact thing desired in the large open area, a sort of meadow, but harmful to the new trees.  Once they’ve become establish the trees will outcompete everything in their area, but these guys haven’t reached that growth stage.

One anecdote I loved from the Maxwell AFB experience involves nature’s own air force.  A single person walking along the east side of the cafeteria building often receives pecks and a dive bomber approach from a towhee who lives on the roof.  The idea of a bird attacking USAF officers is ironic.

Travel, Weather +Climate

Swollen Muddy And Fast

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90  Sunny, hazy   Airquality alert in Nashville.  Suggested:  Limit trips.

The deep south is close.  Tennessee was one of the upper slave holding states at the beginning of the civil war and did not secede with the lower south states of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and tomorrow’s destination, Alabama.  

Murfeesboro, Tennessee has the Stones River Civil War Battlefield. 

Today’s journey was and is hot.  As the road pushed further into southern Illinois, there were signs for college majors in coal mining.  Carbondale, home of Southern Illinois University was in the vicinity.  These are also unglaciated limestone hills sitting atop layers of plant life from the Carboniferous, now black and concentrated into veins of coal.  Heat and coal and the underground, the cthonic realms go together.

The Ohio river, the mighty Ohio, flexed its muscles today, swollen muddy and fast.  It was over its banks and looked like it would get higher.  This is a big river and where it feeds into the Mississippi multiplies the river we call the Father of Waters. 

Kentucky, which never seceded and therefore allowed Union access to the south side of the Ohio, continues, in the main, the rolling limestone hills in southern Illinois.  

Paducah, home of the National Quilter’s Museum and the only place in the US creating nuclear fuel for electricity generation from out of date Russian weapons (literally swords into plowshare), is not far from the bridge over the Ohio.

At Russert’s, a woman named Keeum (Kim) took mah ordah.  Cahtfeesh.  She was real nice.  She gave me a to go order of iced tea.  Good food.  Boy, the folks must like it down here, it’s roly polyville.

Nashville had a freeway down, but there was a quick way around the bottle neck and I found it.  Cities do not draw me in as they once did.  I find myself more interested in the quiet, secluded setting and Murfeesboro, though a city, does not intrude too much out here near the Stones River Battlefield.  I’ll go there in the morning, then scoot on down to Prattville and the Plantation Bed and Breakfast.

I finished a 24 lecture course on the American Revolution in the 11 plus hours I drove yesterday.  A nice setup for the 48 lecture course I began today on the Civil War.  Fits right in with the trip.

GeekWorld, Travel, Weather +Climate

240,000 Miles and Still Happy

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58  bar falls 29.74  10mph E  dew-point 56  Beltane, cloudy and raining

                         First Quarter of the Flower Moon

Since this has been and will be a traveling month, I’ve been attentive to weather nation-wide.  It’s amazing to sit here looking outside at my garden where the vegetables are slow to mature because of cool weather while the east, south and southwest have had hot hot hot.  The red looked like a child had decided to color the U.S. by starting down the eastern seaboard and then moving along the bottom of the map, went up a state or two, then went on west.  Red all the way.

The automobile is my primary mode of transportation.  Train second.  Air a distant third and then only for speed or an impossible distance.  The former is the reason for air to Texas in July, the latter found me in a plane for Hawai’i. 

When I travel by car, I pay attention to the Weather Channel like a pilot watches the isobars.  It looks like my luck will be good.  The very hot weather system seems ready to break up into more seasonal summer temps.  I’m glad.

Took the little red car into the dealer today for an oil change (they like me, they really really like me) and discovered that the head gasket seep has become a full fledged leak.  That means a head gasket and head grinding when I return plus I have to check the oil every other gas stop.  Even though I repaired my air conditioning after 5 years without it (kept thinking I’d get rid of the Celica, but it kept working.), the heat still makes travel uncomfortable and it does reduce gas mileage. 

I  told Scott at Carlson Toyota I don’t begrudge the Celica few repairs at 240,000 miles.  Still a hell of a lot cheaper than a new car and I get 30-32 mpg on the road.

While we’re on the subject of mechanical devices, my computer now makes a reluctant noise when I boot up, as if it doesn’t want to get up yet.  At first it made me think:  Hard drive!  Bad.  Even though I back-up daily.  Then, on the web I found that it’s probably not the hard drive, but the cooling system.  Time for a little fresh air in the old computer case.  I like this machine.  It’s just right for my needs even though it is now 3 years old.  Like the Celica I feel I may have it a while.