• Tag Archives snow

  • Hairdo By Tesla

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    38  bar falls 30.02  7 mph N dewpoint 31 Spring?

                  Waxing Crescent Moon of Winds

    Snow.  Lotsa snow.  An inch an hour possible.  Winds gusting this morning up to 13 mph.  That ol’ Hawthorn giant has his sinewy grip on us  and won’t let go.  My hope is that it winds down before Saturday, since I’ve got to travel about 200 miles north to Bemidji.  When I signed up to speak there last September, I didn’t imagine I might face blizzard conditions on the 13th of April.  Northern living.

    Just looked over pictures from Kate’s trip.  Here’s Ruth at her #2 birthday party.  Hairdo by Tesla.

                               ruth-and-hair330.jpg

    Our family is complete again.  Kate’s home. The dogs are home. I’m home.  Feels good.    


    📂This entry was posted in Family Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • Kohler Generators

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    32  bar steep rise 30.22 4mph dewpoint 24 Spring

                   Waning Crescent Moon of Winds 

    “I simply cannot think that human beings will be able to discard their desire and need for something that is sublime, something that transports them, takes them out of time, takes them out of the banality of the everyday world . . . to make something is tremendously powerful in and of itself.” -Sean Scully

    “Men do not care how nobly they live, but only how long they live, although it is in the reach of every man to live nobly, but within no man’s power to live long.” – Seneca

    One last snowblowing adventure.  The snow has already melted off the driveway and the sidewalk.  It will remain longer on the yard and in the woods, but the days of the snowcover are near an end.  Even so, it was nice to get out one more time and see the arc of white curving up then fall toward the earth.  Good to be outside. (We’ll set aside being there with a two-cycle engine.)

    Roger came out today from Allied Generators.  When we went through a spate of disaster planning last fall, we realized our home would not fare well in a power outage.  Why?  No water since we get our pump from a well.  That’s the big one.  We could be here with all the water we needed 180 feet below us and no way to get it to the surface.  Dumb.  Then, of course, there’s powering up the cell phones and the computers for necessary communication.  If Kate is to survive in a reasonably mellow state, we need the air con to work, too.  All of our appliances have electric starter switches.  And so on.  

    The result of this got me to looking at generators.  Consumer reports pointed out an obvious problem with gasoline powered generators.  If there’s a problem with the electricity, filling station pumps don’t work.  So, how do you supply the generator?  Gas gets old, too, so storing much at home is problematic.  Anyhow, the Kohler line of generators run on natural gas which solves that problem.  They also supply enough power to manage the whole house.  Roger will send us an estimate this afternoon.  It might be a sledge hammer to take care of a mosquito sized problem, but we’ll see.

    Piece of trivia:  Kohler got into the generator business in 1918 so customers could use their flush toilets and their bathtubs.  What da ya know?

    I got on a tear this last week or so, completing several major tasks in a short period of time.  It reminded me of the way I used to work, juggling many complicated tasks over long periods of time.  Back then I was productive, really productive.  The old work method felt good to slip into for a while.  Don’t know that I’d want to sustain it anymore.


    📂This entry was posted in GeekWorld Our Land and Home Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • Snow, Snow, and Then, Some More

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    33 bar steady 0mph ESE windchill33 29.85   a buncha snow

             Waxing Gibbous Moon of Winds

    We got socked after I came home from Frank’s at around 10.  Maybe 4 or 5 inches of wet spring snow.  All the leaves, rocks and beginning to peak through patches of grass are white again.  Tourney snow we called it Indiana.

    Gotta get out and see if the snowblower can take it.  Often, at the beginning of the winter and especially in its last gasps the snow is so heavy and wet that it plugs the chute of the snowblower.  Then, I just wait for the grand snow remover in the sky to work his solar wonder.

    Allison sent me this note after the docent book group discussion.  I think she caught the sense of the meeting. 

    Charlie,

    I enjoyed the discussion meeting today.  I want to thank you for your efforts.  I think we were chasing something elusive.  And also feeling each other out-on some pretty big subjects.

    Personally, I think Dale phrased his initial question rather awkwardly.  

    However, Sharon intrigued me with her question which was “Why doesn’t contemporary religion seem to make better use of art?

    So between the two of them we are left with something corresponding to “what came first the chicken or the egg?”  Did art lose its need for religion or did religion lose its need for art?

    I would have liked to have the team fill out your worksheet and plan a tour.

    Speaking of your tour ideas, it would be great to get some serious discussions going on a tour.  You need the right people to show up for that to work.  


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture Faith and Spirituality Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • Mulberry Trees in Armenia

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    31  91%  26%  3mph N bar29.80 steady windchill29  Imbolc

                  Waning Crescent of the Winter Moon

    This snow has a lot of different forms: sleet, snert, wet snow, less wet snow.  At least it didn’t plug the snowblower.  As I followed the snowblower down the driveway and back up, I had these background/foreground visions:  background–I’m layered up, in swiftly falling snow and operating a loud orange machine; foreground–I’m sitting on the lanai of our oceanview room in the Westin looking out toward the western horizon of the Pacific ocean as the sun begins to set. 

    The snow makes the transition from Minnesota to Hawai’i a nice contrast. 

    Getting stuff done today and tomorrow since on Wednesday I leave for Dwelling in the Woods.  My day without the guys I plan to snowshoe and read about Taoism, prepare for my workshop.  During the retreat I plan to snowshoe at least once a day. 

    Picked up some dried mulberries today at the co-op.  Sweet, but not local.  Not hardly.  From Turkey.  It just occurred to me that I read an article this afternoon about silk scarf makers in Armenia, next to the Turkish border.  They had a historic industry, but the Armenian genocide wiped it out.  This town had just received a grant from the EU to grow, mulberry trees!


    📂This entry was posted in Travel Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • Castrate Him!

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    26  87%  28%  2mph NE bar 29.88 steady  windchill23 Imbolc

                    Waning Crescent of the Winter Moon

    A good senate race has run under the radar of the Clinton/Edwards/Obama vs. Romney/McCaine/Giuliani primaries.  It’s a shame, too, since the Democrats have a real opportunity to win back a Senate seat.  I was skeptical of Al Franken, but it seems he’s run hard, straight and with serious intent.  I’m gonna support him on Tuesday, along with Barrack Obama.  I read a convincing article in the Nation that portrayed Obama as the only candidate with true left credentials.  Progressive is a weasel word, not least because Bull Moose Teddy Roosevelt used it of himself and his movement.

    If you enjoy the numbers and drama of politics, this has been a great year.  Lots of poll data, lots of actual votes and plenty of campaign back and forth without, so far at least, too much mudslinging.  Even a pinch of political junkie in your bloodstream would get you into the fray.

    Wish for snow and voilá, it snows.  Six inches today they say.  Paul Douglas called this one.    

    The perfect week shapes up for me:  up north for four days in a time of snow, home for a night and then off to the Sandwich Islands. 

    Started reading last night in the annals of the Grand Historian, Sima Qin.  He’s a fascinating character. He inherited the task of completing the history of the Chinese people his father, also the Grand Historian, began.  Living in the time of Emperor Wu, a great Han dynasty emperor, he made the Emperor mad.  Apparently, at the time, making Emperor’s mad resulted in castration.  And, the usual response was suicide.

    Sima Qin, however, felt he had a duty to finish his history so he lived for 21 more years, in spite of the indiginity.  His work is readable, at least in translation, and more than that, interesting.  Just ordered his volume on the Qin dynasty.

    Now then, off to Maple Plain for some new shoes and to the coop for bread and cheese.


    📂This entry was posted in Politics World History 📎and tagged

  • Fallen Oak Leaves in the Snow

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    26  71%  24%  1mph EES bar30.02 falls windchill25  Imbolc

              Waning Crescent of the Winter Moon

    The Superbowl program started at 1pm.  1pm.  Kickoff isn’t until 5:17pm.  Geez.

    Spent late morning putting together my workshop/presentation for the Woolly Retreat.  I plan to read sections from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, talk about it a bit as a fable for our time and a bit about what I call the ur-faith.  The way to name it still is not clear to me.  Maybe that will come as the workshop proceeds.  Sometimes presenting things to others helps flesh them out, identify new angles or flaws in the conception.   The sacrament I posted a few days ago will follow the reading and then we’ll talk. 

    I may use a way to get inside material I learned in seminary.  In this method the audience gets an invitation to take on one of the roles in the reading, to hear the material being read from that person’s perspective.  In SGGK characters include Arthur, Gawain, Guinevere, the Green Knight, the two women in Hautdesert’s castle, and the servant who leads Gawain to the Green Chapel.  Sometimes this cracks open poetry or scripture in a way nothing else can.

    Fallen oak leaves have begun to show through the snow.   The boulders in our boulder walls now peak out from caps of white.  This is an unlovely aspect of snow.  Snow has its most beautiful moments as and just after it falls.  If it remains cold, as it often does after a big snow, the pristine character of the snow can last for days.  Sometimes it does glint and sparkle in the sun.  Hope we get a big whack just before I leave for Dwelling in the Woods.


    📂This entry was posted in Faith and Spirituality Weather +Climate Woolly Mammoths 📎and tagged

  • Watch My Heartbeats

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    1  64%  17%  3mph NNE bar30.47 waindchill-3 Winter

              Waning Crescent of the Winter Moon

    A light snow has begun to fall though we don’t have snow in the forecast.  A good three inches of snow would be good about now.  A freshening.

    Yesterday evening I had begun to feel adrift, purposeless.  This sometimes happens to me after a productive time, when I slow down the engine keeps racing for a while.  Need one of those fans that cools the engine after the ignition’s turned off.

    This morning, rested and fed, I know I have plenty to do.  There’s always that novel to write and stories to market.  The vegetable planning needs to move forward a few more steps.  I can always study Chinese characters, read Taoism or plow into one of the Asian art books I have.

    Something I need to do sooner is prepare an hour’s worth of presentation for the Woolly Retreat next week, though I suppose I could do that during my day at Dwelling in the Woods ahead of the others. 

    This morning Kate and I have a family business meeting, an every Thursday thing, and I have some errands to run.  Meds and a new battery for my Polartech watch.  The watch gives me my heartbeat during aerobic workouts, hard to do them without it.


    📂This entry was posted in General 📎and tagged

  • A Sixty Degree Temperature Swing

    Posted on by Charles 1 Comment

    24  87%  21%  0mph  SSW  bar29.96  steady  Winter

               Waning Gibbous Winter Moon

    As the winter moon wanes, a warm up heads our way.  Tomorrow the temperature will hit 40.  That’s a sixty degree swing within the week.  Not unusual for Minnesota, but impressive anyhow.  I’ve read that we have the most significant temperature and weather type fluctuations of anywhere on earth, though Siberia is similar.  That’s Siberia.  As in the place to which you were exiled as to the lonliest and most inclement place on earth from Moscow.  One of the most inclement places on earth.  So….

    On this point Paul Douglas, local weather sage, whose long term eye is better than his short term one, has a website up that is worth a visit, www.climatespot.com. I’ve added it to the blogroll, too.

    The sun shines today and small dimples have begun to show up at the base of trees, shrubs and the winter remnants of last year’s flower garden.  As the weather warms, the snow sinks away first at the point where something that can warm up meets the ground.  I hope that this warm up will bring a fresh snowfall, one that will fill in the dimples and freshen up the sagging snow.  It looks, and feels, like early March, deceptive though.  In March I can look out the window, notice the same changes and get the feeling, as I did momentarily this morning, plants have begun to stir underneath, that buds will open on trees and maybe a few early daffodils and the bloodroot will break the ground.  In March that is a fond hope, one with the chance of reality in a month or so, two at most.  In late January, not true.  February can have cold and snow like January.  March often has big snow, but the snow doesn’t last.  That feeling today only leads to dis-ease.  It is not a hope that can sustain itself in the near term future.

    I continue my study of Taoism, look for some new additions to the Taoism pages. 


    📂This entry was posted in Faith and Spirituality Garden Great Wheel Our Land and Home 📎and tagged

  • The Undergods

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    4  70%  19%  omph W bar30.55  windchill4  Winter

                     Full Winter Moon

    The Giants are the undergods–oops, I meant to write underdogs, but I like undergods, too–against the Übergods, the New England Patriots.  Long years ago, when I began to love anthropology, a favorite professor, David Scruton, said Americans are infracaninophiles, that is, lovers of the underdog.   Maybe we’re also infratheophiles, lovers of the undergods.  Anyhow, I wouldn’t count the Giants out.  Their defense seems pretty sticky and Eli Manning and Plaxico Burress have a groove going.  If they can get Bradshaw and Jacobs going early, they’ll have a chance.  We’ll see.

    A light snow.  The slightly warmer temps produce more interesting weather.  The cold builds character and the days are usually bright and clear, but warmer weather often brings back the snow.  We need some snow since the older snow got thinned out during the January thaw and we look a bit straggly here.

    On to the Transcendentalists and life in the thought lane.

    As Bill Schimdt noticed on yesterday’s post, the NFL pinged back.  Bill said he was sure only the computer read my post.  I’m sure he’s right.


    📂This entry was posted in Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • A Snow Day

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    14  83%  25%  3mph  WNW  bar 29.60 steep rise  windchill11  Winter

                                          The Full Cold Moon

    Snow began in the early morning and it has kept on steady since then.  The winter brown where grass had begun to peak through our first snow cover is gone, replaced with a carpet of white.  Most of the boulders in our garden tiers have disappeared.  It is quiet.

    From where I sit as I write this the magnolia, the grey dogwoods, the red and white oaks have changed from their summer green clad to a seasonally appropriate white.  These days, the essence of what it means to live in northern latitudes, change the landscape from the faded browns of late fall to a soft and fluffy world of unexpected joys.  The bird feeders have small caps of snow. 

    It may be, at our house,  a year without Christmas, but it is not a year without joy or holiness.  Both have come today, the second day of winter.   Blessed be.


    📂This entry was posted in Weather +Climate 📎and tagged