Linked 52 - Wind...

wind

¹    [n. wind, Literary wahynd; v. wind]  Show IPA

noun

1.

air in natural motion, as that moving horizontally at anyvelocity along the earth's surface: A gentle wind blewthrough the valley. High winds were forecast.

2.

a gale; storm; hurricane.

3.

any stream of air, as that produced by a bellows or fan.

4.

air that is blown or forced to produce a musical sound insinging or playing an instrument.

5.

wind instrument.

It's been pretty mild here in Minnesota, with some rain, lots of clouds and a little bit of sun.

The temps have been in the 20 - 50 degree range, normal for November. Pretty much ho hum weather. Now I'm not complaining, because we still have a few things to do outside, and I really don't want snow yet, it just makes the season too long. 

My hubs and I were talking about Hurricane Sandy and the devastation that resulted. People always talk about "the Big one" that will occur in California that will cause it to sink into the ocean. We have tornadoes, but not in the numbers and severity as those in Tornado Alley. Our Boundary Waters has yearly wildfires, but again, not like those seen in the mountain area west of here. The Hawaiian Islands have volcanoes. Other islands have Tsunamis. Minnesota doesn't have any kind of real severe weather system and we aren't in an earthquake zone, we can't have a Tsunami, we regularly have wildfires up north, several nasty storms along with or without tornadoes in the spring and summer, our winters vary from hardly measurable snow to full blown blizzards and depending on the snowfall for the season, we have some flooding in the spring.

So, when I saw that this weeks word was Wind, I was wondering what I was going to do.

I have to admit that I put it off until Wednesday, but I don't think it would have mattered, because I really don't remember there being any wind this week. (Actually, now that I really think hard about it, there was some wind, but I didn't take any pictures of it).

I did however take a few of Annie this summer where the wind is whipping about her fur.

Does this happen to anyone else (that has a Droid and not iPhone) where the pictures you take with your phone are really pixelated when enlarged?? 

This is my favorite and the only one that isn't all pixeled. I was taking a picture of the grass and she photo bombed the frame, but it's okay, because I like the way the Wind is blowing her fur.

See how much Wind the rest had to deal with...

Jenn

Heather

Tracey

Stacey

Kristin

Amanda

Tracy

Rhonda

Carla

Rose

Heidi

Hanne

Heather

Jean

Kristi

49 degrees...

What a gorgeous day. January 10, 2012 and it is 49 degrees at 5:30 pm. Too strange! 

Tonight the temperature is supposed to drop and we have a chance of some snow, 

then by Thursday the high will be 18 degrees. 

I wonder what Spring will be like? 

This seems to be a favorite tree and branch for this eagle, I've seen him twice in the last three days.

The Magnolia bush that was allowed to stay when the Mississippi Trail was put in, is loaded with buds. 

I can't wait to see all the flowers in the Spring, unless the weather stays strange and 

Mother Nature feels cranky.

I promised Annie a walk yesterday, then got busy with something so I made sure we went today. 

I even have proof!!

Winter?...

Does anyone have snow this year???

I'm reading blogs from all over the place and it seems that we're all having the same weather.
I hear people at work comment that they are happy the season has been so mild. They are happy they have no snow to shovel. They are happy they don't have to bundle up like the abominable snowman.

Well, I'm not happy about it at all. I like winter!

Sure, it's nice to take a walk on dry pavement, and not have to worry about making Annie wear her booties (which she hates). It's nice to be able to get in my car in the morning and drive to work without the worry of getting stuck in the snow, or sliding off the road into a curb or pole, or getting rear-ended because someone needs new tires. It's nice to not have a backache from shoveling the deck, and patio, and sidewalk, and driveway (because we don't have a snow blower...which is my fault...I just don't want one).
What isn't nice about this mild winter is the fact that we are not getting any moisture. We walk by the Mississippi River, and this spring, the water was so high, the big concrete dock by 694 was nearly under water.
Now we can see sandbars, or maybe they are islands, that I don't remember ever seeing  before. David said he remembers them, but...I don't always believe him...he likes to take the opposite view of whatever I am talking about.
Ducks, several kinds, geese and our resident pair of eagles are congregating in the open water. A couple of days after our New Year's Eve snowfall, ice chunks were floating down the river, but the next day they were gone. Last evening, the water was perfectly still, odd for a river of its magnitude, but never the less, it was still. I would have been able to get a great eagle picture if I would have had my camera with me, and if I would have had the lens that Kate http://chroniclesofacountrygirl.blogspot.com has. He or she, how does one tell the sex of an eagle, was sitting on his favorite branch, just looking around. I'm assuming the other one was hunting for dinner, or maybe she just needed some time alone. ha! We are able to get quite close to him...maybe I should just start bringing my camera with me, hmm, what a concept!!

I love mild winter nights when it's snowing huge flakes. It's so quiet, and still, no wind to whip those flakes around, so they just slowly drift down into piles. I love going for walks in the winter, my boots crunching the hardened snow, not having to worry about slipping on ice. I love having blizzards, as long as I get to stay home and don't have to get up to go to work the next day. Those days are perfect days to have a fire in the stove, curl up in the chair with Oliver, or even Little-Bit if he's feeling in the mood, with a cup of coffee and a good book. I love hearing the snowplows go by. I love hearing the neighbor day-care kids playing outside, trying to wade through the snow with their snowsuits and boots and little short legs. I even love like shoveling the driveway. Actually, I really do like shoveling the driveway, it's the deck that I can't stand shoveling, because the shovel always hits the screws that are sticking up from the wood. Those screws ruin the edge of the shovel and jar my arms when I run into them.

It is only January 7 today and we have a good three months of winter left, and we all know how much snow can accumulate in three months. I want a chance to wear my new winter (snow) boots and I want to go snowshoeing. I have been saying for the past three years, that we are going to go up north in January or February and go snowshoeing. We were going to get snowshoes for each other for Christmas this year but decided to wait for a sale, since there wasn't any snow at the time. Now...we might not get a chance to go at all. But, we might be able to get a deal on those snowshoes in preparation for next winter (which is really only a few months away).

Heron rookery…

During the tornado this last Sunday, the Heron rookery was demolished. This is something that a lot of people enjoyed coming to see and take pictures of.  Each spring the make Herons would fly in and try to get the best nest, sometimes we would see them squabbling over one. It was fun to see these huge birds (they remind me of pterodactyls) carrying nesting material in their beaks. There were so many of them and they were so big to be balancing on these skinny little branches so high up in the trees. I kept telling my sisters and my boys to walk on over there and see them. Now they won’t get a chance…there are only a few trees left on the island…all 200 nests are gone…all but seven babies are gone…a lot of the adults are gone, either they died during the tornado, or had to be euthanized because of severe broken legs or wings.  A few are still flying around, but they probably won’t build another nest this year, and they probably won’t be back there next year. Hopefully they will find another island not to far away and start a new rookery. They will be hugely missed.

We took a walk there tonight (Wednesday May 25) to see how much damage there was to the park and the rookery. Quite a few trees, very large trees are either snapped in two or just uprooted and nothing is cleaned up yet. I took pictures, but they just don’t do justice to the amount of damage. We had to climb over or go under whole trees in some places. Most of the path right down by the river is impassable right now. I’m assuming the Minneapolis park board will take care of cleaning up all the fallen trees, but with the economy the way it is..I’m not so sure they will. There is one HUGE old tree leaning over the path and resting on another tree right on the river. That one has got to go so no one gets killed. A person would Not stand a chance if it fell.

We found lots of shingles, siding from a building across the freeway on Lyndale, insulation, and a blanket. Take a look…

                                           

November 13…

We have had a superb 2 months, wonderful weather, sunny skies, no rain, perfect weather to finish off the patio. The evening of November 12th, we were wheelbarrowing woodchips to the side yard by the fence and the walkway I just finished. We were scurrying because a winter storm was expected to start sometime during the night.

In the morning of November 13, I was lying in bed and I always try to guess what time it is, providing I haven’t set the alarm to actually wake me up. I guessed about 7:30, which was just about right, and as I lay there, I realized the sound from outside sounded very muffled. If you pay attention, you can always tell when snow has fallen during the night, because any sound coming from outside sounds like it is covered by blankets.

I got out of bed, looked out the window and wow! there was snow, big, fat flakes falling down, and blowing sideways and twirling around. It snowed quite hard until about 2:30, then it just sort of spit a little, leaving us with about 10 inches of snow.  The temperature was high enough that when we got around to shoveling off the deck and driveway, I just wore a sweater and a furry lined sweatshirt. It was so warm that I was sweating while shoveling. I was working on the driveway when Ethan came home from working at Target, and he said Target had completely sold out of all shovels and icemelt. I’ll also bet most of their mittens, hats, kids boots, jackets and sleds were gone. It was just the most perfect snow to make snowmen and snowballs out of, and you know that snow has to be wet to make good snowmen and snowballs, so that means that this wet snow was really, really heavy. I could barely lift a shovel full of snow, it was like too firm slush. Poor Annie had snow clumps in her leg fir that I couldn’t even pull off, it had to melt off. 

The bad part of this day was losing power. It went off about 12:30 and came on while Ethan and David were out picking up a few things from Cub, and our pizza dinner from Scoreboard which was about 5:15. I was finding candles and lighting them in each room, making sure I had ones in jars or out of the way so the cats wouldn’t start the house on fire. I was upstairs lighting the last few when I heard a noise, sound in the house…power had been restored. Man, are we ever spoiled by power. No TV, no radio, no internet, no computer. I could have had computer, but my laptop is so big that the battery tends to peter out pretty quickly. My iPOD was just about dead, and so was my phone, and with no power, I couldn’t charge them. I had done some cleaning and dusting, and I though I would sit down a read a bit, but it was getting too dark. I had wanted to take some pictures of the first snow, but the battery for my camera was dead too. I tell you, when it rains it pours!! So I think I will try to take a few first thing in the morning before church. I did get one with the camera on my phone that I sent to both Kira and Andy. They were both going to be enjoying temperatures in the 70 – 80’s and I just thought they needed a little fresh snow in their lives.