Posts Tagged ‘observations’
Random Distribution
Our wet driveway near the big willow tree served up an interesting display of randomly distributed fallen leaves yesterday morning. Nature providing opportunities for digital desktop wallpaper patterns or something along those lines.
By this morning, everything had dried up and most of those leaves had been scattered by the wind. What a difference a day can make.
Thursday, stepping outside was an exercise of stoicism in the face of 40 mph wind gusts blowing sleety rain and snow into our faces. Hunching against the onslaught, we wrestled our trash and recycling bins from the house to the end of the driveway.
The brain interprets the harsh conditions, triggering the autonomic response to put the body into survival mode despite the lack of that extreme level of threat. The difference this morning is striking.
Asher and I were on our own for morning chores and enjoyed calm and comfortable early November conditions. The horses were angelic and mostly calm. Mia was a little jumpy about approaching her feed bucket because it was hung under the overhang where we had moved her due to the rain and snow. The electric fence near there can be annoyingly snappy from moisture and she doesn’t like it when that happens.
I unplugged the power to appease her and allow feeding time to commence without further fussing.
On the way back to the house, as the sun’s rays were just beginning to appear through the thick pine grove that forms our eastern horizon, an almost perfect orange circle with a shadow in the middle lit up on the green shingles of our roof. It honestly looked like someone was shining the “bat-signal” distress alert on our house.
I wondered if someone had mistaken me for the caped crusader.
As I got closer and more sunlight was beginning to speckle other places along the peak of the roof, I could actually discern the outlines of the pine branch that was creating the bat-symbol-looking shadow across the curiously circular spray of sunlight.
Very unexpected from so far a distance to the trees.
A random distribution of a fascinating moment bestowed upon us to complement the wild weather conditions experienced just two days prior.
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Latest Observations
Okay, I admit it. I am officially getting old. In the good ol’ days, my lovely wife luxuriated in the summer heat while I sweltered. We rarely turned the air conditioner on, preferring to let all but the most humid of summer days fill our living quarters for her comfort.
It’s no longer like that today.
I walked in the door yesterday and immediately sensed she had turned the air conditioner on again, after we had opened up the house on Sunday night. It was cold enough for me that I needed to put on long sleeves.
I am now the one who gets cold while Cyndie is too warm.
It reminds me of the decorative flowers Cyndie planted around the grounds. The petunias appear to be perfectly happy, but the marigolds haven’t changed since they were put in our soil. Maybe the marigolds were old.
Or maybe it’s just been too cold for them.
Last weekend was basically our first real heat of the summer. Progress for many of the growing plants around here is looking rather stunted, now that I think about it.
The old saying, “knee high by the fourth of July” is just not happening this year. Fields that did get planted are all maturing just about as fast as Cyndie’s marigolds.
Our wild raspberry bushes looked like they weren’t going to bear fruit at all until just recently. I haven’t seen it for myself yet, but Cyndie says they are just starting to blossom with hints that there might be a lot of berries. I love her optimism, but I fear the amount and size of berries are more likely to be less than impressive, given the stunted growing conditions.
Maybe I’m not getting old. It’s probably just the type of weather we’ve been having.
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Relative Something 