respublica

Storms today

Woke up this morning to weather news we did not want to hear. Powerful thunderstorms, damaging wind sheers coming our way. This comes when, two days ago, we got a message back from a tree cutting person. I just hope his coming out to give an estimate and a time frame for doing the work. I have been obsessing over the damage which could occur with a big Bradford Pear tree in our back yard for months.

I went outside early today and saw a brilliantly red sky. Which worried me even more when that old saying came into my head. "Red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning."

Dale calls me obsessively fixated on things. Maybe.

Took these pictures of the sky at the end of our street early today. The camera does not do justice to just how red it was.

This one is looking across at the American Legion parking lot. I'm always waiting for that wooden light pole near the bottom left to fall down. It's been standing by a thread for a long time.

I've lightened the last photo to see that pole better.

The Old Farmers Almanac is at it again

They predict a terrible winter for America. But if you read this article, the terrible-ness is located mainly up north and the northeast. Big swaths of the country will be 'not so cold, not so wet.'

I'd be interested in knowing if weather people look back after winters to see if the Almanac was correct. I know we don't. How often are they right?

New alert

As if we don't have enough confusing and unsettling warnings coming from our news outlets, here is another.

The Farmers Almanac tells us we need to prepare for the longest and coldest winter in years. They say this winter in Missouri and Illinois, specifically, it's going to be "cold, snowy" and feature "several storms."

My question is, "Is the Farmers Almanac normally correct in its predictions? Does anyone actually fact check them after a season ends?

It's gonna be blasting hot today

Yesterday was hot, really hot. Today will be the same. I am going to get the grass cut right now before the sun gets to be too much. I am glad we had window shades put on every window in this house earlier this summer. They are nice, but do keep the worst of the heat out. Already, at 8:15 this morning the sun is doing it's thing. I saw this through our stairway window just now.

I like summer, but only to a point.

A great weather photo

There are photographers who make their living chasing weather events in order to get descriptive images and Zach Walters is one of them. He caught this in central Illinois farmland near Farmer City, Illinois yesterday. He doesn't have a website I have found but does have a weather chasing Facebook page.

 

Talk about the "eye of the storm", this is surely it.

Hot? But not unusual

This is a hot week and the next few days will be even hotter. Hopefully things will moderate as they often do, but here is a temperature picture I copied from 2010 on the same July week as we are in now.

Hope everyone's air conditioning is up to the task.

Frost and snow

Yesterday early in the morning I headed over to Creekside Gardens in Collinsville to get a roll of frost blanket to put over our vegetable raised beds. The forecast was for below freezing temperatures with rain turning to snow. I'm glad I did this even though the job of covering and staking the blanket was darn hard work.

This morning the frost blanket was topped with ice, not thick ice, but ice nevertheless. So now I'm wondering when I should try and gently remove it. I've read that it should come off fairly soon because it will act as a thermal top which could overheat the plants even when the temperatures are still quite low. The weight of the skein of ice worries me so....

Last year on the date was beautiful, this year, although the sun is shining may not be as nice for all our plantings.  Here is a contrast in backyards of the sem in 2020 and today in Collinsville 2021.

For the love of salt brine

With the big snowfall and single digit temperatures we've suffered through this week, one thing has helped us get around if we absolutely had to. That is the salt brine street departments and highway workers put on the roads. This chemical certainly helps to melt this stuff and coupled with plowing, the streets are in good shape.

The salt makes a mess though. And this means anyone who works at or owns a car wash will be very busy in the coming days as all the snow and ice disappears. I know we will be in this line at some point.

Winter

We are really getting a bout of frigid winter temperatures and to top it off, we're in for a lot of snow on top of it. I mean to say, it is seriously cold and the snow just keeps on coming along with wind.

So, there is nothing much to do about it right now, the forecast is for this snow to keep up a good part of the day. However, I have a plan!

Since it is so cold, the snow will be fluffy-ish and not soggy and heavy to move. I decided to try and clear it off (tomorrow) with the leaf blower. I got it out of the garage yesterday and put it in the basement to get warm. I hope this makes moving the snow easier and faster than using a shovel.

It should at least help get the snow off the cars, we aren't lucky enough to have a nice big garage. We have a one car garage, but Dale has been using this as a workshop.

Life narrows down when weather hits.

I slid down to fill the bird feeders this morning and they were waiting. It's fascinating to watch how fast birds know when food is ready and how fast they eat. Also, the bigger birds are the greediest and really cheat the smaller ones out of the best seed. Here are some this morning in our back yard.

These guys in the tree are waiting their turn, at least that is my guess.

I can't say enough about the hot pepper bird seed, we have no squirrels at all.

Ok, I have to say this once again

We woke up to very cold temperatures and snow. The snow was maybe 2 inches or less, but miserable to clear off in the cold. However one thing never changes in this area and that is traffic reports of one accident after another during the morning commute.

But, since Dale had to drive into Clayton to teach a class today, I was paying more attention to the traffic reports. Almost every report from local news stations mentioned how much better the roads on the Illinois side were than on the Missouri side. Every year it's like this. For some reason MODOT cannot get this winter weather clearing right. Each year I get on here on beg the MODOT people to come over to IDOT headquarters in Collinsville and take a lesson on how to do winter weather clearing.

But they don't it seems and drivers over there pay the price of accidents and sitting in long jams. This is not to say the Metro East has no snow/ice accidents but they are far fewer. It makes no sense.