After the rain...

Storm damage

Last night a thunderstorm blew through at about 60 mph.  I stood at my dining table window and watched.  It blew hard, but there was not a lot of thunder and somehow it seemed a more mild storm than others we've had.

Until I went outside afterwards and discovered this huge willow branch came down, smashing the fence underneath it.

It missed the house by less than ten feet. 

So while I'll have to pay to have it removed, and the fence fixed, in fact I'm really lucky!

We will rejoice and be glad in it.

 Heavy lake effect snow began overnight, and continues.  As I observed the birds enjoying sunflower seeds from the feeder, John Rutter's composition "This is the Day Which the Lord Hath Made," which he wrote for the marriage of Prince William to Catherine Middleton, played in the background.  And I thought to myself, I will rejoice and be glad in it.

Hoar frost

How do you like the snow?

2012

A very windy day with falling temperatures, in advance of the threat of lake effect snow.

But we're bundled up warm inside.  A pot of red beans is on the stove; later on I'll make rice.  Ulani, Luke and I are safe and sound.  Barnard came over to the door earlier to say hello.  I expect she's sleeping in her bed of straw in the dog crate, the coos and clucks of the birds her own lullaby.

And so a new year begins at Busy Solitude Farm.

Happy new year!

The End of the Staycation

A beautiful, chilly morning here at Busy Solitude Farm.  It's the final day of my weeklong staycation.  Too short, no surprise.  I accomplished some things on my list but the rest will just have to wait for another day.

A light frost covered this morning's yard.  Can't complain when I hear about eleven inches of wet snow covering friends' trees out east.  Rain is due here, but Ulani and I did get a nice walk in this morning.

And then I began creating two "pumpkin" pies for my book group meeting this evening.  My favorite is made from roast butternut squash, which I did yesterday.  This morning I baked crusts, adding a half cup of toasted, crushed pecans to the dough.  Then I mixed up the custard and now they're baking away.

The crusts browned too quickly, so there's some foil covering parts I don't want to blacken.  And the extra crust dough?

I made pie crust cookies to enjoy with a strong coffee, topped with whipped heavy cream.

That's what staycation is all about!

Peep show

It's hot in the barn.

More storm damage...

This is one of about four evergreens knocked over in the big storm Wednesday night.  One particular road bore the brunt of the wind's fury.

Trees knocked over...

Branches and entire tree trunks cracked...

But wouldn't you just know...

This old barn is still standing!

Mother Nature

There'd been no warning of severe storms.  But suddenly they developed at the south end of Lake Michigan and began moving north-east.  I'd been outside with the dogs and cats and watched the clouds on the horizon.  Finally when it began to sprinkle I said "ok, everybody in the house!"

In we went.  The dogs panted hard, a dependable precursor to a storm.  Sure enough, the rain came down hard.  And the lightening was constant, with thunder rolling in the distance.  We sat on the bed watching westward out the closed window; hail hammered the glass.  I popped on the television in time to hear the weatherman say "there's rotation in these clouds between Three Oaks and Galien."  That's EXACTLY where I live!

So I told the dogs "we're getting away from these windows!"  We moved into the living room, on the couch.  That's when I discovered that Luke had opened the screen after we all came in, and apparently gone back outside.  Now he was in the middle of a huge storm.  But there was nothing I could do at that point.

The storm raged on.  At one point I swear I heard that whoosh like a train that people always say they hear when a tornado races past.  The winds were massive.

And then a weird thing happened.  The power flashed and went out.  I live in the country and this is not so unusual, but it almost always comes right back on.  This time it stayed out.  And the weird thing was I heard a noise.  An electrical noise, right outside the living room window.  "Expletive deleted," I thought.  Now I'm really screwed.

It was pitch black in the house.  I felt my way around the dogs, past the dining table to the washing machine.  My rechargeable flashlight hangs in a plug next to the washer.  And it was not there.  So I felt my way back to the kitchen, found a candle and a match, then discovered the flashlight on the kitchen table.  Phew.  I immediately took the flashlight to the front door, and as soon as I called, Luke came racing inside.

Everything is a chore in the dark.  I searched around to find my cell phone, then searched to find an electric bill for the outage phone number.  Expected a message saying "we are aware of outages in your area" but no such luck.  Once that was finished, there was nothing to do but go to bed.

We all piled into the bedroom and snuggled up.  The dogs still panted loudly, and the cats were pretty clingy in the hot air.  Still, within half an hour we all dozed off.  Until midnight when there were voices outside.  The dogs set off the bark alarm.  I looked out the window and saw search lights coming up the road.

So out I went to the street to find the electric company guys shining their light on the electric pole across the street.  I figured they had things in hand and would have our power back on in a matter of minutes, so back to bed.  Where I awoke this morning still out of power.  And got the message that it was expected back on by 11 am.

Out with the dogs in the morning light, I finally figured out what had happened.  As you see in the photo, the lines on that electric pole snapped.  That must have caused the weird sound I heard, and definitely is the reason no power is reaching my house.  That's a corn field that pole is in -- no trees nearby.  Those lines snapped from wind.

Mother Nature is awesome!

Spring Storm!

What a storm we had! No one forecast such a sudden onslaught --the dogs started panting half an hour before, and I put it up to the heat.  But they knew what was coming.  No doubt.

Quick Monday Morning

The temperature rose to 70.  Overnight.  By the time we woke up this morning it was in the lower 60s, and will continue falling for a while still.

But it's in the 60s.  So I threw open all the windows.  It's very gray and windy out -- really threatening, though it's not currently raining.  The dogs and cats can come and go at will.

This is my favorite thing about spring -- out with the old air, in with the new!

Morning Has Broken, Daylight Savings Edition

We sprang forward last night.  All day yesterday I heard media people declaring "an extra hour of daylight". 

There is no extra hour.

Daylight Savings Time simply means we take an hour from the beginning of the day and shift it to the end.  Same number of hours in the day.  It's that simple.

Except it's really not simple.  The photo above was taken at 7:30 am.  Not exactly "morning light" by my reckoning.  I live just to the east of the division between Eastern and Central time.  People here extoll the wonders of the evening sun -- by June, when the days are longest, I will sometimes go to bed before the sun goes down.  You may enjoy that.  I'd rather have some morning sun.

Before I moved here, I lived just to the west of the division between Eastern and Central time.  In June the sun rose around 5:30 am.  To me, that was an extra hour of daylight.  I would arise with the sun and have the great luxury of time before work.  To walk the dogs.  To work in the garden.  To bake or cook.  The sun would set around 8 or 8:30, giving me a short bit of darkness before bed each and every night.

I liked that better.

But we all know you can't always get what you want.  So I struggle through the new morning darkness.  With some effort, I hope to put my long evenings to good use reorganizing the barn, pruning shrubs, and getting the vegetable garden ready for summer.

Right after I have another cup of coffee.

Snowstorm slideshow

Join us now for a tour around Busy Solitude Farm as we wake up to the results of the year's first blizzard.

Blizzardy Solitude

Winter Walkies

When cabin fever sets in, there's just one solution -- WALKIES!  Oskar and Ulani tolerate only so much couch time before they begin to call out to their brethren.  Bark!  Bark bark!  Bark bark bark bark bark bark bark!

It's tedious.

So even in the midst of a 8-12 inch lake effect snow event, I find it most useful to grab a leash and take them for walks.  Oskar is much slower than Ulani these days, so taking the dogs for walks means they each get one mile and I get two.  Our house is situated on the west end of our walking territory.  That means that if we head east, the first half of the walk is with the wind.  Doesn't take a genius to realize that means that the second half of the walk is into the wind.  Every time.  The alternative is to walk north or south.  When we do that, one cheek gets the wind going, the other coming back.

It's invigorating.  Really.

Today Ulani's walk was uneventful.  We raced out half a mile.  Then we raced back to the house.  Even she seemed more determined than normally to come straight home.

I decided to walk south with Oskar.  It's a shorter distance, easier for him.  We walked down no problem, reached the house where he sniffs whatever's left from their Monday morning trash pickup.  But the road was covered in ice, and as we headed back north, he slipped and fell.  Since he usually walks a bit behind me on the return trip, the first I knew of the problem was that the leash went taut.  There was an oncoming truck.  I quickly moved into the road in front of Oskar and the truck pulled into the other lane.  I had to give Oskar a belly lift to get him up with four legs under him.  He stomped a few times, then we headed out again.

The rest of our walk was uneventful.

Now the dogs have had their supper and they are dozing.  The house is peaceful.  And my cheeks are almost back to normal.

Something's coming!

Full Moon Setting

Moon, inconstant moon.  It was full last night, casting long gray shadows across the grass. Encouraging the movement of nighttime critters.  Driving the dogs full barking mad.

Stealing my sleep.

This morning the moon gained slight advantage on me, so beautifully backlighting the barn.

Inconstant moon.

Morning has Broken, 5

Today the weather is due to break.  The humidity should drop.  In theory, at least, that will make a dent in the population of mosquitoes tormenting us.  Until then, I'll continue to smash them on the window glass.  You see the remains of one, probably my blood, on the photo above, shot through the sliding glass door.  At the moment I love smashed mosquito remains.

A Delicate Balance

Amazing.  This huge, ancient evergreen was uprooted when hurricane force winds blew through our area twice just before Independence Day.  I drive past this cemetery frequently, but until they cleared the branches from the trunk, I had not realized...

...that it was held up by a single tombstone.  Imagine the shock to the old bones below!

Another day or two and they will have cleared the entire thing away.  Soon the only memories of the huge storms of summer 2010 will be newly sunny flower beds, and fresh shingles.