Mostly Sunny with a Chance of Severe Thunderstorms

A beautiful, mostly sunny day here today. We did routine chores, went to a double-birthday party in my family, and we spent a lot of time outside. My dad's farm is now to the point where he doesn't really need my help to clean up from the storm that hit there before Christmas. He has grown a bit weary of the clean-up's immensity. So, he takes weekends off. There is more fence work to do and lots of trees to pile up and burn. There is still a pole barn to put up. But, he is hiring most of that out now that he is getting money from insurance and farm assistance programs.

It is too warm for March with record highs being set locally all around; so warm that ticks are already plentiful in our woods. I got two bites and Jennifer had one. My body overreacts or is allergic or something to tick bites. I won't go into the details but those two bites will bother me now for several weeks before they finally heal - which is why I tend to watch out for ticks. But normally I don't have to worry about that until June.

We had a brief, strong storm here Thursday night. It blew over several trees on my neighbor's property, including a huge old Southern Red Oak that I played under as a kid. The tree crushed my neighbor's Jeep, tore through the garage door, and punctured his roof in three places. A couple of the trees fell in the road as well, blocking our meager amount of traffic. I went down to help him clear them out in the dark with some chainsaw work.

It rained marble-sized hail blowing sideways from south to north for about ten minutes. The balls were hitting our windows so hard I was afraid it might crack them. Luckily, we suffered no damage, just a lot of limbs, some quite large, to clear out of the drive-way and along the trails in our woods.
Part of our backyard. The plentiful rain and warm sunshine has been great for early spring growth. Jennifer is proud of the size of our Yoshino Cherry tree. Its abundant yet delicate pink foliage contrasts nicely with the deep reds of our Loropetalum shrub. The dogwoods throughout our property are rebounding this year. Dozens of young ones are shooting up, tipped with pregnant buds.

Our tulips are in glorious full bloom. We have a little more than 3 dozen all total. But, Jennifer has them propagated in nice clusters that dot her backyard landscape design. Many have returned from previous seasons. Some for their third season. The ones in this pic are my favorite. They returned from last season.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lady Chatterley's Lover: An Intensely Sexy Read

Warning: The following post contains adult content .  You can not really discuss this novel without talking dirty. There are some smutty adult words here, all quoted from the novel reviewed. Read them responsibly. Long-time readers know that I try to maintain a certain health regime and lifestyle. Part of that is regular sex. There are numerous studies that indicate the health benefits of sex , the benefits to relationships, and to piece of mind. No need to revisit all that here other than to say that after practicing this for many years, I have discovered that in my mid-50's I am a more erotic person than I was as a college student or when I first married. The erotic is an accentuated part of my life. It inspires, motivates, entertains, and brings fulfillment. It can be a strong thread tying otherwise loose ends of life together in a holistic fashion. For years I have read erotic novels and watched erotic films (both pornographic and artsy). As you know I also enjoy read
Read more

A Summary of Money, Power, and Wall Street

For a long time I have admired the PBS series Frontline for its outstanding reporting.  On May 1, the program aired the second-half of a huge four-hour documentary on the origins the Great Recession entitled Money, Power, and Wall Street .  The situation obsessed me and my blog posts back in 2008 – 2009.  Economically, nothing compares to it in my lifetime.  In this post I will attempt to summarize this superb four-part Frontline . Wall Street is the largest sector of the American economy.  It is almost double the size of America's manufacturing sector.  Ultimately, the 2008 financial crisis and resulting Great Recession cost the world economy $11 trillion dollars.  This is how it happened. It all started at a ritzy weekend resort in Boca Raton, FL in 1994.  A group of young bankers from JPMorgan , were celebrating the success of the company's derivative portfolios.  Young, very bright minds, partying a bit and meeting in small conference rooms hatched a new idea . These
Read more

A Summary of United States of Secrets

Frontline is my favorite news documentary television program.  I do not watch every Frontline but I pay attention to its schedule.  Its in-depth coverage of the origins of the 2008 financial crisis was outstanding reporting and my review of its coverage is my most popular blog post ever . Last week, Frontline once again demonstrated its profound relevance and investigative integrity with a two-part documentary entitled " United States of Secrets ." This three-hours of television journalism blew my mind. " United States of Secrets " is better than any fictional political thriller any author could come up with.  It is a story of vast overreach of governmental authority, unconstitutional acts, and political lying by both the Bush and the Obama administrations. This is the story of how we as a society lost all semblance of privacy and due process of law. The National Security Agency (NSA) reads every email, every tweet, looks at every photo you upload to "t
Read more