A Stormy Sky

Monday (05/03) was as pretty as day as we've seen all spring: warm (76), calm and with constant sunshine. Throughout the day I watched as a cold front began digging into Illinois and firing up storms. The National Weather Service said we'd have our turn toward nightfall.
The pictures I've posted below were taken within a mere three minute period. The first of the seven was taken at 8:26 p.m.; the last was taken at 8:29 p.m.
In this first picture, I'm facing west towards the oncoming storm. The worst will skirt north of here.


This shot turns and looks to the southwest as the angry clouds gather.


Then, looking southeast, the clouds begin to tear and swirl in a three-dimensional effect that was absolutely dizzying. Looks like tornado weather, doesn't it?

I am standing in the middle of the backyard at 7:27 p.m. and I turn and look directly overhead for this shot. The layers of clouds are in constant motion, different levels sliding different directions. The sky is dark and light at the same time. And still not a drop of rain falls. As I stand there in my pajamas and robe, the wind is cold as it gusts. Still, the thermometer reads in the 60's so perhaps it is a sensation of fear?

Looking northwest, roughly towards Dayton, the wind whistles as the spring day winds down to a cool, wet night.

Looking south, the sky has darkened by degrees. It is now 8:28 p.m. and the sun is low. I'm taking these pictures on the camera's "auto" setting and it is choosing an increasingly longer exposure time. This makes holding the camera difficult without getting a blurry image.

Finally, I've walked around the garage and look back at Pinehaven. That's where I'm heading fast.

I slept with the window open and listened to rounds of thunderstorms pass around us. We had a mere 0.12" of rain. Sometime about midnight I got up, closed the window and crawled back into bed. The gentle rain lulled me quickly back to sleep.

I believe we dodged a bullet. This angry sky might just as well let down a tornado. But this time, the storm passed slowly to the northeast and died with the night.

The Past Week ...

We continued our summer walking season in earnest this past week or so, going the round of the track at the Farmersville-Jackson Twp. Recreational Park. Across from us, on the east side, is an enclosure of goats - say four or five - that are usually happily munching away at the grass. I thought I'd walk over and say a friendly hello.


Only this guy walked up to me, even lifted his head for a minute or so while I took this picture. Then, figuring that neither I nor the camera amounted to any danger or much interest, he quickly became bored and went back to grazing. He did not look up at me again.


This, instead, was the usual pose of all of the goats. It is interesting to listen as they crop the grass as you can hear it tear roughly from its roots. Thus they eat, morning, noon and night, for what else is there to do?
Every now and then I hear their call - almost a sheep-like baaaa - and then they go back to eating quietly again.

At my aunt and uncle's house in Miamisburg, this wisteria is blooming and like never before. This is the bush variety and it has cascades of purple on all sides, a sort of royal waterfall. The plant has been there for many decades and my uncle insists a pruning he gave it earlier caused the profuse blooms. Makes sense to me.

On the other hand, I have seen other similar wisterias which are also in abundant bloom. I suppose the winter's weather had something to do with it, too. In any case, the blooms are magnificent this year. As I snapped these pictures, swarms of yellow jackets buzzed about my head, intent on getting to the ready nectar. The scent is truly intoxicating.

And on our enclosed porch, our Christmas amaryllis is now fully open. It looks like a double fire engine red trumpet. It is glaring in its brightness.

Here, close-up, are the male parts of the plant which it has proudly displayed at our window. Nature knows no modesty! Should any of us provide such a display - near a window, yet - we'd be arrested!

Spring's Surest Signs

What could prove the progress of spring more than morels? Those beautiful yellow mushrooms are now standing tall in the woods and in that special place known to only two people on the planet. I am always startled when I first see them standing there amid the dry grasses of last fall and the shining seedlings of spring.


They are often curled beneath a twig, unable to lift the weight and so grow gnarled and crooked. I turn the leaf litter over, move a few branches out of the way, and the treasures are exposed to the light of a gorgeous spring day.
I always carry a small plastic bag when I go to the woods now. I pinch each mushroom off near the earth and bring it home with pride. My mother slit each of them lengthwise, breaded them with cracker crumbs and eggs and fried them carefully. What a meal is this! It is so much the better for its exquisite rarity. We will not have more until next year; the season is surely over. But what a wonderful time I have picking these gems, enjoying the songs of birds while I stoop, cursing my old spine all the while. I am repaid a thousand-fold for my pain.



And the robin - a new one at that - canvasses our north lawn looking for the early worm. I watch as he darts his head earthward, pulls the worm to an enormous length and eats it on the spot. It is a cruel world. How could we have evolved to eat our fellow creatures?
The robin never fails to amaze me with that rusty breast. Overall he pails to the male cardinal and yet he is stunning with that vest of tiger-orange. "Robin red-breast" we would say as children. Do they learn that any longer?

A Hare-Raising Tail

On Sunday evening we were all out working in the yard: Dad was finishing a small section of the grass with the lawn tractor; I was digging dandelions and completing other odd jobs; and Mom was trimming around trees.
I was temporarily walking across the back porch when Mom came around the corner of the garage with both an excited, expectant look and a smile on her face. "Come quickly and look at what I found," she said.
She led me behind the garage to the stump of a pine and told me to approach quietly. "Look!" she said, as she pointed to the ground.


There, nestled amid the lilies, was a nest of baby rabbits. There were three visible. All were squeezed together so that even their ears were folded and compressed into the small space.
None of them moved. They just looked at me as a took a couple of pictures. Where it appears foggy around the edges, that is rabbit fur that has been placed there by the mama to line the nest. I'm sure many cold, spring nights were spent in that small earthen hole.
A year ago, about this time, and on the southernmost portion of the lawn, I drove over another nest with the push mower. One rabbit, which popped out of the hole just as the blades passed overhead, was killed. I'll never forget watching it die at the base of a tree, wholly unable to render any assistance.
This year, however, there is a new family of rabbits and now that we know where they are, we will be extra careful. A flower bed is a much safer spot.
Last evening (just a day after the picture was taken), I walked back to have a look and saw but one rabbit visible. Probably a couple have hopped away and will be starting families of their own before the summer ends.
Life goes on. This wondrous nature contrives all around us to continue. Get the next generation down on the ground! Fill in the spaces left by those who have died! Move forward! March! The world goes on. Nature waits for nothing.

And just two days later, all five bunnies left the nest! Here's what they looked like before hopping to the meadow and disappearing into the early growth ...

Morels are up!

It is always one of the happiest days of the year for me, when I go to the woods looking for the first morels and come home with the news, "They're here!". It is not truly spring until this day arrives.
So this year it is April 9. I checked my favorite spot just last evening and found nothing. But returning at 2 p.m., there stood two of the still-tiny beauties. They are small, probably just "sprouted" and I certainly didn't pick them. I'll give them a day or two to work their fungal magic.


This is the Yellow Morel - Morchella esculenta - and the prize of anyone's hunt. There is no taste so succulent and so earthy as this mushroom (I have never had a truffle so perhaps I am no judge). But I know what I like and a morel fried in olive oil, else chopped and placed within the folds of an omelet, can't be beat.
This shot (above) is cropped from the one below. I wanted you to see the clearer detail.



Finally, a second morel comes to life through the leaf litter and gets its first look at daylight.

It was a "warm" night (though cooling rapidly with the passage of a cold front) and a full inch of rain fell. There were two rounds of heavy rain: the first washed across the shingles at midnight, the second a mere hour later and this with lightning and thunder. I lay awake and listened to the rain pour over the rain gutters.

It's a cool Miami Valley day (49 at 3 p.m.) but apparently the morels find it to their liking.

And what the morels like, I like, too.

Fiery Sunset

Driving home from a meeting I was covering for the Dayton Daily News last evening, I pulled into our driveway just as the sun was setting at 8 p.m. The flag was backlit by the sun and appeared almost black.
How about if I add some flash?
The wind was whipping from the south and the flag stood out stiffly as I shot this picture.

The sunset itself was quite beautiful after another warm (84) record-breaking day. This April has just turned a corner and left winter quite behind.
The house was so warm - and we are not disposed to use the air conditioning so early in the season - that I opened a south window when I went to bed. I couldn't sleep for the breeze which ruffled across my bed and left me almost chilly. I tried it for two hours but eventually got up and pulled the window closed.
Tonight? Thunderstorms, they say, and then much colder. Normal, I'd say.

Green Tiger Beetle

Six-spotted Green Tiger Beetle - Cicindela sexguttata - it is called and of such a brilliant iridescent green that it is startling. Mom and I were stepping out the back door on April 1 and Mom motioned for me to look at the insect which she was watching on the porch floor. It was like looking at a molten speck of animated green metal.

I went back into the house and grabbed my camera, set it for macro mode, got down on my hands and knees and took this picture. His entire body is no more than about half an inch long.
My insect book says this guy should not be emerging until summer but the 80 degree spring day probably duplicated those conditions very well.
The bug would literally run from my camera then stop and watch me. He flew a few times, too.
What miracles of nature are such as these! With what amazing shades nature dips her brush!