Tag Archives: pleasant weather

Spring Seesaw

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Fitting somehow for Monday morning. Of course, the snow didn’t even last till noon, though it remained chilly all day.

For days before, the warm version of spring had been ascendant, creating conditions for a number of enjoyable meals on the deck. Cold spring returned on Sunday, got worse on Monday but eased somewhat today. Warm tomorrow, then rain, then cold again. Such is the spring cycle.

I almost forgot – because who wants to remember? – that the first night we were in the Uniontown, Pa., area last month, at a upper-mid hotel chain, the fire alarm went off at about 8 p.m. Yuriko had gone to the pool and I was in the room with the dog.

Those alarms are loud. I knew that in some abstract sense, but listening to BLAT! BLAT! BLAT! while you get the dog ready to go, grab an extra jacket for yourself and your wife, and make sure you have all your valuables on your person – it focuses the mind, and not in a good way.

I didn’t think to bring the good camera, which was tucked away. So all I had was my phone, which I use as a phone and to call up maps, but usually not as a camera. Because it takes crappy pictures.

Got to see the South Union Fire Co. in action. Not much action, since there was no fire. Mostly we waited around in the parking lot until we noticed people going back in after about 20 minutes. How did they know the emergency was over? Not because the desk clerk said anything. But I was able to confirm from a passing fireman that it had indeed been a false alarm.

Glazed Morning

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Early this morning, not long after dawn, I woke for the usual reason and from the bathroom window I spotted a thin carpet of snow on the ground. First one of the season.

I took the obligatory picture a couple of hours later, complete with dog.Winterwood, Base Camp

One of those snows in temps hovering at freezing or just above. A lot melted later, but not quite all of it. Hardly the picture of woods on a snowy evening, but we’ll get to that before long.

Last Thursday, knowing that the warm days were running out this year, I stood at about the same spot and captured the yard about an hour before sunset.Golden Deck

Gentle winds blew, with more than a hint of summer.

Fall Colors

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Alternating warm and cold, with intervals of cool, here in northern Illinois since I returned in mid-October. About what you’d expect. Less expected has been the fact that most of the warmth has been concentrated on the weekends — especially last weekend, October 22nd and 23rd, but also yesterday and today.

Our coloration is past peak, but there is still color. Today —

Seasonal decoration in our neighborhood, both simple and complicated.

Our last garden harvest this year.

Other colors.

Not specific to the fall, but the pictured spot, some miles from where I live and entirely visible to the public, is still colorful in the fall.

Small Insects, Big Rocket

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A really pleasant evening to start September. I could sit out on the deck in a t-shirt and be quite comfortable late into the evening. These nights will be fewer and fewer in the weeks ahead.

Crickets are signing their little hearts out. Wait, do insects have hearts?

Insect Cop says: “Insects do have hearts, but they look very different to our own. The insect heart is a long, tubular structure that extends down the length of the insect body, and delivers nutrient-rich blood to the organs and tissues.

“Insects also have their own version of blood, called haemolymph. Unlike human blood, insect haemolymph does not carry oxygen and lacks red blood cells.”

Back to posting on September 6. It’s good to take Labor Day seriously and not work. We ought to have two labor days, come to think of it — add May 1 as a springtime holiday.

A public domain shot, lifted from NASA. Photographer: Joel Kowsky.

Hope all goes as planned. Yet I can’t help thinking — how is it so different from the Saturn V? An improvement in any way, after 50 years? Hard to say.

Why orange? Black and white were good enough for the Saturn V, after all. Turns out it’s a weight issue, and with Moon rockets, every ounce counts.

“The orange color comes from insulation that covers the vehicle’s liquid hydrogen and oxygen tanks,” noted an article published by the Planetary Society about seven years ago.

“This is the same reason that the Space Shuttle’s external fuel tank was orange. The first two shuttle flights, STS-1 and STS-2, in 1981, featured tanks painted white to protect the shuttle from ultraviolet light while sitting on the launch pad. But after engineers concluded the protection was unnecessary, the white paint was discarded, freeing up 600 pounds of weight in the process.”

One more thing, NASA. Get a better name for the rocket. Artemis and Orion are good; they go together in history and lore. But Space Launch System? That just doesn’t have the panache of Saturn.

Columbus Never Made It Up This Way

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Positively summerish today. I don’t mind. But then again, I have an indoor job, and was fairly busy this Tuesday in May, so I didn’t have much time for the deck until after dinner, a fine chicken curry whipped up by the chef of the house, which isn’t me.

Back on Friday, such summer-like conditions were merely a longing, since rain alternated with drizzle and back again with rain, all at a charming 50 degrees F. or so. I had the day off and had agreed to pick up Ann in Normal to bring her home from ISU for the summer. One down, three to go.

I decided not to drive there by the most direct route, despite ours being a time of elevated gas prices. The most direct route is I-55, once you’ve reached the southern reaches of metro Chicago.

Instead, I took I-80 a few miles west to its junction with Illinois 47, then headed due south on that road for a short ways, until it meets I-55 in Dwight. You know, just a little variation in the route. Before I got to that point, I needed to use the rest stop on I-80 just northeast of the town of Morris, Illinois. I noticed this curiosity there.Columbus Memorial Highway Illinois

Columbus has a memorial highway? Is that supposed to apply to the entirety of I-80, which runs from New Jersey to northern California? That seems unlikely, but there’s scant mention of it online, at least as far as I’m willing to burrow. None, actually, except a Change.org petition about a different road named for the Genoese navigator in Connecticut.

Birchwood South Park

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Finally a warm day on Saturday — after a miserable, wet Friday — then cool on Sunday, but warm again on Monday. So warm today, in fact, that the ground was dry enough for me to mow the lawn for the first time this year, and grill brats in the back yard, despite gusting winds.

Bonus: Even after dark this evening, I could sit around the deck comfortably in a t-shirt. So I spent some time outside reading about G-men trying to track down the loose 1933 Double Eagles, as mentioned before.

Last week, before the warm up, it was still pleasant enough on Wednesday to seek out a new place to walk: Birchwood South Park in Palatine.Birchwood Park South

A good place to see the spring greening.
Birchwood South Park

It took a while, but eventually we realized that the water in the middle of the park wasn’t a permanent feature, but the result of the many recent rains.Birchwood South Park Birchwood South Park

Including a flooded baseball/softball field.
Birchwood South Park

This year’s rainy spring is more than just an impression.

“This spring has seen more rainy days than any other spring in the past 63 years,” NBC Chicago reports.

“While a rainy springtime in the city isn’t anything new, this year has seen more perception than average, according to the National Weather Service, the average precipitation in Chicago from March to May is 6.93 inches. This year, we’ve seen 10.31 inches.”

An Excellent Story for Earth Day, Mrs. Maisel

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It’s about time, backyard croci.

Today was warm, cloudy and windy, until the clouds let go a lot of water, and then another -y adjective came into play, rainy. Tomorrow will be rainy, windy and chilly, and it won’t get warm again till after Easter, I hear.

Got an email pitch the other day, one of very many. There was a fair amount of verbiage to it, but the heart of the matter was this line: Are you interested in speaking to XY, a holistic health expert, about the sharp rise in the use of anti-anxiety drugs and why taking hemp extract is better for your health?

The short answer is, no. A longer answer would also be no. And I feel not a jot of anxiety about my decision.

And another pitch, at about the same time:

We think this is an excellent story for Earth Day that your audiences will love. The nationally acclaimed eco-feminist artist XX is celebrated as the real-life Marvelous Mrs. Maisel of the art world.

Is she now? Got into art one drunken night when she was on the outs with her husband? I know that show has won some Emmys, and I’m enjoying episodes of the recently dropped fourth season (once a week), but it’s still interesting that the publicist believed it would be a widely enough known reference to make such a statement, silly as it is.

Poplar Creek Forest Preserve on the Equinox

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Sunday and Monday were warmish and mostly pleasant. In typical March style, at least in Northern climes, the rest of the week has been chilly and damp. The persistent drizzle, I suppose, will be a factor in the greening of April. But for now it merely inspires muddy paw prints whenever the dog comes back in.

On Sunday, we took a walk in a section of the Poplar Creek Forest Preserve — officially Arthur L. Janura Forest Preserve, but I’ve never thought of it as that — that we hadn’t been to before, despite having lived in these parts nearly two decades. It’s just off Shoe Factory Road, a name I’ve always liked.

That day might have been the vernal equinox, but the flora knew it wasn’t quite spring yet.Poplar Creek Forest Preserve

Near the intersection of Shoe Factory and Sutton Road (Illinois 59) is a place called the Great Egret Family Picnic Area, at least according to Google Maps.

The sign in situ makes no such naming claims.Poplar Creek Forest Preserve

In fact, so weathered is it that it barely makes any naming claims, though I can make out FAMILY PICNIC AREA. The sign is the only way we’d know that, since there is no evidence of tables or any other picnic infrastructure. Just a place to toss your picnic blanket, it seems.

Adios, February. Don’t Come Again for 11 Months

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The last sunset of February 2022, at least from the vantage of my deck. Looking forward to the time when I can sit there comfortably and eat, read, gaze at the sunset or whatever else takes my fancy.
sunset

A few days ago, the dog was able to go out an collect snow on her snout.
dog

Now most of the snow on the ground has melted. There will be more, of course, but March snow doesn’t usually have to staying power of January or February snows. Less so with each passing day, too.