Jar of Goodness 1.5.25: Snow Plows and Such

. . . The weekly virtual “gratitude jar.” Yup, I’m doing that again. Mainly so I don’t go bananas and go on a rampage or something. Or, more likely, drive my car in a straight line away from wherever I am, and not turn back. (Wouldn’t that be nice? So many directions to travel.)

This week, I’m expressing thanks for snow plows and such.

Though the picture above is from Sunday afternoon, this was actually written on Saturday night, January 4, 2025, as our snow begins. A huge swath of the United States is getting a bunch of winter weather: several inches of snow, more than a foot of snow in some places; sleet, freezing rain in other places; in many places (like, apparently, us), it’ll be a mix of snow and sleet and snow and freezing rain, and more snow. Like a layer cake of mayhem. Farther south, they’ll get thunderstorms and maybe tornadoes.

Here's the temperatures as I write this, Saturday night, January 4, 8:15:

Then, on top of the crusty, hard-to-shovel, slip-and-fall-and-break-your-ankle stuff (or wreck-your-car-stuff), we’re supposed to get, like a week or more of super-freezing cold weather. The kind that can kill. Ugh. It’s one of those bad scenarios where the freezing rain, topped with snow weighs down branches, then it gets windy, and the trees break like crazy and strum down power lines. Then ya don’t have electricity, and you wish you’d sprung for the gas water heater last time you replaced it.

As of Saturday evening, 8:15:

I’ve blogged about this kind of nonsense before, because I’ve been there, I’ve done that. I truly don’t like having bad snow and ice, because I truly don’t like the power to go out when it’s freezing cold. You never know when it’ll come back on. It just sucks. And this year I’ve got my parents to worry about.

There will be a fine line between who gets freezing rain, sleet, snow, and total mayhem—and those who simply get a ton of snow. The weather people seem to think the “line” is basically right where we live. Or where my parents live. The weather people give their predictions in terms of highways being dividing lines. Most people basically live in highways, that is, cities. Anyway, it will turn out however it turns out.

Hopefully, my parents will get mostly snow, and their kind neighbor with a snow blower will clear their drive and sidewalk, but also hopefully my parents won’t have to go anywhere until everything is cleared out. Hopefully, they won’t experience power outages. (What a nightmare that would be: could I even make it to Columbia if I had to help them move somewhere?)

Then there’s our own status. It’s entirely possible our power could go out for twelve hours or more.

But here’s the Jar of Goodness: fortunately, we live near the center of town, just a few blocks from the state capitol building, and we’re quite likely to be high on the list for restoring power, as well as for street clearing.

Here's how the roads are looking, as this begins on Saturday night: Kansas City's getting socked! Central Missouri and the eastern Ozarks are next:

Which is to say, that for all the annoyances of living near the center of Jefferson City, or any town, one of the perks is that your utilities generally get fixed quickly. Sure, you have plenty of idiot, noisy neighbors, and you have all kinds of cars tearing up and down the street in front of your house, and every emergency vehicle screaming by with its sirens on, but you also get snowplows rumbling through as soon as the first snowflake falls.

So for however uncertain this bad weather feels, at least I know we’re not isolated. If we lived out in nowhere (where I so often wish we were—it would be so nice and quiet! . . . and beautiful, and relaxing, and private), we could be snowed in for days, maybe a week. We’d have to find someone to plow us out, because we’d have a long private drive from the paved road to our house. If our power went out, too-bad-so-sad. We’d have to have our own emergency generator. Self-reliance is for the strong, the handy, and/or the rich, and face it, we’re none of these.

So, hooray for the public works snowplows! The emergency crews at the power utility. The EMT people. The cops. All the emergency workers who’ll be out there working their butts off in the freezing cold, damn dangerous road conditions.

Glad I don’t have to go out there.

As of Sunday morning, 8:45:

As of Sunday afternoon, 2:00:

Big Nature, 2024

The year 2024 has been a notable nature year in several ways. Sure, there were some significant tornado, flooding, and other severe-weather events (some part of Missouri gets those every year); but if you lived in any of the places affected, it was definitely a year of “big nature” for you.

And we had an exceptionally mild spring, which is something, and by fall, most of the state was in some level of flat-out drought. (Which affected fall color in our state.)

In October, the drought stress caused our lilacs to bloom even as our green ash tree turned yellow. It was a really odd sight.

But I want to talk about much bigger nature. Like, once-in-a-lifetime nature. Like, there was that amazingly beautiful total solar eclipse in April (I still need to blog about it). Of course, I didn't even try to take pictures of it, but I sure soaked in the time and place—the way the event felt, and how unique it looked—sunny but shady, at once.

And there was that solar storm that ignited aurorae visible exceptionally far-south in May and October. If you got to see that, or get photographs of what you wished you could see with your bare eyes, then bully for you!

But let’s not forget the coolest nature thing that happened in eastern North America: the coincidental emergence of two big periodical cicada broods the same year! It was Broods XIII (17-year) and XIX (13-year). Realize, every “normal” periodical cicada emergence is an amazement in itself. That these insects can live 13 or 17 years below ground, sucking juices from tree roots, then somehow all emerge within the space of a few weeks, the same year, like clockwork, is a staggeringly cool example of big nature.

The last time the two broods emerged the same year was in 1803, the year the Louisiana Purchase was signed!

As of 2024, there appeared to be nowhere that the two broods overlapped, so it was a geeky thing to geek out over. It’s not like there were twice as many cicadas in most places (indeed, cicadas generally decline thanks to habitat disruption, and climate change is affecting them, too).

So it’s a mathematical convergence. When one thing happens every 13 years, and another thing happens every 17 years, it’s rare when they synch up.

So, when will the two broods emerge during the same summer again? How do you figure that out? Well, here you go: 13 x 17 = 221, and 2024 + 221 = 2245. The year 2245!!

What will the year 2245 be like? None of us alive today will see it . . . but Star Trek at least has offered some suggestions. According to Star Trek, 2245 is the year, on April 11, of the launch of the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701 (yes, THAT Enterprise!). Its first captain will be Robert April (who appears in later Star Trek series, including Strange New Worlds). James T. Kirk will take the captain’s chair in 2265.

It’s also the launch year of the Enterprise’s sister starships, the USS Cayuga (NCC-1557), later destroyed by the Gorn, and the USS Constellation (NCC-1017), under Captain Matthew Decker; both are destroyed by the Bugles-shaped planet killer in a memorable Original Series episode, “The Doomsday Machine.”

Star Trek canon also has it that 2245 is the year that Pavel Chekov will be born, and it’s the year that Leonard McCoy will decide to pursue a career in medicine.

I love it that these musings for 2024 have started with astronomical phenomena—the solar eclipse, the aurorae—then took a dive underground to consider the years our cicadas lived in soil, then fast-forwarded to the Star Trek universe. Science can predict, even project natural events: solar cycles, solar and lunar eclipses, and cicada emergences. And what do you think 2245 will be like?

Jar of Goodness 6.12.22: Air Conditioning

. . . The weekly virtual “gratitude jar.”

This week, I’m expressing thanks for the miracle invention called air conditioning.

Our units (we have two, since we have a large house), are getting old, so I especially do not take them for granted. Especially as we are entering a heat wave for the coming week. They’re predicting temperatures of 95 or higher every day.

I’m suspecting that this will be a hot, dry summer. Missouri, with its humidity, would be unbearable without a/c. Y’all take care.

We Can Always Talk About the Weather

We really haven't had much precipitation this winter. Hardly any snow to speak of. I guess today Columbia, half an hour's drive north of us, has had some accumulation, but so far in Jeff City, all we've had is freezing rain.

Which I hate.

But at least I don't have to go anywhere, and we have plenty to eat here at home. And as long as I have Internet, I can communicate with you! Whoever you are.

Here are some pictures I took out of our top windows only about a half hour ago.

First, a view out of our top dormer looking north along Broadway toward the 50/63 Expressway and the capitol. (Well, we call it "north" here in Jeff City, because the river is "north." But let's not get into all that.) In the distance, the big building on the left, with the horizontal pattern to the windows, is the Truman State Office Building. The next building to the right of it, is the Broadway State Office Building. The next one to the right (red brick; in front of the capitol) is the Missouri State Supreme Court building:



Next, a view "west" along West Elm. Apart from our dear neighbor's house (happy birthday, Kay!), there's not a lot you might recognize here. The large rectangular building in the background is the newly former St. Mary's Hospital. The bright "light" almost in the center of the picture is the Dulle mansion:



Looking out our front dormer window, we see Broadway heading south. The former salon is in the foreground. The Schaeffer House (gift shop) is about halfway down the block, on the opposite side of the street. The green light is the traffic light at the intersection with Dunklin.

And no, that's not snow along the edges of the sidewalks, and that's not rain making the sidewalks shiny--it's ice:



Finally, here's the view along West Elm, to the east. That big tree two houses away from us is a real, genuine American elm tree, which somehow survived the dreaded Dutch elm disease. Also, you can't see it very well in this picture, but the one landmark a Jefferson Citian might know is the Coca-Cola Building. The "Coke Room" community room is at the end of the block. The famous Coke signboard is a bright spot with a small pointy projection at the top, roughly between the elm's trunk and the bright orange streetlight in the center. It's shaped like a candle because we're seeing it at an angle. (There's a picture of it on this post.)



Plus, a bonus picture: My car, with ice falling on it! I'm so glad I don't have to go out anywhere tonight or tomorrow!



Wherever you are, be careful driving (and walking!) in whatever foul weather you might be having. Take care!

Icy Day

Hi, folks! Today, we’re experiencing one of the lesser-celebrated forms of wintry precipitation here in Central Missouri: an ice storm!

Fortunately, it’s not exactly stormy. Fortunately, “ice storm” is just the generic term for this kind of freezing rain. It’s rained mostly all day, and so far, here in Jefferson City, only elevated objects (tree branches and twigs, porch railings, and power lines) seem to have acquired a glaze.



But it’s after 3 pm, now, and temperatures will be falling. In the time it’s taken me to write this, the icicles have lengthened! Our yew trees are getting all splayed out from the weight of the ice.

It’s supposed to change over into snow at some point, though most of the precipitation is supposed to be north and west of us.

Even though we’re safe inside, we’re a bit on edge about the possibility of breaking branches and downed power lines. But it’s also very beautiful. I’d rather focus on that.



I feel sorry for people who have to travel through this today. Even if you manage to stay on the road and reach your destination, it’s not going to be very fun.

Here’s a view from our front windows, looking south on Broadway. (Here are some older posts with pictures of the same overall view, both from the big snowstorm in January 2011: here and here.)



So it’s a good day to stay inside! We have so much food around here I didn’t even go to the store to get the requisite “milk and bread.” For lunch, I had leftovers from Jefferson City’s new Indian (and Nepalese, and Korean) restaurant. I’ve got the lights on the Christmas tree turned on, and our little electric fake fireplace space heater is on, too.

I’m all warm and cozy. Soon I’ll make myself a nice hot cup of masala chai—thanks to my brother for sending us some boxes of easy-peasy instant chai packets, I don’t have to do anything but heat up water, dump in some powder, and stir! (Click here to learn more about this instant chai.)

Maybe I’ll even have some lebkuchen or springerles with it!

As you can guess, this ice storm is feeling like a really nice thing!

Let’s hope the power doesn’t go out! And if you’re planning to travel on these icy roads? . . . Stop it! Find a way to just stay home, be safe, and enjoy a quiet evening!

Take care, my friends!

It’s Been Hot

It’s been a hot summer. Like it does so many years, once we hit Memorial Day, it’s like the “tap” got shut off. Our wet spring is just a memory; and the threat of the river flooding seems more and more bizarre—and remote.

It does seem strange to have the river so high, while our weather’s been so hot and dry.

Ice cream. We’ve been hitting Sparky’s a lot when we’re in Columbia. And Zesto’s here in Jeff. We’ve been staying inside.

It’s interesting how one’s appetite diminishes when it’s really hot outside. Our dinners have been like little picnics: A few pieces of bread, some pesto, olives and peperoncinis, wedges of ripe tomato, slices of sausage, some ricotta, a hard-cooked egg.

Sue said she read an interview with a Georgia peach farmer, who said that the peaches are loving the hot nights—even though it’s uncomfortable for us—the peaches love it. And yes, ripe peaches are one of the great treasures of summer, and of life itself.




Our grass has turned brown and gone dormant. C’est la vie; that happens to some extent most summers. In fact, it’s kind of nice, since we don’t have to go out and mow the yard so often. But this year, since the temperatures have been in the upper nineties so often, we’ve been running the sprinkler for a while some evenings, beneath our trees, to make sure they’re getting enough moisture.

We were lucky enough to have been in Columbia last night when a small thunderstorm went through (it didn’t even get close to Jeff City). We were at my parents’ house, and the thunder was the first sign.

“Was that thunder—?”

You know it’s been a while since it’s rained when you’re not sure you even recognize the sound of thunder.

When it started to rain, it felt like a miracle, like we’d somehow received a great boon from a power beyond imagining.

Sue said she felt like going outside and dancing around in it.

I looked at her: “I’ll do it if you do it.”

So out we went—down the back porch steps—into my folks’ backyard. We ran around and waved our arms. We jumped around in circles. Our shoes splashed in the water puddling in their yard. We lifted our faces to the sky and let the water come right at us.

It was pouring down, and it felt great. When it’s been so hot, rain like this feels just right. Our hair and shoulders got soaked. So what?

We were soon driving back home, and by the time we crossed I-70 (not even out of Columbia yet), we’d seen the last of the rain. (When will we have rain again?)

By the time we got to Ashland, it was feeling pretty good to have the air conditioner blow on our wet shoulders and hair.

And Jeff City was pretty much like we’d left it: Hot and dry.

Fortunately, we have peaches to get us through.

You Say Tomato, I Say . . . Tornado

Let’s talk about last Friday, Good Friday—or “Bad Friday” as they’ve dubbed it in St. Louis: Friday, April 22, 2011. They’ll be remembering that date for a long time in St. Louis!

But here in Central Missouri, we really lucked out. It was one of those cases where the sirens went off right as the skies grew dark and green—the sirens make that eerie, ominous moan that opens into an ear-splitting wail, shrinks back into a moan, and rises again into a wail. Over and over. And then it goes silent (which is even worse).

For me, here’s the drill: Firefox > Bookmarks > News > TV > ABC 17 – KMIZ TV – The Spirit of Missouri > Weather > Interactive Radar. Then, I click on “Live Storm Tracking” to get the up-to-the-minute stuff they’re saying on the TV.

The first task is to determine which direction the evil red blob with rotation was heading.




Just so you can appreciate what we went through (and what we go through), here are some excerpts from KMIZ’s live storm tracking chat that evening. I’m omitting a lot of stuff—many reports on hail and wall clouds, notifications of tornado warnings expiring in western counties as the storm moved east, miscellaneous questions from the public, etc.

4:53 Comment From Scared:
Is the cell tracking to Jeff City?? Sirens going off

4:54 Met. Jeff Huffman:
Supercell capable of a tornado will move slightly north of US HWY 50 and threaten California, Jamestown, Centertown, and the northwest side of Jefferson City.

4:55 Comment From Ryan
Is the cell tracking to Columbia?

4:55 Comment From Sandy
Are tornadoes expected for Columbia tonight?

4:45 Met. Jeff Huffman
At its present course, the biggest threat from this storm in Columbia would be large hail around 5:20 . . . mainly on south side of the city.

. . . . . . . . .

5:11 Forecaster Justin Abraham:
STORM REPORT: LSX: 4 W Centertown [Moniteau Co., MO] trained spotter reports FUNNEL CLOUD at 05:09 PM CDT – spotter located in Centertown observes a funnel cloud just to the west.

. . . . . . . . .

5:14 ABC17Stormtrack:
Tornado Warning issued for Boone, Cole & Callaway Counties until 6:00pm.


. . . . . . . . .

5:15 Forecaster Justin Abraham:
NO THREAT FOR A TORNADO IN COLUMBIA EVEN IF YOU HEAR THE SIRENS RIGHT NOW.

5:15 Forecaster Justin Abraham:
SAME FOR JEFFERSON CITY.

. . . . . . . . .

5:25 Forecaster Justin Abraham:
TORNADIC STORM PASSING SOUTH OF ASHLAND RIGHT NOW AND MOVING EAST AT 40 MPH. WILL BE MOVING NEAR NEW BLOOMFIELD THEN JUST TO THE SOUTH OF FULTON. IF YOU ARE IN THE PATH (SOUTHERN BOONE, WESTERN/SOUTHERN CALLAWAY), TAKE SHELTER IMMEDIATELY.

. . . . . . . . .

5:39 Forecaster Justin Abraham:
STORM REPORT: LSX: 1 N Holts Summit [Callaway Co., MO] trained spotter reports FUNNEL CLOUD at 5:37 PM CDT –

5:39 Forecaster Justin Abraham:
IF YOU ARE IN NEW BLOOMFIELD ALONG HWY 54 UP TO FULTON, TAKE SHELTER IMMEDIATELY.

. . . . . . . .

5:51 ABC17Stormtrack:
TORNADO WARNING ISSUED FOR CALLAWAY, GASCONADE AND MONTGOMERY COUNTIES UNTIL 6:30.

. . . . . . . .

5:54 Forecaster Justin Abraham:
STORM REPORT: LSX: 8 E Holts Summit [Callaway Co., MO] trained spotter reports FUNNEL CLOUD at 05:51 PM CDT – spotter 2 miles north of Tebbetts reports a funnel cloud 3 miles north of his location going up and down.

. . . . . . . .

6:03 Forecaster Justin Abraham:
STORM REPORT: LSX: Mokane [Callaway Co., MO] trained spotter reports FUNNEL CLOUD at 06:01 PM CDT – spotter in Mokane looking north reports a funnel cloud.

. . . . . . . .

6:04 Forecaster Justin Abraham:
STORM REPORT: LSX: Portland [Callaway Co., MO] trained spotter reports FUNNEL CLOUD at 06:02 PM CDT – several funnel clouds . . . strong rotation in base of meso[cyclone]

. . . . . . .

6:21 Forecaster Justin Abraham:
READERS, THE TORNADIC STORM IS MOVING INTO FAVORABLE AREAS FOR DEVELOPMENT. IF YOU ARE IN MONTGOMERY AND GASCONADE COUNTIES, TAKE COVER.

. . . . . . .

6:32 Forecaster Justin Abraham:
STORM REPORT: LSX: Rhineland [Montgomery Co., MO] trained spotter reports WALL CLOUD at -6:30 PM CDT – large . . . low . . . rotating wall cloud. No funnels spotted at this time.

So this worrisome supercell passed eastward through Central Missouri, from Centertown to Hartsburg, south of Fulton, through Tebbetts, Mokane, Portland, and Rhineland, at forty miles per hour, dumping large hail and showing people what “wall clouds” and “funnel clouds” look like.

Here is a picture I took from our third-floor dormer, looking north toward the beast as it passed over southern Boone County, pelting it with hail. That’s the Capitol Plaza Hotel, by the way, for reference.




Thus it slipped rather cleanly between the cities of Columbia and Jefferson City, sparing us from the fright that the folks in rural areas along Highway 94 were experiencing.

But then it turned wicked, dropped its funnel around 8 pm, and that tornado plowed through the north St. Louis metro area in a path twenty-two miles long and almost a half-mile wide. It caused major damage to Lambert–St. Louis International Airport, closing it, and in the community of Bridgeton, it reached an intensity of EH4, essentially destroying everything in its path.

I’m not sure anyone can say why the tornado zapped St. Louis and not us. We were incredibly lucky.

Here, you can see a nifty animated radar of that supercell as it travels from Callaway County into the St. Louis area. (Special thanks to Chief Meteorologist Sharon Ray of ABC 17 Stormtrack Weather for sharing this link with me!)

Here’s a link to NOAA’s official report of the “Good Friday Tornadic Event” of April 22, 2011.

Below, as I did with the two radar images above, I shamelessly copy pictures from the KMIZ Web story on the St. Louis tornado. This is one of Columbia’s Mo-X shuttle vans—familiar to anyone who drives I-70 between Kansas City and St. Louis.*






Wow!

Boy, were we lucky here in Central Missouri.

_________________________


* Note: Mo-X has some of the most blatantly sexist advertising in Central Missouri. (Well? I'm just sayin’ what everybody knows.) I sure wish they’d find a more dignified way to sell their services.

Spring Storms

We’ve had some chilly, damp weather recently. It’s the time of the spring where we get farther and farther from the memory of snow, and the belief in it. It’s getting hard to even picture what the sidewalks looked like with ice on them. (Every day without icy sidewalks is a good day! Hooray!)

Granted, I’m not constitutionally “against” winter weather, but by the time it’s April, I yearn for all that stuff to be over! And so instead, we usher in the season of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes!

As you know, this spring I reread Edwin Way Teale’s North with the Spring, which describes Edwin and Nellie Teale’s zigzagging travels as they traced the progress of spring from the southern tip of Florida to the northern tip of Maine. Their trip occurred in 1947.

The book covers much more than just violets and robins; Teale examines several aspects of springtime that few people think about. The arrival of elvers in fresh waters and their long, wriggling trip up rivers and streams to the place where they will breed; the seasonal vertical migration of duckweeds within a single pond; and the movements of some bird species that migrate altitudinally on a mountainside instead of longitudinally up and down the map. He witnesses the springtime activities of Appalachian herb gatherers, who pick bags and bags of waxy balm-of-Gilead buds that ultimately wind up in salves and ointments. Spring is many things to many organisms.

One thing that Teale left out of his book—probably because in his trip he stuck to the eastern quarter of the United States—is “tornado season.” For folks in the Midwest, this is the time to make sure the emergency radio has fresh batteries, that there’s a comfortable place in the basement in which to wait out the storm, and for public officials to test the community’s emergency sirens. In schools, March usually includes “natural disaster awareness week” or some such, where all the kids learn what to do if there’s a tornado watch, tornado warning, or severe thunderstorm watch or warning. (Of course, a lot of that has changed since I was a kid!)

So they’ve been predicting possible severe weather practically every other day these last few weeks. Sometimes we get a good thunderstorm out of it; on Tuesday the 19th, at 3:45 a.m., we got quarter-sized hail. (That’ll wake you up!) But in regard to serious, serious destruction, it “never” amounts to anything; often, it’s absolutely clear it’s going to bypass us. And sometimes we don’t even get a drop of rain (sometimes the storms are very scattered).

So it tends to make one apathetic. But then there are a few times each year when the forecasters, the radar, the sirens, the sky, the birds—everything—indicates a strong possibility of a tornado heading right toward us. Again, it “never” hits, but then, you never know . . .

(To be continued in my next post . . .)

Out Like a Lion

Sue--a native Ohioan, so she's allowed to be critical--says that in Missouri, March comes in like a lamb, and out like a lion--and this year (again), that seems to be the case.

Wow, all that snow we got yesterday! We got about five inches! Fortunately, most of it melted today, and we (and my foot-cast) made it to the Wurstfest in Hermann. What a great time! But more on that in a bit.

Tonight, I want to share with you some of the photos Sue took yesterday of our pretty spring flowers as it was snowing!

We had big, wet, clumped-up flakes.




Here's a picture of some of the pansies in our front planters. This cracks me up--it looks like someone nailed that purple one right in the face with a snowball!




And then, these peony shoots look like they're getting ready to throw some snowballs!




And our daffodils? When Sue showed me this picture, she put on a funny voice and said, "--Hey, I can't see!"




I wasn't too worried about how these flowers would handle the snow; the forecast wasn't showing much chance of truly nasty-cold weather, and these early spring flowers are surprisingly hardy when it comes to a little spring snow.

The first year I lived in Montana, I was dismayed one morning when the flowers I had planted were inundated with snow. (Realize . . . in Montana, it can snow just about every month of the year! Bad place to try to grow tomatoes!) But a friendly native Montanan reassured me, using a phrase that I've recalled just about every spring since then: "Aww, a little spring snow never hurt anything."

And yeah, she was right.

We Had Hail on Friday

What can I say? My ankle’s busted, I can’t drive, and I’m cooped up inside the house. I’m reduced to writing about the weather, which I mostly experience through a windowpane.




Friday afternoon, we had a real nice thunderstorm. The sky in the west got dark and ominous; it was almost like nighttime. I was on the sunporch so I got a great view.

Big ol’ raindrops, and strong winds. Thunder. The kitties hid.

It rained like the dickens! It started to hail—but it was no big deal; it was only pea or M&M (plain M&M) sized. But there was a lot of it. It kinda looked like snow.




Sue and I went around looking out the windows.

It was a real gully washer, toad strangler, duck drownder. It certainly cleaned out the street gutters—nice, how springlike rains help wash away the grit of winter.

We had puddles in our backyard, and that’s saying something, because we live on a hill.




I took some pictures from the second floor, and Sue got a nice picture of my car getting pelted.




Afterward, Sue went out and took pictures before it all melted (most of these pictures are from her).

Luckily, the daffodils weren’t up so high that they got damaged.




And then, as suddenly as it came on, the storm passed over, and the sun came back out, and somehow it was midafternoon again. Robins returned to our backyard, hunting excitedly for swimming earthworms.

All I could do was sit there in amazement.

Snowpocalypse

It’s extremely hard to concentrate on work today, since we’re getting, apparently, the first bona fide official blizzard Central Missouri’s ever had in recorded history.

Naturally, this can easily be seen as a sign of the ongoing effects of global climate change, while those who don’t “believe” that climate change is happening will undoubtedly see this uncharacteristically intensely cold weather as a sign that nothing’s changing.




Anyway, it started snowing here before dawn, and at this point—around noon—the strong winds are blowing the snow sideways—it’s supposed to be sustained winds of 35 mph. There’s at least an inch and a half of accumulation per hour, and visibility’s awful. I can’t see anything beyond a half a block away.

When I lived in Montana, this wouldn’t be any particularly big deal. Yeah, I vaguely recall that.

But then, when I lived in Phoenix, one time we got some below-freezing temperatures and some sleet that collected in the cracks in the sidewalks—and that was remarkable, too. All those tropical and subtropical landscaping plants that could freeze.

Obviously, it’s all “relative,” and our homes, our heaters, our vehicles, our city’s snow-removal equipment, and our bridges, roads, and utility poles are designed to handle the bad weather we usually get. But this weather is definitely worse than usual.

There’s been a lot of nervous chatter and laughter among my Facebook pals. We’ve all known it was coming. For a week, the weather forecasters have been talking about a major snow, and for the last few days, they’ve been saying it’s a sure thing that most parts of Central Missouri will get at least 15 inches.

Which, as I said, is a remarkable amount of snow for us, especially considering we’ve already had several good snowfalls this winter.

A lot of folks (including me) laugh at the urge to go to the store right before the storm and buy “bread and milk.” A Columbia newscast showed pictures of empty bread shelves at one of the local Walmarts. One of my friends called this “overreacting.”

But truly: thank goodness people have enough sense to hit the grocery store before the storm. If bread is on the grocery list for survival purposes, it is understandable: in our culture, bread is the staff of life; it is the bare minimum. It is to us as rice is to the Orient, and corn to the Aztecs.

We certainly went to the store yesterday—not for bread and milk, particularly, but for the items we might have purchased within the next three or four days. We were out of eggs; we needed more cheese; we were almost out of lettuce. So laugh all you want, my friends, but I keep having thoughts of the Grasshopper and the Ant.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about Katrina these past few days, as excitement and dread mounts, and I’ve been wondering how much in denial we all are. They knew the evil weather was coming, and for some reason, too many of them didn’t take it seriously enough.




The ice that’s falling just a few counties south of us is going to cause widespread power outages, right before subzero temps. Remember the freezing rain in early December 2007?

I do. It’s more than a memory—it’s practically post-traumatic stress for me. I had broken my foot the October before and was still in a cast; on December 3, since no healing had occurred, I had surgery to repair that Jones fracture with a screw. The freezing rain came on Saturday, December 8. I wasn’t even in a cast again at that point, I was still in the post-surgical splint. Plenty of swelling and pain, and still (of course) on crutches. And yes, I also had a concert to play that weekend, in Columbia! Sue drove us on ice-covered roads, and we ended up staying in Columbia that night.

(By the way, in case you were wondering, trying to walk on crutches on ice is flat-out impossible.)

So, that Saturday night was the night we had no power at our house—it went off after we’d driven to Columbia, and fortunately we weren’t home to shiver all night with the kitties. By the time we got back home Sunday evening (because there was a concert Sunday afternoon, too), the power was back on and the house was getting warm again.

But the power went off again on Monday night, when a tree on our street collapsed and strummed down a set of powerlines. It was a cold night, and a dark morning, and we were grateful for every bit of insulation our house has.

It’s hard enough to bathe with a splint on, much less in the dark in a very cold house. Fortunately, we have our old percolator, and it, with our gas stove, meant that we could have hot coffee that morning.

Our power came on again sometime that day, and life was relatively dandy after that. We decided that when it comes to power outages, we’re very happy to be living in the center of town, just a few blocks from the state capitol, and not way out in the country somewhere and low on the list of priorities. For some of those people, the power was out for a week, and they had to seek shelter elsewhere.

Okay, and so that was just a fraction of an inch of ice that weekend—and I don’t recall any serious winds or additional snowfall with that, either.

But with this snowfall, now, they’re saying that counties southeast of us may receive up to an inch of ice, with additional inches of snow on top, plus 35 mph winds. They will have power outages galore. Then, to have this followed immediately by subzero temps? I feel for them, I worry for them.




How long will anyone’s power be out? Who knows? How do you “prepare” for that, when the roads will be impassable? We here in Jeff City and Columbia can Twitter and text about how exciting our big snow is, we can crack wry jokes about “waiting for the roof to cave in.” We can make up clever, hyperbolic names for this situation, calling it a “snowacane,” and a “snowpocalypse.” And we can warm our attitudes by telling each other about our Crock Pots of beef stew and chili, our Kahlúa-spiked coffee, our split pea soup and our homemade bread. We can afford to grin and share, feel warm and cozy, because we know we’re just very lucky this time.

But when I look out the window, I can’t tell if I’m shivering, or shuddering.

The Abscission Wind

For several years, now, I’ve been trying to think of a good name for it, that wind that comes and sweeps “autumn” off the trees and gives us the winter landscape.




It doesn’t arrive at any set date—although around here it happens in late October or early November—but when it happens, it’s usually a distinct and noticeable event. It’s that cold front that drives through, with wind and rain, that puts an end to “fall color” and knocks off nearly all the leaves.

Other times of year, and other distinct seasonal weather events, have special names. We have the “dog days” of summer and “Indian summer” in fall. Of winds, there are Chinooks and siroccos, mistrals and haboobs, Santa Anas and williwaws . . . and many more. And then there’s that occasional, deceptive “January thaw,” giving us a taste of sweet warmth only to crush us with more grim winter.



But I haven’t found a name for this cold front that usually, and cleanly, divides autumn and winter. And I think we need one.

So I have some ideas I’d like to propose.

How about “the Exfoliator”? I know, I know: An exfoliator is something—a goo or an abrasive—used to remove dead skin cells, and it has little to do with tree leaves. Yet the “leaf” root word is there, and because it has to do with sloughing off structures that are already dead, it is better than “the Defoliator.” Defoliation has to do with leaves, but then it also implies a chemical that dispatches leaves before they’re ready to die. It’s a leaf-killer. So “the Exfoliator” sounds pretty reasonable, don’t you think? Especially if you capitalize it to make it look official.

Do you think we should add a word to make it clearer? The Autumn Exfoliator? The Exfoliating Wind?




Or what about “the tree sweeper,” “the branch cleaner,” “the canopy clearer”?

Or we could focus on the action on the level of the twig and leaf stem, the break that occurs when the leaf is ready to let go, and the breeze or the rain that catalyzes the separation. Maybe we could call it “the leaf render.” Or, from what happens when the leaves go flying, “the scattering wind.”

Or we could be a bit nerdy and use some slightly fancy botanical lingo. There’s a precise name for that stiff bit of tissue that develops between the base of a leaf stem and the twig it’s growing from. This tissue is called the “abscission layer.” As it develops at the end of the leaf’s “life,” it cuts off nutrients to the leaf, and the leaf “dies.”

(Realize: leaves aren’t organisms, so they don’t die. Yes, unlike our hair and fingernails, leaves are living tissues, but they’re meant to be sloughed off at some point. Even on evergreen trees, the leaves are expendable. Perhaps a better mammalian metaphor would be the process of menstruation.)

Abscission. Per Webster’s: “the act or process of cutting off: REMOVAL”; “the natural separation of flowers, fruit, or leaves from plants at a special separation layer” (meaning the aforementioned abscission layer).




I kind of like the word; despite the fact that you don’t hear it used much, I think it’s perfect. And it’s not a tough word to learn: “ab-SIH-zhun.”

We’re talking about the cold front, the wind and rain, that makes the leaves become abscised. So how about “Abscission Front”? Or “Abscission Wind”?

Let’s try it out in some sentences.

“Well, the Abscission Front came through last weekend, and now the leaves are mostly off the trees.”

“The Abscission Wind usually blows around Halloween, giving a stark and spooky look to the clawing branches of trees.”

“The Abscission Wind opens the canopies, making for sunnier woodland hikes.”

“Don’t put off enjoying the fall color—you know the Abscission Wind is just around the corner.”

What do you think? Start using it!

Let’s see if we can get it adopted into standard American English!

Hibiscus Stories

This might seem a bit odd for a midwesterner, but I've been thinking about hibiscus the past few weeks. Like so much else, there is a recent trigger that has caused the past to flavor my current thoughts.

The trigger has been the luxurious blooms that our two hibiscus shrubs have begun to produce. (Yes, they're finally blooming, now that it's getting time to trim them back and bring them inside so they don't freeze.) (I don't think I've quite figured out how to make them happy enough to bloom all summer long.) (I'm still learning.)

One of the hibiscus is a peachy orange, single one, that we purchased, so there's not much of a story with it. The other one has more of a history.

It's pink, double, and bears large flowers. And it's only bloomed for us a few times. We are not its original owners. It used to belong to a friend of mine, whose mother gave it to her in about 1995, I think. (Or was it the late eighties?) It was blooming profusely at the time.

My friend knew how to take care of plants enough to keep them alive, but I don't think she was particularly good to them. This hibiscus never went outdoors, never drank sweet rainwater. She kept it on the floor next to the sliding door to her back patio, where it got lots of sun but nevertheless showed its need by pressing its leaves and branches against the glass. It was there for years.




She watered it, but I don't think she fertilized it. I don't think she ever repotted it, either. It never bloomed for her, that I know of.

We acquired it in about 2006, when my friend moved, and the first thing we did was repot it and set it outside, and it started blooming almost immediately. And I think that's the last time it bloomed for us.

Starting last year, we've been removing it and our other hibiscus from their pots and planting them directly into the soil in a flowerbed next to our house during the growing season. I think that's made a big difference. It's special ground, I think.

Here's where the past enters the story--as you know, this was my Grandma Schroeder's house since 1930, and she was a garden clubber, green-thumb kind of lady. Her yard was like a botanical garden. And she had hibiscus, too.




In fact, they outlived her. She had acquired her hibiscus in the 1950s, as I understand it. By the time Grandma died in 2000, she had two, and they were veritable little trees, with a trunk diameter of about one and a half or two inches.

One of them had been a gift to her from her neighbor Clara Renner, who happens to be my other grandma. This was before my parents had married--from what I know it was just a simple neighborly gift, the way gardeners share plants with each other.

Each spring, Grandma would plant her hibiscus in the soil, often right where we're planting our hibiscus today. How many summertime parties did we have in her backyard, with her red and yellow hibiscus glowing against the pure white stucco wall? Grandma would gush over them.

On special occasions--like when she was entertaining visitors even such as us--Grandma liked to pluck a hibiscus flower and stick it in her hair, or attach it to her blouse.

She also used them as a garnish on her fruit platters.

When I was young, Grandma Schroeder's hibiscus were a subject of chiding and lecturing twice a year by my parents and uncles and aunts. In spring these large pots had to go outside, and in fall, they had to come back in. Sometimes Grandma lugged them up to the third floor. And she'd often move them herself--hence the lectures from her children: "You did that by yourself? Why didn't you let us help you? What if you had fallen? They're too heavy!"

Grandma was obstinate back then--"Well, I just wanted to get them in, and I didn't want to bother you . . ."--but in later years, of course, she welcomed the help.

What happened to Grandma's hibiscus? I hate to tell you, because it's kind of sad. About five or six months after Grandma died, it was getting close to frost and freezing. Her yard and plants had been kept up by my dad and my uncle, and at that point I was seriously considering buying the house.

And of course, I remembered the hibiscus--but it was too late. It was already dark, and getting late, when I learned on the news that the first freeze was predicted for that evening. I called my dad, who has much more experience than I in interpreting the weather forecast and bringing in plants. We discussed it and decided that even though a freeze was predicted, the hibiscus should make it through the night.

Indeed--they were located against the house, and the house is located in town, surrounded by concrete, and usually we're the last ones in the region to experience frosts and freezes. When the weather forecast says "frost," we usually go, "yeah, sure."

But Grandma's hibiscus did freeze that night.

I wish that my foresight could be something just a little closer to 20/20.

I was sad to lose them. And it was more than losing another connection to my Grandma. It had to do with the death of mature, beautiful, living things that depended on us. I felt we had somehow betrayed them, considering all the care they had received for half a century. They were fine, and going strong, and they died just because I chose not to drive a half hour to Jefferson City at ten o'clock at night and drag them a few yards into shelter.

But there's no going back, of course; you live and learn. Sometimes those freeze warnings do indeed mean that it will freeze.

And anyway, we do have our own hibiscus, now, with their own stories and colors, to lug in and out each fall and spring, to delight us with their blossoms, no matter how profuse or rare, to take their nourishment in this charmed soil.

Inconstant Spring

Inconstant everything, it seems. Yesterday was the first day of spring, and after a whole week of decent, warm, sunny weather, winter gave us a parting bite.

Fortunately, here in Jeff City we missed having any accumulation of snow, although towns not too far away got a couple of inches. No, we only got dreary, cold rain, and in midafternoon it changed to sleet—sloppy, wet ice pellets thrashing down from above. The ground was too warm for it to collect.

As the sleet fell, we were driving around town getting some items at Lowe’s and K-mart. Cat litter, some batteries, more contact lens cleaner, and things even more boring than that, plus a little flat of pansies for the front planters. (Remember, tomorrow is Edna Day!)

The sleet collected in the corners of the windshield, making fogged-up patches on the inside. With it coming down like that, it turned our routine shopping into more of a chore. Especially the parts where we hurried to stuff our new acquisitions into the car.

I am however grateful for the brief ferocity of the sleet, which continued during the only time I was outside, because I didn’t want to be tempted to look too closely at my recent accomplishment: the cleaned-out flower bed in the terrace over our retaining wall.




That was one of my big yardwork achievement this week. I might have put it off a few days longer, but news from our accountant late Monday morning made me so agitated I couldn’t sit staring at a computer anymore, so in three hours that afternoon I cleared out the dried-up biomass from this entire garden. And that is a chore.




But when I was done, I felt very satisfied. The mental agitation had served me well, because the whole thing had gotten done in record time. And the difference in the garden is astonishing, visually. I didn’t take any “before” pictures, but last summer this whole area had been covered with grasses and coneflowers, peonies, irises, columbines, daylilies, and much more.




And it’s always a race in February and early March to get this bed cleared out before the daffodils, bloodroots, and others get too high and fragile. So this year, I did pretty good.




It is nice to see all the shoots coming up, the red peony buds, the little green triangles of new iris leaves, the little tufts of star-of-Bethlehem, and the paradoxically pinkish-green new growth of the columbines.




And of course with it opened up again, it is easy to see the garter snakes who live in this area. As with other parts of our yard, they love to sunbathe and hunt for bugs on this terrace. I think at least a few of them overwintered in burrows under the rocks in this bed. I’ve been enjoying them as they emerge from hibernation.

All week now, since I cleared out the bed, I’ve been attracted to it. Whenever I go outside for something, even just getting in and out of the car, I walk over to the wall and peer around, enjoying the view of new growth, and looking for those cute snakes. And I usually see one or two.




There’s been one, in particular, that’s remarkable. It’s a smaller garter snake, and the first time I saw him (it could be a “her”; I don’t know), he was in a loose curl under a rock ledge. He was slow. I poked him gently and he suddenly writhed, opened his pink mouth wide, and waved his gaping head all around, like a blind snake vowing to strike everywhere at once.

Maybe he was cold, or maybe in need of shedding. I don’t know. But I let him be. I’ve seen him a few times since then. The garter snakes are so tame in early spring, when they’re getting used to the new year, at the borderline of “just warm enough to be active,” and it seems like they haven’t had their coffee yet. I took some pictures of the little guy.




But Friday afternoon, I discovered him in the street. Unmarked, apparently uninjured, but dead. It’s a mystery. Did a snake-phobic, ignorant, hateful passerby spy him and fling him hard onto the pavement? Or did he get himself out into the street, then get injured just bad enough to do him in? Did a neighbor cat get him?

I was saddened, whatever happened. I picked him up and positioned him back next to the rocks that were his home and refuge. I am hoping that, well, an opossum or some other critter will happen by in the night and decide that a freshly deceased garter snake is good eatin’.

But I didn’t look out there today, because it would have made me sadder if I’d seen him exposed there by the rock, so still, even for a snake, a wet black ribbon, staring at the rainclouds, collecting sleet in the folds of his body.

How quickly everything can change, from hibernation to life to death, and from winter to spring to winter . . . to soon it will be spring again.