Category Archives: Weather

Team of Rivals

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Rain early in the morning, again in the afternoon, and more promised for Friday morning. You could call it a rainy spell. Just when the grass and other flora were looking a little thirsty from the intermittent August heat.

The other day I picked up Team of Rivals at a resale shop. Hardcover version, in decent condition. Cost: $1.75 plus tax. Considering my known interest in presidential history, it’s about time I got around to reading some Doris Kearns Goodwin. I haven’t gotten far yet, but so far so good. I’m looking forward to a detailed account of the Republican Convention of 1860. Remarkable how history turns on such seemingly small events.

And I’m going to wonder, where did I see Goodwin speak? I know I did, at some real estate convention or other in the early or mid-2000s, back when I used to go to such things more regularly. Can’t remember exactly when or where, though. Speakers I saw at one time or other included her, but also the elder George Bush (post-presidency), James Cavill, Newt Gingrich, James Lovell, and Colin Powell.

Crystal Lake Cave

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Three storms passed through northeast Illinois on the last day of June 2014, one in the wee hours, two others in the evening. All of them featured hearty electric displays and vigorous rain. We were warned about possible bursts of high wind, but didn’t see much of it. Not like the wind blasts of late summer ’07 (was it that long ago?) or the howling afternoon of June 18, 2010, but enough to worry property owners hereabouts, such as me. But the condition quite literally blew over.

Today, on this Canada Day 2014, it’s sunny and warm here somewhat south of Canada. (Actually, I could drive east and reach a small part of that nation.) Chamber of Commerce weather, as a former colleague of mine used to call it. Similar conditions are predicted for the run up to the Fourth of July.

Speaking of the last day of June, yesterday was the 80th anniversary of the Night of Long Knives. Who but Al Stewart would write a song about that? But as far as I know, he’s never done one about the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the centennial of which was of course over the weekend. Not long now till Der Tag.

Crystal Lake Cave, a few miles south of Dubuque, has some nice features, but it was one of the tightest commercial caves I’ve ever been through. Often the ceiling was low, and the walls were close in as well, just wide enough for an adult to pass through in many places. Our guide pointed out that in its natural state, the floor was a lot higher. So the original cavers – men who were looking for lead deposits – would have had to crawl through. No thanks.

Crystal Lake Cave, June 2014The Chandelier.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThe Pipe Organ.

Crystal Lake Cave, June 2014

The Chapel.

Apparently Crystal Lake Cave enthusiasts have been married in the small room called the Chapel, though as far as I could tell, there would barely be enough space for two people, much less an officiator.

There’s also an underground body of water in the cave, hence “lake.” What I saw looked more like a pond, but it might extend much further. And anyway, “Crystal Pond Cave” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

Juneteenth Firefly & Felipe

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Saw the summer’s first firefly this evening, around dusk as you’d expect, but only a solitary bug, in the middle of the road ahead of me as I drove along. Still, it’s the first. A winged, flickering harbinger of the short high summer here around the Great Lakes.

Soon, bigger flashes were visible. Plenty of cloud-to-cloud lightning up high in evil-looking black clouds. According to the weather maps, most of the rest of the nation is having a quiet night, but we’re getting the pops and the rumbles. No big peals, cracks or claps of thunder just yet, but that could come at any time. No urgent warnings from weather experts, so I guess it’ll just be wet in the morning.

I had a lot else to do today, so I read a bit about the new King of Spain. Wiki’s handy for this kind of thing, and tells me a number of facts, such as his full name: Felipe Juan Pablo Alfonso de Todos los Santos de Borbón y de Grecia. I wonder how old he was before he learned all of them in order, or whether he ever bothered.

Also, and this isn’t particularly surprising, he’s the great-great-great-grandson of Queen Victoria through two different lines. More interestingly, he’s descended from the kings of the Two Sicilies, most recently Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies (1810-59). There’s a kingdom you don’t hear much about any more, but the name always amused me.

Mercy Otis Warren

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Heavy rains last night. Didn’t hear a drop of it. Guess I was too busy with weird dreams. This morning I noticed the soaking. The yard’s really lush so far this summer.

It’s summer, never mind the solstice. Rising summer. The mosquitoes are out, but not quite in force. No fireflies yet, but I’ve seen a dragonfly or two.

Ann and her class did their class presentation this morning, which I attended, called “I Am the Nation.” Each student dressed up as, and recited a short report they’d written about a figure from the American Revolution. I’m only mentioning this because I actually learned something from Ann’s choice: namely who Mercy Otis Warren was.

If I’d heard of her, I’d forgotten about her. Or maybe I missed her entirely; Revolutionary history, while interesting, hasn’t ever been a special period of fascination for me. She did a number of things, but mainly seems to be remembered as a polemicist of the Revolution, and afterward, an historian of it. Needless to say, though it’s pointed out a lot, those were unusual occupations for a woman of the time.

More about her is here. If ever I’m in Barnstable, Mass., I’ll go see her statue, and her brother’s too. James Otis was also a patriot and polemicist, and had the distinction of being killed by lightning one day in 1783.

Other than Warren, I’d heard of the rest of the notables the children eulogized, even Deborah Sampson and Phyllis Wheatley, whom I first encountered years ago in San Antonio, when one of the school districts there wanted to re-name a high school in her honor, and not everyone was on board with that idea.

Though I’ve cited three women examples, most of the characters were in fact men. The usual suspects, too: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Franklin, Paul Revere, Patrick Henry, Nathan Hale, et al.

All well and good, but I hankered a bit for some more unusual names. Such as Francis Marion (the Swamp Fox), Baron von Steuben, Nathanael Greene or, besides military men, Roger Sherman (he of the Connecticut Compromise), or Robert Morris and Haym Soloman  (financiers of the Revolution). And throw in a couple of loyalists, just to show what’s what, such as William Franklin, Ben’s son and governor of New Jersey, or the interesting footnote character William Augustus Bowles. 

Taraxacum on the Lawn

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Back to posting on Tuesday, in honor of Memorial Day, Observed, dead ahead. It’s a little early this year, owing to the shifting of the calendar. The closer to May 30, the better, but not this year.

An oxymoron for the day: temporary resilience. That’s what dandelions have in May. I mowed a lot of dandelions down on Tuesday afternoon, in both back and front yards, ahead of the wave of thunderstorms that blew through Tuesday evening and late into the night. I don’t have anything against dandelions, since they’re part of the biodiversity of the suburbs. They just happened to be in the way.

By Wednesday about noon, under warm sunny skies, some of the dandelion stalks were back. So they’ve got resilience. But the stalks won’t last through the summer, whether I mow or not. So they’re also temporary.

My daughters don’t stoop over to pick them any more, just as they don’t ask for toys any more, but the other day — when the dandelions were at their fullest — I noticed a couple of little neighborhood kids raiding our front yard for dandelion blooms.

That Cold Blood Moon

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It was too cold this morning to drag myself outside and document the snow clinging to the April grass and trees. Why bother anyway? It looked more-or-less like this.

Actually a little less snow coated the ground this time than seven years ago, at least as recorded by my pictures. There wasn’t quite as much sticking to the branches, and none on the street. In any case, except for shadowy spots, all the snow vanished in the afternoon sun, pale and weak as it was.

Missed the early morning Blood Moon, as some headline writers seem to be calling the latest lunar eclipse. They’re nice to see, but not worth getting up at 3 in the morning, especially when it was snowing when you went to bed a few hours earlier. It’s a hard enough sell when it’s merely cold outside, as it also was this morning.

I didn’t miss the season opener of Mad Men, which apparently got low ratings. As a casual viewer of TV, the last thing I care about is ratings, especially for a show that’s going to end on a schedule anyway. It was a decent episode, neither the best nor the worst of the series, and as usual seemed to inspire a lot of commentary, so I won’t really add to that total, even in my small way.

Writing about television in general seems to inspire a body of ridiculous, or at least pointless, writing. Not long ago I saw a headline something like this: “Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead Occupy the Same Universe.” The only reasonable reaction to that is, who cares?

A Post-Winter, Pre-Spring Stroll

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No early greening this year, that’s for sure, though very small buds can be seen if you look closely. Still, Saturday was a fine day for a walk at Meacham Grove Forest Preserve.

April5.14 008It’s been a while since we were there. Despite the warmish temps, not many people were around. That could be because the only entrance to the preserve’s parking lot is off a side street that’s some distance from Lake St., the nearest large road. The forest is highly visible from another large road – Bloomingdale Rd. – but it’s just another roadside feature most of the time. It takes a little effort to figure out where to put your car so that you can walk. An oddly North American situation.

Dirt + Water = Mud

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Garbage goes out on Sunday evening. Or to be exact, I take it out. Last night was cold but the suburban sky was clear, with about as many stars as you can see in a metro area of 9M people or so. At about 10 p.m., Orion lorded over the southwestern sky, ready to leave us for the warm months. Always good to see him, but also good to see him leaving.

Here on Earth — interesting that we call our home planet Dirt — not nearly enough people document Mud Season. It might not be worth a whole coffee table book, but maybe a chapter in Scenes From the Butt-End of Winter.

March10.14 240This is a recent view in Elk Grove Village, Ill., near the enclosure where the village — or maybe it’s the Cook County Forest Preserve District — keeps a small herd of elk. So in fact there’s an elk grove in Elk Grove. (Unlike, say, Country Club Hills, Ill., where there is no country club and are no hills.)

March10.14 241The elk were off in the distance and not worth photographing — the herd is barely visible in the above shot — so I concentrated on icy slush.

March Snows

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Snow, melt, snow — repeat. Bitter winter doesn’t quite want to give up, so the tug-of-war with spring is on. The dog’s enjoying the mud. The rest of us, not so much.

March snow isn’t that strange this far north. Here’s a picture I took on March 3, 2002, in Westmont, Ill. Lilly, 4, was making the most of the snow.

Lilly3.3.02That was a winter that didn’t want to give up, either. Even in May — when we were planning to go to Montreal — it was still uncomfortably cool most of the time, until just before we left. I have a feeling we’re going to get another one of those miserable springs again this year.

March Mounds

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Old Man Winter sees that our snow cover is melting, and mutters, “That’ll never do.” So we got a fresh coat overnight.

Recently I had an idea for a coffee table book, or maybe a coffee table anti-book. One featuring mounds of dirty snow. March10.14 237March10.14 244March10.14 238

Of course, these are just snapshots. A pro photographer and some good equipment could take some really arresting images of piles of suburban snow at the butt-end of winter.