Rain! A low rumble of thunder at about 9:30 this evening, then something louder, then buckets of rain, completed with thunder and lightning, the likes of which we haven't seen since early June at least. Since then, it's slacked off, but they say more will come. We need a week's worth or more.
I wouldn't want to live in a desert, even the kind of irrigated deserts we have in the United States, because I'd miss the rain. The overture of gray clouds and distant thunder, the moment the first drops come -- and you either see it, or feel it, or both -- all the sounds the rainfall makes as it comes down hard, the immediate aftermath when the earth smells like rain and the rivulets are on their way (eventually) to the ocean.
When it does happen in the desert, I suppose rain's quite a thrill, but I'd rather have it more regularly. Occasionally people who hear about my Texas upbringing ask me about living in the desert, which I never have. I laugh at the idea and think of the enormous, violent spring storms in South Texas.
Yes, I would say spring is here. No doubt about it. My gas bill came today and it wasn't that high.
And there's all that greenery out there. I saw a fair amount on a drive I had to take toward Chicago today, but not actually into the city. East on Irving Park Road, skirting O'Hare's south end to an event in Rosemont, the little burg nestled like a truffle next to O'Hare; then home, westward by way of Touhy and some other streets that run north of the airport. So I drove an elongated loop around one of the busiest airports in the world, seeing a fair number of planes arriving and departing.
Driving in, I saw two separate marquees mentioning Joe Montana. One said, "We'll miss you, Joe Montana." The other, "Joseph Montana," with a birth year I didn't catch and a death year of 2012.
I thought, the football player is dead? I hadn't heard. But that's the kind of thing I'm likely to miss. Interesting that two organizations with marquees -- a business and
the Schiller Park Village Hall -- wanted to memorialize the man that way. Later, I remembered to check, and the football player is not dead.
From the Franklin Park Herald-Journal: "Leyden Township Trustee Joseph Montana, 74, husband of Schiller Park Mayor Anna Montana for 49 years, died Monday. Joseph Montana also was a member of the Schiller Park Village Health Board.
“ 'The village’s most heartfelt and sincere
condolences go out to Mayor Montana and her family during this
difficult time,' said Kenneth Kollar of the Franklin Park/Schiller Park
Chamber of Commerce."
My old colleague Peter -- back from when we worked for the same publishing company that produced paper-based products -- e-mailed me and the rest of his family and friends today to tell us that he'd had a question published in Ask Tom Why. That's a daily column in the paper and electronic versions of the Chicago Tribune in which Tom Skilling, the local Duns Scotus of weather, fields weather-related questions. That is, he deals in catnip for weather nerds, and boy did he deliver today, discussing the odd cool April we've had this year, following the warm March.
Peter wrote: "First, here is the question I asked Mr. Skilling:
"Dear Tom, 'Could you elaborate on the spring of 1907? As you say, it was the other time April ended up colder than March. But in that case it was a slightly mild March followed by a brutally cold April. And if that wasn't enough, that May was also among the coldest ever. We might be farther ahead with spring foliage now, than the end of May/start of June that year.'
"He cut short the question, but answered it well enough:
"Dear Tom, 'Could you elaborate on the spring of 1907, when the only April other than the current one ended up colder than the preceding March?'
"Dear Pete, 'March 1907, averaging 42.6 degrees, was nothing like our historically warm March 2012, which averaged 53.5 degrees. March 1907 was cool through the 20th, with the highest reading only reaching 63 degrees. The end of the month turned considerably warmer, with five days in the 70s and the month's high of 80 on March 23. April (average temperature 39.8 degrees) and May (51.6 degrees) were both very chilly and well below normal. April's highest temperature was just 70, and May -- which notched a lone 80 -- even logged a 1.3-inch snowfall on the 3rd. The summer that followed was cool with all three months averaging below normal. There were only four 90-degree days and the season's highest reading was just 92, recorded on Aug. 11 and Sept. 1.'
The early spring means greening grass, but most of the trees are holding off. For all I know, it's the hours of daylight that touch of their leafing, not the ambient temperature. Mostly. A few are budding. Are they the bold pioneers in the arboral realm, or recklessly impatient? Thinking like that only goes to show that there's nothing than can't be anthropomorphized.
It's also the season of robocalls. At least until tomorrow, when Illinois holds its primary. The calls were pretty thick today, including the following, which my answering machine recorded and which I will transcribe verbatim, after the part in which the two speakers on the call introduced themselves. Why? It might be of interest someday when scholars ponder the opinions of the trog right at this moment in history.
First, a male and female voice introduce themselves by name, with the man identifying himself as a "Jew from Massachusetts." Then the woman says, "I'm a Christian from California. If you believe, as we do, that marriage and sexuality should only be between a man and a woman, please help us stop Mitt Romney."
Male voice: "As governor, Romney started gay youth pride day proclamations, promoted homosexuality in our elementary schools, and unconstitutionally ordered officials to make Massachusetts America's first same-sex marriage state."
Female voice: "Romney supports open homosexuality in the military, appointment of homosexual judges, and the ENDA law, making it illegal to fire a man who wears a dress and high heels to work, even if he's your child's teacher."
Male voice: "When you vote tomorrow, please vote for social sanity and Rick Santorum, not for homosexuality and Mitt Romney."
Female voice: "Rick Santorum is the only candidate who can be trusted to uphold traditional marriage, a straight military, and the rights of American children to have both a mother and a father."
Male voice: "This message paid for by Jews and Christians Together Dot Org," after which he gave a phone number.
This isn't a political blog, but for crying out loud. Is this what the Grand Old Party is coming to? The party of Lincoln and TR and Eisenhower and even Nixon and Reagan? The rational members of the party better hope not. To paraphrase Sgt. Bat Guano, some of these "core" constituents are all worked up imagining that the nation's deviated preverts are organizing some kind of mutiny of preverts. Well, I suppose it's tough to be on the losing side of social change, and not to have any real justification for reinstating the old prejudices.
This isn't March, it's June. Without much of the insects or greenery. A record high today. And they say it's going to last a few more days. I did not, did not want to be inside working today, but a number of items needed to be filed immediately if not sooner (it's always that way in the word biz). With any luck, we will still be able to luxuriate in the weird warm March over the weekend.
Not much time for idle blogging either, but my thousand words is posted with the pic of purple flowers growing near the garage. That flora has more faith in the continuousness of warm weather than I do -- there's got to be another cold snap soon. Maybe the entire month of April.
Saturday was warmish, so Ann and I visited Spring Valley, as we did about a year ago, before the plants start to green or many insects buzz around. The burned land we saw last year isn't blackened any more, and I expect it'll be verdant indeed in a couple of months.
This path wasn't in the controlled burn area.
Had a nice time near the pond, too. From the dock I spotted a large tadpole swimming near the bottom, about a foot down. He must be ahead of his tadpole comrades, since he was the only one around, and we spent a while looking for another, but no luck.
Sunday was even warmer, about 70° F. We all went to Mallard Lake Forest Preserve, which is now open again after some kind of wetland restoration work. It's also still mostly brown, but we did meet a few clouds of gnats and, off in the distance, saw a large flock of geese. They weren't going anywhere, but flocking in a sizable number high up in the sky. At times like that I think of The Birds.
We had a regular winter-like snowstorm starting last Thursday and continuing well into Friday morning. Not a blizzard, but a nice steady snowfall. On Friday morning, the view out the front door looked like this.
And from the back door.
It was wet, sticky snow. Note the way the snow coated the tree limbs -- it's been a while since we've seen that. In fact, we haven't seen that kind of winter dandification of the local flora all season. But the coating was the first to go, lasting only a few hours. Now, on Monday, almost all of the snow has melted. It's been that kind of winter. Suits me.
One year we visited the Morton Arboretum after an early March snowstorm that had coated the trees in exactly the same way. It was stunning -- something like this, if you can imagine being in the picture. Later, I found and bought a postcard at the arboretum that pictured the exact winter scene I'd just experienced. Rare are the times I get to be in a postcard.
Word from my brother this morning is that Deb is doing a little better, though she's still in intensive care and has (as he put it) a "deep dark woods" to go through before recovery. I was glad to hear that she's no worse; every time I've seen a family member on caller ID recently, I've worried that it would be very bad news.
Closer to home, today was a warmish, un-February-like day. I got to see it mostly sitting at my desk, which is my worktable for sentence and paragraph assembly, where they are cut and fit into the overall architecture of whatever article I happen to be working on. My long-working Brother printer had its final breakdown early in January and -- I would never have thought this possible -- much of what I do now never sees paper.
For articles more than about 1,000 words, I still prefer a printed copy for line editing and proofreading before I file it, and so have been printing them out at the public library for 8¢ a page. But that isn't something I need to do every day, so I haven't replaced the printer. I've looked around, though, and I see some remarkable wireless printers for not so much money. I'm not sure they were even on the market when I got the old one in 2005.
Also visible from my window today: a parade of dogs and their walkers. There are always some, but the weather seems to have brought out more. The dogs are very fond of peeing on the two large rocks -- small boulders -- next to the sidewalk in the front yard, which have been visible since we had the bushes growing around them removed last fall. This activity counts as canine texting, I suppose, and the rocks are their medium.
The contrast between the end of January this year and last year is remarkable -- and so I'm remarking on it. Today was so much like a random day at the end of March I sat on the deck for a few minutes around noon, wearing a jacket instead of a coat, and enjoyed it. The Sun wasn't high, but bright and warm. The wind blew, and while it was a little too cool for comfort, it was no biting winter wind.
The only thing missing, I thought, was a small patch of crocuses emerging from a spot next to the deck. They're always the first flowers, usually rising in late February or early March. And then I noticed them, peeking out today.
Wow. Could it be that winter was only about three weeks long this year? Probably not. February could still drop the hammer on us, and it would be a pretty heavy hammer.
Sure enough, we had a "snow event" today. Not a dramatic blizzard, just a steady snowfall starting at about 9 a.m. and continuing lightly even now. It's adding up, but not enough to impede ground travel that much. I ducked outside for a moment at about 3 p.m. for the customary first-snow snapshot. This was the view from the back door, looking roughly southwest.
We're ready for it. Ann was ready for it weeks ago, often sporting the cap she got for Christmas.
All Saints' Day turned out warmer than Halloween, even in the evening, with a touch of wind and a clear sky. Jupiter is riding high these evenings.
For years I never could remember which was All Saints' and which All Souls', even though I know All Hallows' Eve is the giveaway. Not that anyone asked or tested me on that; I just like to know my calendar. Anyway, all the saints come first. Of course they do. Hierarchy is hierarchy.
Never as common as Christmas decorations, Halloween decorations disappear a lot more quickly too. I took note of the remaining Halloween decorations when driving a few hours ago. Only handful of lights remain, plus a few glowing inflatables. Good riddance for most of those inflatables, I say. Really, what's the excuse for this?
Then again, Scooby and his pals do seem to run into fake ghouls with alarming regularity. Every day is Halloween for that crew.
On days like today, I find my way to Wiki lists such as "List of longest ruling non-royal national leaders." According to that list, the late and not lamented Col. Gaddafi came in at number four, behind such other tyrannic notables as Castro, Chiang Kai-shek and Kim Il-sung. As usual with Wiki, grains of salt are in order. For instance, it counts Castro as "out of office," and while that might be true in some technical sense, it's hard to believe he still isn't boss.
Number five on the list is the amusingly named (to our ears) Omar Bongo of Gabon (died 2009). The name probably isn't so amusing if you live there, especially since the strongman's son, Ali Bongo, is now president.
Coloration and leaf-drop is pretty far along here in northern Illinois. Not long ago I caught some trees in transition.
And one far along yellow.
Others are completely bare, here in the full flush of fall. The mood of the season inspires me to look for sentimental poetry with an autumnal theme. I didn't know until today that Iggy Pop did a version of "Les Feuilles mortes," and a pretty one at that.
Cool rain ahead, they say. Today seemed to be the last day I could eat lunch on my back-yard deck in some comfort, so I did. A leaf fell into my drink. But that's better than attracting bees, as al fresco summertime lunches sometimes do.
The last lawn mowing of the year was recently as well. Maybe. Part of the function this time of the year is to deal with leaves without raking them.
Gumby gets a Google doodle? Really? Or rather, Art Clokey, the creator of Gumby, is the honoree. His claymation artistry should be acknowledged, I guess, but Gumby the character? Gumby was shown on weekday afternoon kid shows when I was a kid, but I never could get that excited about it.
Yet I'm (sometimes) willing to revise my opinions in the light of new experience, so I looked up an episode of Gumby easily available on YouTube, an early '60s one called "Scrooge Loose," and watched it. Obviously a lot of work on the part of Clokey and his staff, but otherwise I'm still not that impressed, though I did chuckle once.
Fine weather for the equinox and the weekend just past. So on Saturday we had to go somewhere for a walk. Such as the Poplar Creek Forest Preserve. It has the largest field of goldenrod I've ever seen.
Very late in the evening on Sunday, cool wind blew in, along with rain. It's been raining on and off since then, creating cold puddles and the first large scattering of leaves we've had this year, though most of the foliage is still green and hanging on.
Rainy days aren't necessarily melancholy. I'll bet the recent rains in Texas were happy rains, considering how bad the drought has been. But today's rain, here in the cooling North, had a melancholy vibe. Summer's gone. Pack it away. Get out your jackets and coats. Blink and January will be here.
Just the kind of day to listen to one or more of the many versions of "September Song," such as this one by Sarah Vaughan. She also did a cover of "September in the Rain," but if you listen closely to the lyrics -- as I never did until today -- it's actually a fairly cheerful song.
School's out and Lilly reported attending a water-balloon fight at a friend's house today, followed by swimming at a nearby outdoor pool. Ann took up the task, after the heat of the day was wearing off, of learning to ride a bike without training wheels. It can hardly be much more summer than all that, especially considering that today was the third day in a row over 90° F. But tomorrow will be 20° cooler. Such are Northern summers.
More from the Skokie Northshore Sculpture Park. This is the painted steel "Revival," backed in this shot by one of the tall willows near the banks of the North Shore Channel. Sculptor: Joseph Eisenhauer of North Carolina.
"Baile de Alacrán," a work of galvanized steel by Ted Garner, who is this fellow, also known as Ted Sitting Crow Garner, of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
"Inside Plant," a welded steel work by Andy Zimmermann, originally from West Virginia.
This is what the work looks like, looking up from where Lilly was standing.
We've pretty much skipped spring and gone on to summer. I know that because after dark yesterday I could open my car windows while driving and enjoy the wind. Also, a little later, while taking out the trash, I saw the Summer Triangle. Not riding as high as it will be later, but still there in the eastern sky. Closer to home, junebugs are clinging to our window- and door screens. A lot of them, more than during any recent year. Maybe the cold spring energized them somehow.
Illinois is notoriously flat, so anyplace that's not-flat is going to get some attention. So it is with Starved Rock State Park, which despite flooding last weekend, had a lot of visitors, us included. In its pamphlet describing the park, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources says: "[There are] 18 canyons formed by glacial meltwater and stream erosion. They slice dramatically through tree-covered, sandstone bluffs for four miles... The park is best known for its rock formations, primarily St. Peter sandstone, laid down in a huge shallow inland sea more than 425 million years ago and later brought to the surface."
Ancient sea beds, in other words, acted upon by forces recent in geological terms -- glacial meltwater busting through moraines toward the end of the last Ice Age. Once the glaciers were gone, streams that still flow, fed by snowmelt and rainwater, took over the task of erosion. Did they ever flow while we were there, coursing through solid-looking canyons. But if I understand the lessons of Deep Time, the canyon walls are in motion too. The present shapes will not be there for distant posterity, if any; other, unpredictable shapes will be.
For the geological moment, anyway, what you get at Starved Rock are some fine waterfalls. Such as this one, which was actually one of two crashing down into Wildcat Canyon. The other fall was to the left of the one I photographed, exactly the same height but a little less volume.
The trail led from a boardwalk along the river back to an intensely muddy patch within view of the falls, but not close enough to satisfy the urge to stand (almost) under the falls. So we crossed the mud and came to the edge of the stream created by the falls. Surprisingly, the current wasn't so rapid that we couldn't wade across it to a pebbly flat much closer to the falls, as the knot of people in the photo had done just ahead of us.
The water was cold, but not icy. The mud was soft, but not gooey. The roar of the falls was distinct, but not deafening. Yep, summer's here, complete with mud on my toes and waterfall spray in my face.
Another certainty of spring: the ice cream trucks will come. And one did today, late in the afternoon, but just driving quietly down my street, not marking its passage with "Turkey in the Straw." How that song survived its minstrel days to become an enduring tune for marketing ice cream treats from trucks is a question for the ages. Or at least not something I need to look into right now.
A truck probably came by yesterday, which was warm, partly cloudy and pleasant. Kids were out in force on our suburban lawns, and maybe itching for ice cream. Most of my outdoors time was in the back yard, or more exactly the deck, so I might have missed any trucks. We have two new -- as in recently acquired from a Japanese family returning home, that is, so new to us -- deck chairs that needed to be broken in. They are reclinable, something like dental chairs, except that you move it by shifting your weight, rather than letting a small motor do the work.
The back yard honey locust hasn't shown its chlorophyll just yet. That will be along in another few weeks. Still, I wanted to position my chair under whatever shade the tree could provide.
This was the view from my chair just past noon on Sunday, May 8. The Earth kept moving, making small adjustments necessary every few minutes to keep the chair in a shady spot. But I can't complain. All problems should be so straightforward.
Cold nights but warmish days. It was dry enough yesterday for me to mow both the front and back lawns, the first time of '11. Old habits of mowing re-asserted themselves: this patch of ground, then another one, then another, in a certain order. There were some extra tasks that came along with the first mowing of the season, however, such as trash collection from the outer reaches of the back yard, hard along the fence.
During the dead of winter, there's little reason to venture out that way, and so stray things collect there. Mysterious things. Just where did that small bent-and-spent can of Silly String come from? No matter, it has to go, since I don't want to run over it with the mower. That machine is old and beat up enough as it is.
It didn't take long to get back into the mowing groove. Grass became shorter and dandelions by the score had their salient parts cut away. But they'll be back. Were back, in fact, as of this afternoon. Some call them weeds. I call them visible evidence of biodiversity on my little part of the Earth.
Warm enough to read outside this afternoon -- 1861, but I didn't have enough time for much of it, as usual. (Though I did read an interesting section about the Wide Awakes.) The grass has greened up, bushes are budding, and early flowers face the sun. A few pioneering insects are out and about.
At Moraine Hills State Park last weekend, frog-song was my favorite harbinger of spring. It was warm enough to drive with the windows down, and the distinct sound of throaty frogs rose from the ponds near the road. No doubt singing the chorus common to male creatures: pick-me pick-me pick-me pick-me pick-me.
Or maybe the more harmonious among them were singing the amphibian equivalent of this. Being cold-blooded, they don't experience fever, but then again the song isn't talking about literal fever anyway.
It isn't exactly a springtime thing -- there's no tradition of this in Japan that I know of -- but recently Yuriko fried some gyoza (potsticker) wrappers in olive oil and then sprinkled them with powdered sugar.
Crispy and sweet. They were a big hit with everyone who lives here.
Spring Break has arrived, more or less. It's a faint occasion for me, since I'll be working next week, but the girls are off starting Saturday, which will certainly change the tone of life around the house during the day. Posting will resume on March 27.
Spring is nearly here, too. This morning I heard a woodpecker and then saw it on a tree limb not far from my front yard. I spotted some robins and the very first croci peeping out. The largest piles of snow on nearby blacktops, mostly accumulated in February -- mostly on February 1 -- are finally gone.
Best of all, I ate lunch today on my backyard deck. Not ideal for an alfresco lunch, since it was overcast and windy, and I needed a jacket, but simple fact of eating outside was enough. I even saw a fly buzzing around the planks of the deck, but it was too sluggish to make a run at my lunch.
I was glad to see that Messenger has successfully entered into orbit around Mercury, the first spaceship ever to do so, which happened just a short time ago. Another marvel of the age. Something I'm more than glad to pay taxes to support.
I didn't realize until reading about the craft recently that the name's actually a tortured acronym: MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging. I'd assumed it wasn't quite so literal a name. You know, humanity's messenger to the inner Solar System. Just a quibble. Even after more than five decades of space flight, it's still a signal achievement.
I've pontificated on St. Patrick's Day before, and so far we're no closer to a time when North American calendar makers also include St. David, St. George and St. Andrew as a matter of course, but never mind. Ann came home today and wondered out loud whether any leprechauns were going to be around this evening. I said no, it's really hard for them to get visas these days. She paid me no mind.
Here's something suitably Irish for the feast day of St. Patrick. A creation of lads from Limerick, in fact, and something not suitable for your children or your workplace, unless you work, say, at a tattoo parlor.
Location: Suburban Chicago, Illinois, United States
By vocation, I am one of the most widely published commercial real estate writers in the United States. Writing about dead presidents is more fun, though.
