Some things to think about (or not)

 

10.16.24 by wildwoodblessing - Grandfather mountain, North Carolina, first but slight snowfall.

Oct 21, 2024 at noon. NOA view of my area, with North Carolina totally cloudless. (I wonder who drew the lines of the states and even counties, against the photo of the land!) 

This is day 31 since Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina.  I'm sort of wanting to understand this continued dry spell following the storm which carried so much water. Is it all used up and we now will feel drought conditions? we actually were experiencing almost a drought before the 2 storms hit us, with Helene following a two day steady rain.

"It's curious that when WaPo, WSJ and NYT do articles on the relationship between recent hurricanes, such as Helene and Milton, and global warming, they cite and quote media personalities and politicians... but very rarely talk to or quote actual climate scientists who are specialized and published in this area. Just more evidence of the inability of most news editors to grapple with actual science scholarship. It's pathetic."  Facebook post 10.24.24 by Robert Scott Horton

Comment by Elisha Lee: NOAA NWS Weather Prediction Center is a great resource as is U.S. National Weather Service (NWS)

I find these words wise, but haven't figured out how to apply them to my confusion.

Art by Akira Kusaka

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Quote for the day:

Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.

L.R. KNOST ----------  Skipping a photo of the devastation today...but there are so many more.

Weather vs climate

 Every year, when it’s a particularly chilly day, some people can be heard mumbling “Whatever happened to global warming?”

Weather is not the same as climate. One is short-term fluctuations, the other long-term trends. Denialists fail to acknowledge the long term.

And it’s more than just higher temperatures. It’s more severe tornadoes, forest fires, flooding, droughts, and heat waves. What scientists are concerned about is climate change.

Climate change denialists miss the big picture. They look at the trees, but fail to see the forest.

We here in North Carolina are having smoke from Canada and New Jersey fires give us moderate particulates in our air, so I can't walk outside without a mask (at least if I wanted to exercise.) 

We are indeed suffering from Climate Change. Our weather patterns fluctuate at extremes...and it's nice that there are scientists interested in telling us about them. But we need the people making and enforcing laws to do something with the industrially caused pollutions. 

So I'll keep using what I have to make people aware of Climate Change. My voice. My vote. My purse.

Check out my post: Big Oil vs Vanessa from Uganda, Greta from Sweden, Helena from Ecuador, Luisa from Germany

That post gave a good overview of how these meetings go...well organized so people with a specific cause can be heard.

But as always...this effort needs to go towards those who can really change things who are industrialists and government bodies. Getting them aware is a step that has proved very difficult. Deniers are everywhere, and staying perfectly comfortable.

Who voted for a candidate in the last election that even mentioned what he/she was going to do for our environment?

There's that.

How Climate Change Makes Winter Weather Worse

 PBS Newshour shared this.

The part of a waterfall I could visit

Yesterday was so wonderful (after my full weekend with the family in super weather) with clouds and cool air, open windows as I again sat at my desk to start writing new blog posts. And though many blog friends are suffering in droughts, we will be getting rain again in the next day or so. 

But here's part of my memories...

The pond which was on the map of the B&B mansion/cabin...we had to check it out first Sat. morning. 

Some folks were fishing from this floating pier. 

Our OH girls were not thinking this was where they'd swim and sun...though some other visitors arrived as we left, brining lots of big floats upon which to go float around the lake.

We were able to park close to this nice shelter with the "stone table." No other explanation was given, but it appeared the shelter was built around it, with the logs going through the floor. Aslan comments were made aka C. S. Lewis and the Narnia chronicles.

Nobody much heeded this weird sign.

Having found that even with my walking stick, climbing steps either direction was really hard for me, I limited my hiking in the mountainous terrain. As a fully integrated (vs. wilderness) Appalachian area with many switchback roads, the area near Lake Lure, just south of Old Fort NC is mainly trees...not like the Rocky Mountains at all.

Me in the blue hat at Upper Falls

The Upper Falls...I sat out the trek to the lower falls however...playing with kaleidoscope app with my grandson.

I enjoy a portrait full of hearts, feeling the love!

The other family members went to the lower falls, then hiked back up to where we were. 

I'm glad they took some photos. It really does look worth the hike...maybe next time!

Sharing  with Skywatch Friday

Today's quote:

When I approach a child, he inspires in me two sentiments; tenderness for what he is, and respect for what he may become. -Louis Pasteur, chemist and bacteriologist (27 Dec 1822-1895)

Why I sit looking out windows

 I like how the clouds bringing rain always come from over the ridge to the south.

The rain had fallen for a while, so a blue sky was visible for a few minutes, and an unusual swath of sunshine on the far side of the valley...but not to last!

Below is my panoramic shot from the iPhone...it squeezes the apartment building pretty badly, but there are all the trees and mountains I see daily...with a bit of reflection from the window of my kitchen light across the tree on the right end.

I can read emails, make comments on blogs, and occasionally get up and take a photo through the window. As you may have noticed, very few of our residents go out. I was surprised at that. Or maybe I'm looking at the screen when they do go down the long walkways.  Of course a few minutes after taking these photos, I got up and went to do my physical therapy exercises on the floor. They are helping so much, but getting back up from the floor is still one of the hardest moves to do! (And no, I shant be sharing any photos of me there!)

The weather

I'm writing this yesterday morning. I got up early, hoping there was snowfall. Not a drop (flake).

I did all my morning routines, and now it's 9:40, and the mountain ridge across the valley shows some clouds dropping down, starting on the lower edges of the ridge line, then all the way to Big Windy Mountain. I can still see the YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly's red roof across the interstate highway. Cars and trucks are still zooming left to right, right to left. There's very little wind in the tall maple boughs that I look through to see all these details.

We've had a forecast that was so severe, the county canceled all their schools by 8:00 pm yesterday for the next day, Thursday. So we've been waiting all morning.

I did my laundromat trip and grocery shopping Wednesday, a cold grey but dry day. So I've got lots of veggies and fruits and breads. Going vegetarian has taken a bit of getting used to in grocery shopping. I tend to over-do it and can't possibly eat all this produce in a week.  Asparagus, grapefruit, mushrooms, bananas, blueberries, avocados, tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, tiny tangerines, sweet potatoes, ice cream, coffee and creamer, orange juice and beer, dairy products and breads of every flavor imaginable! A meal might come out of these, or not. Some of these I have 2 dozen servings, and some just one. But I do only shop every other week. My goal is one fruit, one veggie, one milk product and one bread a day.

And by the time this is published early Friday, before the sun arrives, it will either be wet, or dry, or white, or frozen, or not.

The way our weather arrives, coming over the ridge to the south...usually slowly, sometimes it seems to hang there for hours. 

11:30 am 2/20/20 - no more view of mountain ridge, Assembly roof, or interstate...we're in the cloud of flakes, and it probably won't stick for a while, but colder air is coming.

Around 7 the flurries stopped, and it was just a bit below freezing. Due to be sunny on Friday. But schools in Buncombe County are canceled again, from black ice danger on roads, I guess.

What's with high of 68 degrees?

It's still only August 25, and went down into the 50s last night. Today when I left for church I went back inside to get a wrap...just a piece of fabric that became my shawl. Yesterday (well a week ago) it had covered an altar.  And then it was in the high 80s each day. Other places in the US were sweltering, and this just a few weeks after Europe suffered a terrible heat wave.

So to have damp cool days suddenly is strange, though due to a cold front that slipped south, so sayeth the weather guy.  I  just decided the middle of August had been the peak of summer.

And now the last week of August begins with fall weather.  I wonder if/how long it will last.  Weather people say...this is going to continue till Tues, and by Wed. we'll get up to 80 78 again. But the nights will still be in the 50s! Amazing.

OK, enough talk about the weather.  I'm hostessing a friend from Florida this week. So we'll be traveling around doing some touristy stuff...and I'll probably share some photos here, there or yon.

I'm looking forward to seeing things around me with her new eyes.

Weather doing just fine!

Pardon me, a journal entry is needed this morning!

It's so cool outside, I had to close the bedroom window halfway through the night. Glad I did because, drum roll here, it rained a bit sometime before dawn.  I know because I got up with the sun for a change.
And having made my warmed-over coffee, I took it outside to sit in my canvass chair on the porch.

Oh no, nothing doing! It had been left out to the sky, and received plenty of damp!
My dear little plants may have been watered regularly while we've soared to 90 almost daily. But they were just smiling (you know like plants do) and perked up their leaves and flowers like happy kittens.

 8 am there are 3 new little sprouts peeking out of the dirt...they are 4 o'clocks! My plants with seeds last year gave me these! Whoopee!

So coffee sits here next to laptop. And I blog a bit, then sip. It is getting cold just like it did in the winter, when I also sat here in my sweater and reheated the coffee a few times before it was all gone.  Believe me I'm not complaining.

The second topic on my mind will become another post...about the healing powers of the woods, as suggested by Terri Windling on her blog in Britain.

And thirdly. But before I hit "post" for this, I must make a reminder to self. Hey Barb, you haven't gone to all those dental visits without having learned that Novocaine wears off, and THEN you need the ibuprofen. So today I had a minor filling done, but she gave me a last extra dose of Novocaine, when I kept cringing as she blew that cold air on the cleaned out cavity...must have some nerve that was exposed.  But I found out that I could have real pain with my cheek all swollen up, and my lips not working right...as well as not being able to chew because I kept chewing  my inner cheek. But I was really hurting when the drug wore off. I quickly took my iburpofen...and put a warm compress on my very sore cheek. Then I curled up in bed and took a nap.  When I woke up I continued to eat soft food. I will try to remember to be proactive (which I've always done in the past) and take the ibuprofen as soon as I get home even though I'm still numb!

Winter is almost over

There is a quiet humility about the earth in the winter months, as animals and people retreat inside to do their deep work. 
From Daily Om...by Madisyn Taylor.

It seems as though the inner work is almost done...as we have 10  8 more days till Spring Equinox!

Of course those folks south of the equator will start having cooler days, as we get the warmth returning.

Today it's suddenly cold and rainy, though it wasn't supposed to be.  Poor weather folk.  They can only do so much.  A local church said pretty much the same on a radio broadcast today.  Saying the weathermen can predict but they are often wrong, so put your faith into the One and only who does know what's going to happen.  I was amazed that God now needs radio ads.

It's a make-some-soup day for me.  I've got lots of root crops, and just got a bunch of chopped cilantro, which of course will garnish my soup nicely.  Or perhaps the tomatoes which were beginning to go bad...and are now soaking in soapy water.  They will fit nicely with cilantro and some mixed greens.  But wait, I'm running around so much this week, when will I have time to make soups and salads? Well, I'll find a way.  Where's that crockpot?

Today is planned to take some pottery to a gallery and leave it for a month or more.  All Creatures Great and Small, at the Swannanoa Valley Fine Arts League...in their Red House gallery.  

I'm making less functional things now, and enjoying sculpting different kinds of things.  How about a big globular shape with some heads coming out of it?  Well, so far that's what's happening with the latest piece.  

Another weather report - how dull

My life has been put on some kind of hold.  I don't do what I plan to do. I can't get into the BMCA clay studio till Monday because of flooding.  That's ok.

 I need to lie down and take a nap at least once a day.  And lying down I just fall asleep and wake up and go back to sleep for hours.  Drat and darn.

So that's how I'm not doing what a week ago I thought I would be doing.

I'm also eating easy fixing things...lots of soup, toast, bagels, fruit, and some fast food.  I have the fixings for a good soup, but haven't cleaned up the kitchen for a few days.  So it's not a good idea to make a bigger mess yet.

Maybe soon.

See, my health report is duller than the weather report.  Snow is mostly gone now, after a day and half of steady rain, light but cold.

Counting down 20 days to go...

I'm trying to do nebulizer while typing on laptop.  It's a bit of a circus trick.  But since I must sit here by machine, why not do a bit of chatting after reading my emails, Facebook friend's posts, and blog friends?

I've been slammed, so didn't have time to write or even compose anything yesterday.  I did a bit of research on ancestors in between people coming into the Swannanoa Valley History Museum, where I've begun work as a docent.  It was supposed to be a pretty dull job with few visitors (ha ha.)  But it's been raining solidly for 3 days now, and that means tourists have to find things to do indoors.  So where last week only 2 or 3 people would visit during a shift (before I started) this week there were 15 people in the 3-1/2 hours I was there Wed. afternoon and again 16 on Thurs. morning.

I'm still (for now) a volunteerat the Clay Studio at Black Mountain Center for the Arts.  It's right next door to the History Museum.  So when I was at the Clay Studio I didn't really do much but work glazing my own pieces.

And when I came home and had put my feet up while watching the news, I decided to take that chicken carcass out of the fridge and make some soup stock.  Then I noticed of course the last of the veggies which needed to be used to make soup. 

That meant an hour of chopping and sauteing, and picking the meat off the bones, then putting it all together.  It was delicious.  Did I mention washing the pans and dishes? That's 'cause I haven't done them yet.  They are piled in the sink and on the counter still. This afternoon I'll have time and energy for that job.

And now I'm getting ready to go to Yoga which I'm going to try to do again.  I have just been lying on top of my bed stretching a few different ways, so this will mean getting down (and up again) on the floor.  That will be the biggest challenge for me.  But I really don't want to do chair yoga.

After that class it will be about time for lunch at the Lakeview Center for Active Seniors.  We have recently lost our recreation director and assistant director, so the activities are suffering a bit.  But the Council on Aging provides these low cost nutritious meals.  They tend to be high carbs, so I have to skip some of them...have to work on what my stomach can handle.  That's the joy of aging again.

The weather has been a thing to deal with in a different way than most of us anticipated the first week of Aug. Last week we dealt with 90 degree afternoons, which usually cooled off into the 70s at night. Many people wanted to be out in the woods, and only the most hardy are geared up for constant rain and wet leaves and mud and puddles and streams.  The nights are in the 60s now, and my air conditioner doesn't kick in at all.  The choice is to either open windows and get humidity and some fresh air, or run the fans on the units so there isn't any mold thinking of growing.  With my allergies I do the latter.  I turn them off at night and run them all day, just moving air around.  I kick the a.c. on when it feels too hot inside...and that is hard when it's so cool with the rain.  Decisions, decisions.

still here

Well, you know what I was doing those 2 days it was 70 outside...don't cha?
The chair is out in the drive /patio, and a table next to it.  I've finished several Laurie R. King books this week...and I did put sunblock on my face too!
Then the winds came...and the chill returned.
Why do I think this March should be any different than most of them?
The daffodils have survived 2 nights in the 20s.
And today we're going back up to 58.

Yesterday's sunshine was only 40 degrees.  But let's not measure our lives by the temperature, the wind, or the rain and/or snow.  Sun and clouds are part of our cycles.

My life is to be measured thus.  I saw this on FaceBook the other day, and saved it. I need to read it again and again.  Thus another cycle.  Learn, forget, learn, try to live it, forget for a while, learn again.

And before you read it, part of its poignancy to me is that I've been doing a sinus cleanse for the last month by drizzling salt water through my nostrils once a day.  Lots of saline fluid has helped my allergies.  So now to raise that to another level...

An ageing master grew tired of his apprentice’s complaints. One morning, he sent him to get some salt. When the apprentice returned, the master told him to mix a handful of salt in a glass of water and then drink it.
“How does it taste?” the master asked.
“Bitter,” said the apprentice.
The master chuckled and then asked the young man to take the same handful of salt and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby lake and once the apprentice swirled his handful of salt in the water, the old man said, “Now drink from the lake.”
As the water dripped down the young man’s chin, the master asked, “How does it taste?”
“Fresh,” remarked the apprentice.
“Do you taste the salt?” asked the master.
“No,” said the young man. At this the master sat beside this serious young man, and explained softly,
“The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains exactly the same. However, the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container we put the pain in. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things. Stop being a glass. Become a lake.”
~ Meditation Masters

In the clouds

Enjoying cool morning breezes...with some rain intermittently.  The new gutters on this side of the cottage sound enough different that I had to pay attention to them the first rain after they were installed.  And the neighbor's house no longer has the metal carport roof, which used to sing with raindrops...so the symphony with rain has been changing.

I can't say the weather has been changing, because it's been mostly cool and wet all summer here in Western North Carolina.  It does heat up into the 80s in the afternoon, frequently with bright sun.  But this isn't a year with any 90 degree hot afternoons.

 And now September means a cusp is coming of more coolness and more darkness.  Soon the equinox will give us that dance of our earth as it balances fragiley away from then towards the sun.  I have also noticed more sunshine coming in my south facing windows earlier, which tells me the earth has started on it's tilt a bit earlier.  Of course it hasn't, but my recollection of it's angle into the room must have forgotten that by the time equinox comes, sun will shine through the windows at noon about a foot into the room.  By solstice it will shine about 5 feet into the room

I'll be posting some of the gorgeous clouds on my other blog, Living in Black Mountain, from my recent tour of the Blue Ridge Parkway.