Saturday, May 8, 2010

May the 8th & SNOW

It's happened before but it's always an insult when the first of May arrives and snow comes after that date. We had very high winds today and the precipitation began in the form of rain, then, this afternoon turned to snow showers, quite dense at times...my car is blanketed in light snow...and then the power went out as I was roasting the first of the two legs of lamb I do a year. It was cooked by an hour, then the power cut out and later, waiting for the power to go on, I finally put it on top of the wood stove, covered it with foil and all I can say is that it's a good thing Jock can digest rare meat...I can't...not now. So the two fires are going, one in the front, one in the back of the house and Hope announced that she couldn't shed her 'furry' coat and would we please open the doors, windows or whatever...she's cooking and panting. We go from 75F to snow in less than one week. The one thing about weather here in Ontario is that it's never the same and often unexpected.

The rhubarb has come in early...thanks to the early hot days...and now I'm facing many loaves of rhubarb ahead of me making use of it. It freezes well.

I understand the flood waters are receeding in Tennessee, Doris. But what damage. Hard to comprehend how all that business section could have been under water.

Mother's Day tomorrow and two of my three 'adult' kids will be here with their families and bringing the luncheon. I am to contribute a lettuce, apple, cilantro, dried cranberry and toasted almond salad.

Rosey

Friday, May 7, 2010

Saturday morning ..

Not a lot to say this morning but thought I would pop in anyway. The flooding in Tennessee looks frightening. We have had a lot of coverage of it here. We live in an age of instant information. We had a small fire along the road from here this week. A farmer was "burning off" a paddock after harvesting, it got out of control and the fire spread to the roadside planting. It must have been a slow day in the news department of the newspaper because it was mentioned in the paper the following day. My neighbour was woken by a friend in America, in the very early hours, to ask if the fire had affected her in any way. My neighbour knew nothing of the fire...her friend had been reading the NZ. paper on the internet .... It's all too much for me !
We've been enjoying some lovely Autumn weather. April was a lovely month here and May has started well. I've been enjoying "playing in the dirt" too. A bit of an autumn tidy-up going on and some planting for some winter colour. Not much quilting going on, I'm still struggling to finish a jig-saw, started by the grandsons when they were here....I haven't done one for years and I won't be starting another one in a hurry.!?

Friday morning in Minnesota

and it is raining. We are having gentle spring rains - with the possibility of snow, yes, snow, later today. And we are in southern MN. So the weather is crazy everywhere - but I can't imagine what it would be like to experience the flooding that Nashville is experiencing. You and your community are in our thoughts, Doris!

We have been getting organized for DD graduation - I am almost done going thru the yard replacing and moving perennials, edging all of the beds, etc. I have a tool that looks like a shovel with a flat blade and it makes a nice clean edge around the beds. Haven't done any pots or annuals in the ground yet - it is a little early (IMHO) but plan to get to that by next week-end. I do love playing in the dirt. I got a little bit of a late start on the yard work this year - Mid March my mom went into the hospital and was transferred the next day to Omaha ICU cardiac unit where she remained for 10 days, then 4 more days out of ICU. Even tho she hadn't even walked down the hallway on her own, they sent her home. Had my Iowa sister not driven over to take her to a dr. appointment a few days later I don't think she would be with us. I went down to Iowa for nine days, came back on Sun morning the 25th and she went back into the hospital on the 26th. I am happy to report that she was released Tuesday evening and, with home health care, will be remaining there. Needless to say I am fabric deprived at this point... I just reread the above - sounds depressing... Sorry about that. Like I said, I have been playing in the dirt almost all week and my yard is lookin' good. I'll take a few pictures so you can see what I see when I look out my window....Joleen in MN

This is a test

To see if I can post. Been trying the wwqpbbchat etc. thing for several days. I'm getting some interesting sites! Not quilt related though.
OK, we'll see if this goes through.
Sara in Fla.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Video link

You may have to copy & paste, as direct links don't work here. This video made me weep, and I've seen quite a few.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ExpressionsByMisti#p/u/0/pFjaQoOdJvI

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Floods

We saw the floods on TV last night. You poor dears, it looks as though it will take a while until the waters recede and then the mess to clean up . It makes me glad I live on a hill. It is getting much cooler here and going to rain today, the grass is so brown but too late for our farmers to get grass for the winter. It is costing them a fortune buying in feed when if the weather was the way it used to be they would have plenty. Our pets are getting the winter feeling and are following the sun all day. Nice for some!!!! Hugs to all and keep dry Doris. Bee in Nz

Piranhas

A few years ago someone caught one in a lake up here. So much for going swimming LOL

PIRANAHS

That's a perfect example of why we shouldn't be allowed to import any non-native species of plant or animal. Unintended consequences can be devastating. Let's hope the absence of salt in the water eventually kills them off and prevents them from adapting and reproducing. If not, it doesn't take a PH.D in biology to imagine the threat to the ecology of that river and, in time, every one in its drainage path to the Gulf of Mexico.

Jane

Opry Mills - flood

(cross-posting here and main BB page...)

My sister just told me about this news. It was probably on morning news while I was out walking:


Did you see on the local news this am where a restaurant in Opry Mills had a huge fish tank. It was a salt water tank and all of the fish died when the river water came in contact with it. EXCEPT the piranahs!!! They are now swimming around Opry Mills!!!


There was a large group of our BB Chat girls who converged on Nashville several years ago, and I was able to go to Opry Mills and eat lunch with them at the Rain Forest Cafe. This would most likely be the restaurant that had the fish tank. Aaaack. Piranahs . . . that's all we need.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Tennessee and flooding

Rosey P - Our terrain is what one would call hilly. In most of middle Tennessee, one can dig down eighteen inches (a half-meter) and hit solid limestone rock. This is one cause of our flooding. Once the ground water, from rain, hits that rock, it has nowhere to go, runs off, and causes floods. This is one reason most of our homes do not have basements unless, like mine, they are a "daylight" basement because the home is built on a slope, or a home is built higher off the ground and soil is graded up.
Our frost line is also only 18 inches deep, due to our mild winters, so foundations do not have to be dug down several feet like they are in our northern states and Canada. Once you dig down that far, you might as well have the basement, and y'all don't sit on rock like we do--- the reason our official state song is "Rocky Top", http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n9prNixjbg
and it is the unoffical school song of the University of Tennessee, in Knoxville. But I digress . . . ;o)
Most of our soil is a clay, not as pure clay as Georgia and Alabama, but lots of clay. It saturates quickly to a point, and then water runs off.

The creek that flooded I-24 on Saturday is prone to bad flooding, because so many minor creeks feed into it. I can't remember if I posted a link to the youtube.com video of that flood and remember---this is I-24, a federal interstate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XyRNt2Uur8 You have to see this, to believe it.

The previous official record for rain - in one day - in Nashville was six inches, set in 1979. The new record was set this weekend, topping it by 1.5" but that amount is measured at the airport, which did not receive as much as the rest of Nashville. Two days of rain, with both days receiving 8 - 11 inches each, is going to make a flood anywhere. The amount of rain is incomprehensible, except to those who live in hurricane areas, or the midwest where similar rains and flooding have occurred in recent years. Only now can I fully understand what those folks have experienced.

Pictures/Tennessee

Doris, they say a picture is worth a thousand words. The pictures on the news last night were shocking, just as your two pictures here. What I couldn't grasp was whether the part of Tennessee which has been flooded was flat; mulit-rivered throughout the city and if the sewer system was adequate. It's a pretty sobering image of something gone wrong, somehow. To build so many commercial buildings and have this happen, is unbelievable. The homes, on the Toronto news, were flooded half way to their roofs and more. Yes, your drinking water would be affected. This is likely going to be declared a national disaster. Your comment about those nasty creeks is interesting. Can you enlarge on that?

I've driven through Tennessee on our way to Florida a number of years and I don't think of it as a 'wet' state. Little do I know. I associate Tenn. with mountains and flat land and I remember one large river near I75 that we crossed but other than that, Tenn. was unremarkable in this regard from I75.

What are people going to do? How lucky for you to be where you are and higher than most.

Rosey

another photo


I love this newer blogger site! Here's another photo of downtown, hope it uploads.

photo


I don't know if this blog will let me post a photo, but if it does not work, copy & paste: http://cmsimg.tennessean.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Avis=DN&Dato=20100503&Kategori=PROMO&Lopenr=100503098&Ref=AR&MaxW=470&Border=0

Monday, May 3, 2010

P.S.

Sandy - forgot to answer your question. Hour house is nowhere near a river or creek and sits fairly high ground, as does much of our subdivision. I would call it dumb luck, but I am always leery of those innocent looking creeks. The creek that flooded I-24 on Saturday was the most fascinating. Here is a video of it at youtube.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5gYhLKwSp4

Nashville Flood

Sandy - We received an unprecedented 16" of rain in 36 hours. Too much rain came down too fast on too much developed land. That's the bottom line. My sister who lives 6 or 7 miles up the road got 19" in 36 hours.

Too many homes and industrial buildings have been built too close to the river, and Nashville is a large city (but nothing like Toronto) with buildings, roads and parking lots, so the water has nowhere to go but into creeks & rivers.

Interstate 40 was flooded in three places, on the west side of Nashville, from Saturday until this morning. It was literally shut down between Nashville and the Tennessee River.

Local news today reported on a man in a private airplane who flew to Nashville, had no clue about our flood, he was planning to land at Cornelia Fort Airpark (private planes only) and didn't realize it was under eight feet of water, and had no idea where to go, radioed for help.

Our local newspaper updates at least daily with a very good photo galleries:
http://www.tennessean.com/


Well-known landmarks with several feet of water in them:
--Titans football stadium
--Indoor arena downtown where rock concerts and NHL hockey games are held, to name a few activities
--New Schermorhorn Symphony Hall
--Country Music Hall of Fame
--Opryland Hotel (where AQS has had a show in Aug/Sept for many years)
--Opry Mills Outlet Mall (next door to OH)
--Grand Old Opry House
--2nd Avenue at Broadway - buildings & restuarants, popular tourist spot

The Cumberland River is expected to crest overnight at 52.5 feet. Most of the drinking water supply plants are flooded and we are at extremely high risk of having no water to drink - or use - for a long time, including our own suburb city and subdivision.

In Williamson County, the Harpeth River is flooded worse than ever seen before, hundreds of homes flooded here in Franklin.

This is equal to, if not worse, than the Atlanta flood this past September, which got national press coverage. However, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and carbomb in NYC have overshadowed our disaster.

We had a beautiful day here, low humidity and nice easy breeze. I got our garage almost dried out. Snoopy dance.

Tennessee Rains

Doris, the television news out of Toronto tonight showed the flooding in Tennessee and it's unblievable. Tell us how this happened. Was the flooding in low land; near rivers, an accumulation of rain that the sewers couldn't take off...It's devastating. As Sara said, you had more rain than she's seen come with hurricanes at times. How did you manage to avoid being flooded out?

Rosey

How to train your human, indeed!

Yes, I need that book. Last night was a repeat of the 'get up with the dogs" theme.
The little one would jump off the bed, walk around, the other would follow, about 10 min. later they would come back. This went on until 3:30 Am when DH got up and let them out.
My sinuses were so bad I got up and took sudaphed, and chewable asprin about then.
Tonight they are both sleeping in the laundry room. Enough already.
We are supposed to get some of that rain tomorrow afternoon, after 2PM.
I'm checking out a new workout place in the morning.
Sara in hot Fla.

dogs

Jane in NC - LOL about the book you bought. If dogs only had opposible (sp?) thumbs they would rule the world.

FLOODS ETC

Wow, Doris. I thought of you today as I got up wondering how you are doing. Hope you and family are high and dry. Storms, as often happens here, hits the Smoky Mtns. with elevations up to 6,000 ft. and tend t veer off toward the north east. That's the reason the Ohio valley gets nasty weather in winter when it was headed straight toward us until hitting the mountains.

We had rain but no where near as significant as TN. We are soaked from so much precipitation this winter and spring and the soil, what there is of it, can take just so much. I'm afraid the local strawberry crop might be rotting before it's ready for harvest. That happened once before during the 18 years I've been here. I did see a sign that was offering local strawberries for, get this, $10 a gallon. Yikes that's high but one can't beat local produce.

The wildflowers were late this year due to unusually low temps in Feb.&Mar. but they are in profuse now. A walk on any of my favorite paths is just a joy. I had my hearing aids adjusted as I realized that I wasn't hearing the symphony of migrating warblers this year. Sadly, there are fewer each year due to deforestation in their wintering spots. Mother nature is my gardener and I don't have to pay her. My hostas, however, have reproduced in great numbers this year for the first time since they were planted. We had so much drought for so long things barely survived. I didn't water them much as I'm dependent on a well and many in the county were going dry.

Got back to the sewing machine yesterday after a two week hiatus and it felt good. Need some groceries and a serious work out so that's on today's schedule. I gained three pounds or more at the three day eating affair at DD#1's wedding. Yum, I had my fill of real Kosher bagels and smoked salmon. I got my only exercise dancing the Hora. This is looking familiar to me. Perhaps I've already posted these comments. Now that the sinus infection is beginning to subside it's time to get back to the gym.

TO DOG PEOPLE: I was in the local book store the other day to get one for new granddaughter's birthday and came home with three for me and one for her. One of them I grabbed on the way to the door and had to return to the cash register to pay for it. It is named "Training People", by Tess of Helena, subtitled "How to Bring Out the Best in Your Human". The ISBN number is 13 978 -0-8118-5835-9 in case you want a copy. It's very short and enlightening. I always suspected I'd been had by dogs and now I know how they accomplish this and make servants out of us all the while believing that we are in charge.

Jane

Sunday, May 2, 2010

rain, rain, go away!!!

After getting 8 inches of rain in our gauge yesterday, we've received yet another 7.75 inches today. My sister, who lives 7 miles north of me, has received a total of 18 inches this weekend. Yikes! The news has amazing video. Several people have died, so sad. LOTS of property damage everywhere, and roads washed out.

stuff

Good grief Doris, we've had hurricanes with less rain than that.
Hope the roof doesn't leak.
I'm checking into a workout place that is close by. Have appt. on Tues. morning for a 1 hr. session with trainer. Hope he doesn't kill me.
Sara

Weather


We got rain here, but nothing like you got in TN. I was out shopping for a new car all afternoon, to replace the one I totalled last week, and had a few spots of rain and that was it.

Bee, you are and have been in my prayers.

Here is a picture I took at Monte Sano a couple of weeks ago. I thought the new leaves against the sky were spectacular.

Laura

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