Mother's Day Rainbow and More

May in Christian County, KY

I saw this beautiful, full rainbow on Mother's Day about

6:30 pm. On the left side, a double rainbow is slightly visible.

The farm buildings here (and those in the rainbow photo)

are Mennonite-built. Their distinctive, consistent

building style is easy to recognize, once you know it.

This crow was perched on one of the big lights in the

mall parking lot in Hopkinsville. If this photo had

sound effects, you'd quickly turn down the volume.

 He was very noisy! When he saw me paying
 attention to him, he flew over to the highest point

of the mall's roofline and sat there -- still cawing!

Sweet peas in a cemetery fence row, and

overhead, branches and cones of Virginia pine.

I took this photo of our neighbor's field in early May.

Now, many wheatfields are nearly ready for harvest.

We are happy for recent rains because we've had a dry.

spring. But heavy storms right now could lay the wheat

plants down, making harvest difficult and reducing yield.

Most of our wild roses are pink, but this one is very white.

There might be a very slight hint of pink in the buds.

"O, the month of May, the merry month of May,
So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green..."

--Thomas Dekker (c. 1572 – 1632))

Safely Through Another Storm

Stormy day in Christian County, Kentucky

Yesterday, the National Weather Service announced that Christian County had a "high risk for severe weather" today.  This is the most dire level of warning that they give.

Our imminent danger was even reported on the national news. Today, Dennis and I received several phone calls and emails from friends and family who wondered if we were OK, after hearing Hopkinsville mentioned.

How do you prepare for tornadoes? Local officials held conference calls and did what they could. Shelters were opened for people who did not want to stay in their homes. An army of stormwatchers was deployed. Schools were dismissed at noon so the students could reach home before the bad weather began. This turned out to be a wise decision, because we had very turbulent weather and tornado watches during the time that the buses are usually on the roads.

We had strong wind here at the house, but no hail and only a few drops of rain. Fort Campbell reported wind gusts of 83 mph, and numerous other sources across Christian County reported wind gusts of 50 to 60 mph. Hail was reported in several areas of North Christian, and Crofton received 3/4 inch hail. But we did not have any tornado sightings.

About the time I took this photograph of the northwestern sky, Madisonville in neighboring Hopkins County was receiving golf-ball size hail. They had a lot of roof damage in town, with some roofs partially ripped off by the wind.

Cadiz in Trigg County, just west of us, had golf-ball size hail, too. Funnel clouds were sighted in Muhlenberg County, our neighbor to the northeast, but I haven't seen any reports of tornado damage. Todd County, just east of us, had hail too.

There were many reports of damage to buildings all across the area by the strong winds and large hail. Some farm buildings were blown down (probably old barns.)

Tonight, the temperature has dropped over 45 degrees from the mid-day high of 81°. It's breezy and chilly. I started a fire in the woodstove when I got home from work.

I feel very fortunate that we have come through the storms unscathed, so far. How about you? Did you have storm damage?

A Cold Snap Approaches

A hard year for gardeners and farmers

November skies

I took this photo on my way home from work this afternoon. As the cloud cover breaks up, temperatures are falling. We are expecting a hard frost here in western Kentucky tomorrow night. The forecast says that the highs tomorrow will be in the upper 40s and the lows tomorrow night will be in the mid-20s. Brrrrr!

It will probably be cold enough tonight to finish off the New Guinea impatiens. They are such dedicated bloomers; they are still loaded with dozens of flowers even though they've gone through several nights that were colder than they really like. The pansies and marigolds are hardier. They should make it through tonight OK, and I will cover them tomorrow night.

A lady at work today told me that she still has tomatoes on the vine in her garden. Obviously, she has been watering her garden faithfully for months. I and a lot of other people gave up on our poor gardens a long time ago.

We've had a number of field fires in Christian County this fall due to the very dry conditions. Even though we had some rain a week or two ago, we had "Fire Weather" warnings again last week. The current weather system brought light showers as it moved in, but it was just enough rainfall to settle the dust until the sun comes back out.

At the polls last Tuesday, a neighbor told us that he has been feeding hay to his little herd of cattle for more than three months already, due to the drought. He didn't get much hay from his own fields, so he has been buying it. He'll have to buy hay all winter. He said that it takes the joy out of farming. (He meant that this year's calf crop probably won't pay this year's hay bill.)

And so another growing season is coming to its end. In the Pennyrile region of Kentucky, it's been a difficult year for farmers and gardeners. When the winter rains finally begin, it will be a good thing.

This fire in late October burned 130 acres near
Dawson Springs Rd. north of Hopkinsville. It
was finally extinguished through joint efforts
of 50-60 firefighters from 8 volunteer fire departments
and about 75 migrant workers from nearby farms.
Agri-Chem and the Garnett Farm helped haul water and
loaned their machinery. Smoke was visible for miles.

Big Thunderhead

Cumulonimbus over the prairie

We saw this big thunderhead about five years ago in northern Nebraska. We were camping at Smith Falls State Park on the Niobrara River. I stopped to take this photo on a very hot afternoon, as we drove back to camp from sightseeing in Valentine. We were glad this cloud was east of us, and not likely to turn around.

As I stopped along the sandy road and got out with my camera, I explained to the kids that this photo would be pure Nebraska -- a hayfield, a barbed wire fence, sunflowers, and a huge thunderhead. "Hurry up, Mom!" they earnestly replied.

I was using a film camera; I hadn't crossed over to digital photography yet. I scanned the snapshot tonight to post it here.

Later that night, it rained very hard, and some in our group got wet inside their tents. We heard them slamming car doors as they scrambled for dryer quarters. Our trusty Coleman Forester wasn't leaking, so we just went back to sleep.

I'm sure the rancher who owned the hay was glad he finished baling it before the rain. The bales shed a lot of the water, whereas all the hay would have been wet, had it still been lying on the ground. When he heard it raining, he probably just rolled over and went back to sleep, too.

As for us, we got up the next morning and broke camp. The plastic dropcloth from beneath the tent had a lot of wet sand and grass sprigs sticking to it, and the rainfly that covered the tent was a little damp. We dried them in the parking lot as we did our laundry in Valentine. Then we packed up everything properly and drove on to visit friends who live near Amelia (NE).

These are pleasant memories. I've been smiling as I type.

Related posts:
Landlubber
My Coleman Forester Tent

Ghost of Vulcan's Anvil

A weird cloud in the sunset sky

The story of Vulcan from Roman mythology

Stormy Weather

Another day of tornado season

Today (Palm Sunday): Tornado watch.
Tomorrow (Monday): Rain mixed with snow and a stiff northwest wind.
Monday and Tuesday nights: Temperatures in the upper 20s and a freeze watch.

I suppose the lilacs won't get to bloom, or the redbuds or the dogwoods. I hope the winter wheat isn't far enough along to be damaged.

No tornados came out of the bad cloud in the photo as it passed over us this afternoon. I don't know what it did after it left our area.

Rain Showers in Christian County, KY

Life in Christian County, Kentucky...

We had some showers across Christian County yesterday evening and today. The rain was "spotty," which means some areas got a little rain and other areas didn't get much. I've heard about rain amounts from two-tenths of an inch to half an inch.

We had rain here at the house, but I don't know how much. If I see Willis, our Mennonite neighbor, I will ask him. He keeps his own weather records, and I'm sure he'll have a full report not only of how much it rained in our micro-area, but also of how much it rained in various other parts of the county.

That's Hopkinsville's little mall in the background of the photo. You can see how dry the grass is. It probably shouldn't have been mowed so close to the ground. We have some places in our yard where the grass is just as crackly.

The rain has moved out of the area now. I read on the Hopkinsville weather report that the barometric pressure is rising. The weather will be clear until Saturday when we'll have a slight chance of rain again.

Weather Forecasting

Reading about the barometric pressure made me think about my parents. We had a round barometer that hung in the back hallway. Mama and Daddy checked it several times a day to see what the air pressure was doing. When the barometer's needle dropped sharply, it was an omen of an impending weather event. A big drop in air pressure was particularly alarming in the winter, because it usually meant we were going to get a snowstorm.

Both my mom and dad had an ingrained habit of noticing what the wind was doing. At any time, either one could have told you what direction the wind was blowing from. If the wind's direction changed, they knew where it was now, how it had moved there, and what type of weather was likely because of the change.

Like many country people of their time, my parents were pretty good amateur weather forecasters, using their own observations, a few basic weather instruments, and their knowledge of common weather patterns.

Weather predictions weren't as accurate or extensive back then -- that is, during the 1950's and 1960's when I was growing up. The first tornado forecast was issued in 1948. The first computerized weather model was made in 1950. It used 25,000 punched cards. 24-hour forecasts were first issued in the early 1950's. Meterologists first saw photographs of the earth's atmosphere from satellites in the early 1960's. Now we take all of these things for granted.

Technorati tags: weather forecasting, barometers, drought in Kentucky, dry weather

Storm Clouds

Life in Christian County, Kentucky...

Imminent storm

This photo was taken about five minutes before a tremendous wind came up. We only got a smattering of rain, but we definitely got some intense and sustained wind. We had several storms tonight associated with the cold front that is passing through, but unless some tree limbs broke, we didn't suffer any damage. I'm relieved we didn't get hail in any of the squalls. I hope the rest of the county and surrounding area fared as well.

Technorati tags:

storm
storm clouds

Last Sunset of January

Life in Christian County, Kentucky...

January's last sunset

It looks like the first sunset of February, 2007, will be over a snowy landscape. It's snowing a little as I post this, and we're supposed to get up to 3 inches total by tomorrow night. There may also be some freezing rain tomorrow, depending on what the temperatures do. This is our first snow of the winter.

I doubt if there will be school tomorrow, because they usually cancel if the roads are slick at all. But we won't know for sure until tomorrow morning.

UPDATE: Yes, school was cancelled and Isaac is enjoying his day off. They could have run the buses today, but many of our residents are not accustomed to driving in winter conditions, so even an inch of snow makes the roads a lot more dangerous. It has been snowing lightly much of the morning, but the flakes are so fine that it's not accumulating very fast.

Winter Skies and Fields

Life in Christian County, Kentucky...

In this part of Kentucky, our countryside is densely populated (from the viewpoint of someone who grew up in northern Nebraska.) This view gives an illusion of wide open spaces that really isn't the case here. There are homes immediately to the left and to the right of this photo.

I posted a photo of this same field and set of farm buildings last October when there were soybeans in the field (below).





Thanks for visiting!

January Skies

Life in Christian County, Kentucky...

Along Butler Road in Christian County, KY

Heaven's Open Door

All In The Family... Christian and Lutheran Life...

Rain moving eastward, late in the afternoon

Here is one of my early memories. I think I was about three years old, and I was with my parents in the Church of the Nazarene basement at Ainsworth, Nebraska. Someone was playing the piano and everyone was singing. To my surprise, I heard my Aunt Becky's name in one of the songs!

This world is not my home,
I'm just a-passin' through;
If Heaven's not my home,
Then Lord, what will I do?
The angels beckon me
From Heaven's open door,
And I can't feel at home,
In this world anymore.

To this day, I think of my Aunt Becky when I hear this song. The opening in the clouds in the photo above reminded me of another phrase in the lyrics --"Heaven's open door."

You can hear and read this old Gospel song at Heavenly Midis, or if you can't hear that page, you can listen to it on Midi Picking by Harry (Scroll down to "This World Is Not My Home". It's a good foot-tapping rendition, though sadly it was cut just a tad short on the very last note.)

I became a Lutheran as an adult, and I love the hymns Lutherans sing -- hymns that have been sung by Christians for hundreds of years -- but I also love the classic Gospel music I grew up with. I'm doubly blessed because I've had the opportunity to learn and enjoy both genres.

Technorati tags:

gospel music
Becky

Another Sky Photo

Life in Christian County, Kentucky...

Here's another photo of Sunday's spectacular sky as the storm clouds moved out. This photo is looking to the east with the sun behind me, fairly low in the west.

Sunset Storm

Life in Christian County, Kentucky... The Rural Life...

Just before the rain

Let Freedom Ring

And What I Think About It...

Today's the 4th of July, a celebration of the freedom that America enjoys. Millions of brave Americans have shed their blood to guarantee my freedom.

In these days, it's considered poor taste to express American patriotism without adding "but" and a list of criticisms. (As in, "I love America but...")

Here's what I have to say: I am very grateful that I was born an American . I love my country. I am proud to be an American. Long may our beautiful flag fly over the land of the brave and the home of the free. May God continue to bless America, I pray.



Clockwise: US flag, POW-MIA flag, Kentucky flag, Screaming Eagles (101st Airborne) flag

These photos were taken at the Fort Campbell Memorial Park ("Gander Park") in Hopkinsville.

Day Is Dying In The West

Life in Christian County, Kentucky... The Rural Life...

Another day of growing is complete.
Hymn: Day is Dying In The West

Kentucky Sunrise

Life in Christian County, Kentucky...

I came across this photo while I was looking for photos of Sammie and me, so I scanned it for the blog.

I took this at sunrise one July morning several years ago for the landscape category of the "Day in the Life of Christian County" contest. It did not win, but I still like the photo. I used a zoom lens to look from the roadside across the hills and valleys. This area is about five miles north of our home.

Stormy Weather

Life in Christian County, Kentucky...

The weather has been odd all day. A cold air mass has been moving in, and as the front advances, numerous squalls have swept through Christian County.

I drove through heavy rain when I took Isaac to school. Twenty minutes later, the sun was shining. I went in WalMart and bought some cat food, and when I came back out, it was raining again. And so it continued all day.

This afternoon about 6:00 p.m., some of the most threatening clouds of the day passed over with great blasts of rain and wind. Afterwards, the sun came out and shone brightly for a while. A hint of a rainbow appeared over Hopkinsville.

Just before the rain

After the squall

I started a little fire in the woodstove after we got home from Scouts this evening. It's supposed to drop down to 45° tonight. The weather report says that temperatures will be in the mid-40's for the next two nights as well.

Now I don't feel so bad about not having my garden all planted. It's still a bit chilly for peppers and tomatoes to really flourish anyway.

Technorati tags: storm clouds clouds storm Hopkinsville Hopkinsville, Kentucky

Thunderstorm at dawn

Life in Christian County, Kentucky...

Storm clouds across the field

It's been storming in the night and it looks like more weather is coming in from the west.

March sunset

Life in Christian County, Kentucky... The Rural Life...

This evening, Skittles (the cat) and I had a nice walk down to the mailbox.Coming home, I took this photo of the fenceline along the edge of the field.