Monday: The Pleasant Valley Report

I am at a loss for words right now, after seeing three days-worth of footage of total devastation in the American South. As someone who lived in "tornado alley" for many years, I know full well how downright frightening it is to see the sky turn green, hear the landscape go strangely quiet, and then detect the moaning of the nearest tornado siren. You grab your pets, your radio and phone, and rush down to the basement (or if you live in a trailer, as I did one time when a twister passed thru, you sit in the bath tub).

My heart goes out to everyone affected by the latest storms. Unfortunately, tornado season has just begun, and with global climate change throwing new weather system stuff into the mix, I'm afraid we have more destruction to come.

The weekend in Laporte was very windy, which scares me, because in many cases, what happens out here in the west accelerates as it heads onto the plains. Had a bit of snow on Saturday morning, but other than the sky looking bleak, completely tolerable.

Saturday morning, I got in from the gym to see a very large, very dark bird on my back fence post. With binoculars I determined it was a Turkey Vulture. Lived here since 2002 and this is the first one I have ever seen that landed in my yard. Although I investigated, found no dead animal anywhere, and my compost heap wasn't overly odiferous. Who knows why this bird landed, but it was sort of a treat, to see one so close.

Sunday I was lucky enough to sit out on the deck for the only two hours of sunshine we had all day. Saw a few new species (first of the season), including an Orange-crowned Warbler, and a large flock of White Pelicans. Then the day got dark and cold again. It was nice that I'd made a pot of chicken vegetable soup the day before.

But it's Monday now and the sun is shining to the east, with large storm clouds to the west, and all anyone can talk about is how we got Osama bin Laden. After I conduct some business today, I am going for a long walk outside in nature (weather permitting). Need to think about something other than catastrophic storms and catastrophic wars.