Tag Archives: wind

The Wind Has a Message

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I generally keep chocolate around in case of an emergency, and today I opened up the foil on a fortune chocolate. That’s what I call those little individually-wrapped bite-sized portions of chocolate that have little sayings on the insides of their wrappers.

“The wind tells a story, listen.”

Only I live in the Midwest. Although we’ve successfully rehabilitated our wind to be used for energy and also, in some cases, windsurfing, it has a long history of being downright mean, and vindictive.

I suspect any message the wind has for me to end with the phrase “sleeps with the fishes,” frankly.

Kuchen and Wind Turbines

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I visited my wonderful parents this weekend.

It’s a long drive back to Jackson, Minnesota, from Jamestown, North Dakota, but it is also a beautiful scenic drive. The trees are starting to turn the autumn colors we love, and the fields of golden wheat and corn are beautiful.

On the way home to Jamestown, I did figure out what I’d been missing about the landscape here: wind turbines. Yes, there’s a big wind farm somewhere nearby Jamestown, but driving along Interstate 90 through Nobles and Jackson counties there are wind turbines everywhere now, on both sides of the road and in large and small groups.

Apparently it’s the Buffalo Ridge and its effect on the weather that makes the area so great for wind energy production, or so I’ve gathered. But there are so many more wind turbines there than near Jamestown. They’re the skyscrapers of the prairie, and I miss them.

I did bring a kuchen home and though my dad seemed to want to avoid it (he’s not really a dessert guy), my mom seemed to appreciate it.

This one happened to be strawberry-rhubarb, and instead of little chunks of strawberries and rhubarb throughout, as I was expecting it to be, it had a thin layer of rhubarb-strawberry goo above the crust and below the eggy stuff. Is that typical?

It was wonderful.

That’s the view from my car.

It’s a little… flat. In Minnesota.

To be fair, if four glaciers ran you over, you would be flat too.

Just for the Hail of It

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I woke up confused last night, because it seemed like all the thunder in the sky had swooped down and decided to hold a party around my apartment. After a few confused seconds I recognized the noise as plain old garden variety hail, but because my bed is located on a second-floor corner and was being pounded by hail on three sides (roof and two walls), the sound was much louder than any sort of storm I’d ever heard before.

I always hear tornadoes described as sounding like a freight train, so naturally I decided to find out if there was a tornado. I wouldn’t have been able to hear a tornado siren if it had been two feet from my head at that point because of the deafening ice-shards pummeling the building.

I suffered a moment of absolute idiocy at that point, and instead of grabbing my laptop, bringing it downstairs and checking the weather in the bunker-like basement, I just wandered into the living room, closed the just-slightly-open window, and fired up the laptop from there.

If there really had been a tornado, I would have been sucked up into it faster than you could say “Auntie Em! Auntie Em!”

Fortunately, the freight train sound was just the roar of the hail.

When I went outside the next morning, I couldn’t believe there hadn’t been more damage. I really hope the farmers didn’t lose any crops.

Rain, Clouds, Wind and Storms

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I already wrote about some music for good spring weather. Here are some tunes for bad spring weather:

  • Rhythm of the Rain, by the Cascades. "Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain, telling me just what a fool I’ve been."
  • Singin’ in the Rain, by Gene Kelly. "What a glorious feeling, I’m happy again!"
  • Pennies from Heaven, by Bing Crosby. (And Billie Holiday if you prefer.) "But no one appreciated a sky that was always blue, and no one congratulated a moon that was always new. So it was planned that they would vanish now and then, and you must pay before you get them back again. That’s what storms were made for, and you shouldn’t be afraid for… every time it rains, pennies from heaven."
  • Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head, by BJ Thomas… I think. It was written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. "Raindrops are falling on my head, they keep falling. But there’s one thing, I know, the blues they sent to meet me won’t defeat me. It won’t be long ’till happiness steps up to great me."
  • Rainy Days and Mondays, by the Carpenters. "Rainy days and Mondays always get me down."
  • It’s Coming Down, by Cake. "It’s coming down, it’s coming down. It’s raining outside, You’ve nowhere to hide. She’s asking you why you think it’s funny."

And if you’re tired of rain, let’s talk about clouds, thunder and wind:

  • Get Off My Cloud, by the Rolling Stones. "Hey! You! Get off of my cloud! Don’t hang around ’cause two’s a crowd on my cloud, baby."
  • Dreams, by Fleetwood Mac. "Thunder only happens when it’s raining. Players only love you when they’re playing." Actually, thunder can happen when it isn’t raining at all.
  • The Chain, by Fleetwood Mac. I know, I just like them. "Listen to the wind blow, watch the sun rise."
  • Windy, by The Association. "And Windy has stormy eyes that flash at the sound of lies. And Windy has wings to fly above the clouds."

Then again, maybe it really is better to read about sunshine.