Night Moves...

We had waves of storms come through after over the weekend. The hail storm sounded absolutely wicked and put holes in the leaves in my remaining flowers around my porch. 

The sky cleared up, the temperatures rose quickly and then another wave came in, thankfully without any hail.

I caught this sky looking southwest late in the afternoon. They are called Crepuscular Rays. I used to call them just Rays. Grandma called them God's Rays. All cool names.

It was a good afternoon to do a deep cleaning of the little house. That was pretty boring, but necessary since I really hadn't made an effort while I was sick.

Between storms I had a chance to take Charlie out for a nice walk and let him inspect the forest floor and scents. When we came out of the woods, the sun was shining, but I could hear what sounded like a Herd of Trucks in the distance. To the northwest was another storm front heading in.

Just before I went to bed I stepped out on the porch to watch Charlie do his night time thing and saw lightening in the distance along with stars.

What was even more amazing was the fact I could see the Milky Way. By October the Milky Way will 'set' and I won't be able to see it again until late February or later. In the shots below, it is faint, but still can be seen despite the light in the clouds. I was pretty excited to catch so much action.

Lucky for me, we have dark skies here. Only one neighbor who is 1/2 mile off uses a yard light. My immediate neighbor shuts off their outdoor light at night so they can enjoy the stars.

The next morning was fresh and wonderful. I put Little Richard out for his last few days of fresh grass on the hillsides were it is difficult to mow.

He has been with us for 26 year and has had a job doing yard work each summer. He is probably the most handled animal I have on our land. At least twice a day I am leading him either to a new spot or over to the hydrant for some water.

He is a good boy who is getting quite grey in the face. However, the way he still acts, you'd never know he was 30 years old.

Decaf and Weather

 

I do love mornings. The view above is looking out the kitchen window at a pretty sunrise.

Mornings are when I get time to myself in the house. 
Since I love coffee in the morning, but coffee doesn't always love me. I switched over to decaf and it made a huge difference. I thought I'd go through caffeine withdrawal and have terrible headaches.

I didn't. But Folgers Decaf is some of the nastiest tasting stuff around. My son's girlfriend works for a coffee company and while talking with him last week I asked if she knew of any kind of decaf coffee that actually tasted good.

This week, I received a package in the mail.

Yum.

This is one of the flavors. Color me tickled to have a smooth and good tasting coffee in the morning. It helps me start the day out with a brighter mood.

Saturday was all about weather. Warming temperatures, ice, sleet, and then rain. As the temperatures warmed up to nearly 50 degrees, the melting snow and warmer air created instant ground fog.

Even though it was raining lightly, I decided to head out the door and explore the intense weather.

I knew that it would be just a short walk through muck, mud, and ice to get to the runoff area just west of our fenceline.

Aurora was absolutely correct in saying, don't follow the trails. Stay off the beaten path.  This deer trail was treacherous. 

The meltwater and ice follow this dip towards the bigger ditch. 

Certain spots have a little drop into a pool and that creates a mini waterfall.

The foam is due to organic matter in the stream like fall's dead leaves. Chunks of ice were slowly spinning around too.

This drops into another lower spot that is wider. I don't know how many years ago this vehicle was dropped in here, but it was probably used at the time to slow down erosion. Of course the water just goes around it.

Just past this car is another one that is nearly submerged in mud.

I kept walking down the hill to follow the water. I got almost to where the creek that flows into our land starts when I heard thunder and decided to hurry back to the house.

Here is a shot from about the same spot in 2018, after a huge rainfall February 21st.

Another storm came in and now the Kickapoo is flooding. I'm all up for going to the creek bottom and exploring today, even if it is dreary looking.

Who knows what I'll discover now that the temperatures have dropped to just below freezing again?

So far...so good?

It was kind of a strange night... the winds picked up as it got dark out. There wasn't supposed to be lightening, but my cell phone lit up again and again with new warnings.
Lightening strike 1 mile from your location. 

Tornado watch until 11 PM. [Tornadoes actually happened, but not where I am]
High Winds Warning
Severe Thunderstorm Warning

I think my Weather Bug app just kept them coming. 7 notifications at one time.

I didn't really need my cell phone to tell me that something was going on. I only had to listen and look out the porch window. I could hear the howling of the wind above us and gusts of wind hitting the house.

I listened carefully. There are two tree west of our house that need to be taken down. Had the winds hit in July while they were full of leaves it would have been a different story. I'm positive the trees would have come down or portions of them would have hit the house.

At 5AM, it was 55 degrees here. Within two hours it has dropped to 30 degrees and the winds are still gusting to 45 mph. I think this is called a Flash Freeze. But at least we didn't have rain to go with it.

Finally it is just beginning to get light. I can see the mules and they are standing quietly in the shelter of the hillside. So far so good. I can see a bucket that somehow got blown up the hill to the north. Branches from the pines are scattered in random patterns across different sections of the yard. Some are scattered to the south east in complete opposition to the direction of the wind gusts.

There is a downspout that is not where it is supposed to be and a piece of sheet metal that moved from the junk pile to the outdoor hydrant. 

The mules will have to wait for their breakfast until the winds die down a bit or their hay will be blown away.

I wonder how many folks lost outdoor Christmas Decorations, you know, like those blow up Santas?

Stormy

Yesterday morning, the sky was interesting when the light started to appear in the sky. Ichecked the weather and apparently we were due for some storms on and off during the day.

I jumped in the 'Ru and took off to the ridge. I wanted to have some 'fun' with the Infrared camera as well as see a nice clear sky without smoke. Clouds and fog would add to the interest.

I parked and decided to walk up the road, that is until I heard the booming to the west.

I figured I had a bit of time before the storm would hit. So I hoped for a shot of some sun. I got fog.

I decided to head home. I didn't want to get caught in the storm and I knew Charlie would be having a fit if he could hear the thunder.

And then I saw the sun as the rain hit in big fat drops.

This became the start of a very long day of endless rounds of storms, lighting, thunder, and a quaking dog.

Thankfully, we were not hit by the rain like others were. 

Grabbed from VernonReportersPost on FB:

Because of the unique way our watersheds are situated, the intense rains were washed into other valleys and we were pretty much spared. Coon Valley, Chaseburg, and Avalanche were not however. Roads closed quickly outside of Viroqua as the flood waters drained down the hillsides and rushed towards the Kickapoo.

We got a total of 2 + inches in 24 hours. A tornado touched down in Boscobel and blew apart some buildings. Thank goodness no one was hurt. LaCrosse got nailed too.

This morning we had another round. Charlie got me up just as he was able to hear thunder in the distance. Other than being soggy around here right now, things are quiet for the moment. The storms may stay north of us which is good for us but bad for those in its path.

It looks like it might be a good day to stroll through the trails and see what the heat, rain, and humidity brought out. That is besides the skeeters.

Stay safe.

For those interested, the mighty muddy Kickapoo is quickly rising and doing its thing. The quiet little river always is ignored until a big hard rain. Then it reminds us just how powerful water can be.

Mother Nature's July 4th Show

I think just a few shots should explain it all.

Our day was hot, humid, and quiet. I took Charlie to visit the Nursing home and then most of the day was spent avoiding the heat. I sat on the porch and read a book with Charlie overseeing the yard.

Just before sunset and amazing storm front came through.

Mother Nature was prepping for a real show.

Later on my porch....I watched her Fireworks or Sky Show.

And that was our not so exciting 4th of July.

Charlie figured out he could have a new perch in which to watch over his domain....

I'd set his rug on the bench when I washed the porch...

Farm life

This summer we had a lightening strike that literally exploded a tree that was in Thor's paddock.
Thor seemed fine at the time, just very shook up. When I checked out the wires in his paddock they had been fused together. Thor didn't act much different but he started to lose some weight.

The vet said that he probably had some residual effects from the lightening strike and hadn't been struck directly but since it melted the wires in his paddock, it probably affected him somehow. Otherwise Thor seemed almost normal. The vet said there was really nothing we could do other than just watch and wait.

Thor was born on our place and was a super funny character as a donkey.

I will miss Thor's constant antics. He would take his water bucket and flip it outside the paddock. If he could find a branch...well,...

He'd hold up sticks and present them to you like a dog. Sometimes in the summer he'd stack all sticks he could find in his water tub. He loved attention and would bray at the sound of a vehicle, coyote, owl, or the neighbor's mini jack a mile away on the ridge top.
Thor was vocal. So vocal that one of the guys at CrossFit said "Oh, you are the donkey lady! The one with that loud Donkey!"

Yes, he could heart Thor from 1 mile away on certain days.

Each morning Thor would greet me when I brought him hay. It was generally a series of grunts and groans that precluded a long loud bray.

Yesterday morning, he wasn't there. I dropped his feed and went looking for him. He was laying down but didn't wake up when I approached.

He was still slightly warm but had no pulse.
Gone.

Your voice will echo through this hills for a long time and I will miss you every day.

Goodbye you big goofy donkey.

Water. Roads Closed. And Stuff.

When I moved here in 1996, I realized that this was a place of steep hills and valleys and little streams that twisted through the landscape.

Our place is in somewhat of a 'hollow'. It isn't on the ridge, it is about 100 feet or so below the ridge. Travel another 250 feet down and you can be at our creek.

A lot of bad weather seems to like to stay on the ridge and the flooding occurs in the bottoms so we have hopefully achieved a happy medium. Well, we thought so in 2007 when we had historic rains and then heavy winds.

We had 19" of rain in three days and then the winds blew. We lost hundreds of trees. In this photo I counted 43 trees blown over or damaged.
Again. We were lucky and our animals were fine as well as our house.

The line attached to the tree is my clothesline on the same tree still.

Well that is neither here nor there.

Monday morning I awoke with a start as I hear a huge boom that shook the house. Well, that isn't even right, I awoke and then it ... the sound made me stand up right out of a deep sleep. Lightening was flashing. I figured there was a strike close by.
So I fumbled around and unplugged everything. Sort of like shutting the barn door after the horses have left. The storm raged on. I got up for a while and checked the radar and weather.

In the morning when I stepped out to let Charlie do his business, I felt something was amiss.
So I tossed my boots on and walked to the shed.

One of the old honey locust trees must have gotten struck by lightening.
A huge branch and come down and crushed two corral panels. I think I muttered a few cuss words quietly and reached down to pet Charlie.
Charlie looked up at me with that goofy face of his and I smiled.

Well.
My Electric braid fence was down in more than one spot. As miracles seem to happen all of the time on our farm, not one animal was injured or missing.

Splinters, shards, or perhaps even Tree Shrapnel was spread in a 360 degree area. Far and wide it was....

Tree shreds were stuck into the ground up to the depth of 6 inches. I even found a piece that had electric line embedded in it. The line was not damaged.

So after accounting for the animals, checking to make sure the fencers were not blown, and making sure that the power in the shed was still on, I started to gather tools and get to work.

I am not the master of electric fences, I will admit that. I will make mistakes and go back over things until I have it right. I felt it was a cruel joke on me that I'd finally gotten the fence to exactly where I wanted it, when this storm came.

Now I had a new challenge. Fix and restructure the fence. I took the opportunity to redo some fencing. The cattle wouldn't be on this section of land anymore so why not just do it?

I'm also somewhat of a believer in reusing what I can. So I made the fence 'hot' again to the rest of the farm after checking on the mules and Dexters. Next was the riddle of WHY would the fence not read 'hot' around the tree? It took me a long while and I probably even fixed things that did not need fixing.

Eventually it dawned on me. Lightening.
Strike.
Electricity.
Wires.
Lines.
Lightening...strike...electric...wires...wires...wires...power...wires.

I stopped and had a PB&J. My grandson Dennis came out to see what I was doing. I finally figured it out.

The electric braid rope wire had been attached to the tree by insulators. The lightening exited the tree in more than one place. I peered closely at the braid enduro soft braids. I felt them. All the internal wires had been 'blasted' outward. The electric braid rope fence felt like a porcupine.

Yep, I felt like Einstein for a moment. Then I realized how darned hot and humid it was and how much work I had to do yet. I showed Dennis the rope and let him feel it gently.

I took down some other fencing and used that to replace the ruined wire.

When all was done, I had mostly working fencing. So I let the mules back into the area to clean up the locust leaves.

The mules did the cleaning and I smiled. It had been hot and horrid.

The grand kids went home with their mom and I dropped into bed after doing some timed exposures of the night sky.
Another storm was brewing and it was supposed to go North of us.

Rains. Lightening, rain, thunder...I got up and checked on Charlie and the house. The rain was pounding, my cell phone blinked with a weather warning alert.
Flash flooding.

Oh here we go again, I thought. I stepped out onto the porch and decided it to try and go back to sleep.

I was startled awake.
I had no idea why.

I peered outside while warming up a cup of coffee.
The sky looked like it would produce an incredible sunrise.
So Charlie and I grabbed the camera bag an headed out.

I stopped.
There it was again.
The something IS wrong.

Ahhh.
The exploding tree had lost another section.
Oh.

And again. No animal had been harmed.
I tied Charlie up and went to check on my other creatures.

The sky was amazing.

And the mules were just fine.
I touched everyone and said good morning to them.

And then I set to work and it wasn't even 6:30 AM.

I got the fence re adjusted and back in service within 30 minutes.

I read the Sheriff's report and discovered that nearly 43 roads had been closed in our county due to mud slides or water over the road.

After running an errand to town [I stayed on the roads that keep to the ridges], I got home to watch another 4" come down in 3 hours.

I checked the animals and all were accounted for when the rains let up a bit. I walked to the creek and before I got around the last bend, I could hear it roaring.

The chairs I'd left down on the bottom were gone. Swept away by flood waters.
As I hiked back up the hill the rain came down in unbelievable amounts.
The pasture became a stream of its own.

And in the distance, you can see the mules coming to check on me.

I assured them I was just fine and they escorted me back home.

At 6pm we had 50 roads closed in our county.

Ever hear the saying?

You can't get there from here?

I think it applies tonight as another round of steady rain pours down.

Fireflies and Fun

If you live where the fireflies come out in the summer, you need to stay up late to enjoy the Dance of the Fireflies.

Fireflies are beetles that fly and they blink and glow to attract their mate? I guess. All I know is that I don't have the opportunity to share this special show often to guests. Timing is everything. Temperature, humidity, time of year, it all depends on those neat little beetles.

This year I was able to share with my Kenosha friends, the Dance of the Fireflies. The first night we had some amazing views. Fireflies, Lightening, and stars all in the same sky.

The shot is blown out from the lightening, but look above the bright spot. There are stars! In the black area, there are streaks of fireflies. I doubt I may ever see something like that again.

The storm circled around us and headed east. We oohhed and awwed at the sky show and alternately turned to the west to watch the fireflies glow and fly.

I woke up at 5am which is my normal wake up time. The day was going to be super hot but it was Amanda's birthday and she wanted to go for a ride.
I took them out and we went riding just after daybreak.

And we rode. I took video of our ride Daryl got some great shots, but mostly I concentrated on making sure my guests were properly mounted and were ready for the obstacles we encountered. That is my backside taking them down the camp road.

Photo by Daryl Clausen

I took them out the ridge first and then down into the 'rough' stuff. Mule slides, ditches, climbs, brush whacking, and branch dodging. I was afraid they wouldn't like it so we stopped to give the mules a breather and I asked.
"So...are you guys okay with this?"
"YES! Awesome!"
As we put the mules away afterward I offered them a second ride on Sunday morning.
Yes. Yes!
Most of the time when they visit, we try to go somewhere cool to do a sunrise photo shoot together.
It was set, we'd ride again on Father's Day.

The rest of Saturday was fun. The adults took naps and I went with the girls to visit the neighbors and see the baby goats.

The girls and I set up a bean bag game that also served as 'ladder ball' and another toss game to be played later.

The Gang wanted to go to the creek and so we went and spent a couple of hours in the creek bottom.

Big Dog and Little Dog played themselves out chasing each other. Scout played so hard. He is not a quitter. Charlie on the other hand would walk over to me and try to crawl into my lap for a rest.

We stacked rocks, and Daryl went off to explore and get some 'quiet' time. It was amazing how nice and cool the creek was. I don't think anyone wanted to leave and go back up the ridge road to the farm.

But chores had to be done and we were getting hungry also.

Everyone was sleepy after we finally had birthday ice cream cake. I was stuffed. But it was time to try out the games. The competition was fierce.

Photo of me in the blue by Daryl Clausen

Photo by Amanda Clausen

Then the Fireflies started to put on their show again. This time I walked up the driveway and looked east towards the meadow.

I was astounded and called out to my friends. They in turn were amazed also and Daryl went and woke his girls up so they could come and watch.

And we were again transfixed by the incredible show of what my friends' called Nature's Christmas lights.

We went to bed, as we wanted to ride out again in the morning before it got too hot.