Walking On Water

A two-inch rain and thunder storm that grumbled around most of last night raised river levels considerably for today.  There was enough water that these boys/young men deemed it safe to jump off the rocks at Eau Claire Dells in eastern Marathon County.  Although the series of photos looks like only one guy in action, there were really 3 guys, all dressed alike and about the same size.  We're guessing the drop was about 15 feet from their take-off spot.   It's not a sanctioned activity!

Summer Storm Track

A followup to Tuesday's storm track through Marathon County:  We personally were not hit hard.   We took a ride around the "block" -- around several blocks -- and saw some serious crop damage in a swath about 1.5 miles wide going from NW to SE through the towns of Hamburg, Berlin, and Maine -- somewhat parallel to County Hwy A.

Corn and soybeans shredded by hail, for example. Grain fields flattened. A few uprooted trees, a bunch of broken trees and downed branches.  I think one part of Hwy A was closed off a while due to downed trees, branches and power poles.   One metal shed roof on Hwy A was peeled partly off.  One Ginseng garden had slatted wooden shade panels going every which way; another couple ginseng gardens with black shade nets ripped loose.  Did not take pictures.   Local newspaper's pictures were mostly of in-town stuff; doesn't look like they got out to the boonies.

However!    if the old German folk saying holds true, we should be just about done with this year's storm track.  The saying -- in English, because I can't do the Plattdeutsch version -- says that if there is a hard enough rain on mid-summer's day (June 21)  to raise little bubbles when it hits the pavement, which was true here this June, then there will be another 6 weeks of wet weather.  ("Then the farmer can sleep";  I guess because it's too wet to go in the fields.)
Credit goes to Gary Klingbeil of Wausau for knowing German proverbs; aka "Sprichworter" aka "Bauernregel"  = "Farmers Rules"

Summer Theme, Continued

  Left:  Duke of Durham daylily.

Left:  Minnie Morgan Daylily








        Below:  "Flower Talk";  the Wild Horses daylily  (left) and Red Roses daylily (I think).

                                          Above:  just another summer sunset.
                                          Below:  Leadplant, a prairie plant.

  Fabulous Chrismas daylily.

Oops, sorry, it's the Elegant Candy Daylily.  The Fab. Christmas flower is all dark maroon, not two-toned, and it's also not as ruffly.

   

[Had a terrible time getting cursor to a place where I could type text today.]

Summer . . . Clouds and Flowers

It's past Mid-Summer by 2 weeks,  hot and muggy now, but our mid-Wisconsin 86 degrees is nothing compared to the misery (102 degrees) in New York and the Northeast.

The glorious freckled white lily is called "Muscadet," a gift from Agnes Dahlman.  The petals span 10 inches -- honest truth!   The lilies below are both the Orienpet type.  As Agnes said, they are lilies on steroids; very vigorous, nice and tall and sturdy, and prolific bloomers.

Seasons Are Reversed?

From April 27, when Spring was just bustin' out -- as in the hillside photos above -- to May 7 is just 10 days, but what an ugly reversal:

The gold finches loaded up for a freezing night.  33 Degrees last night; colder tonight.  I moved all the plants from the plastic-covered greenhouse into the house and garage where they'll have to make do until it warms up outside again.

Early Spring, Continued

                      Remember the old song that went "How do the trees put on their robes of green?"
                                                               "They leave them out."
I caught our soft maple doing that last evening (April 21), then made four "kaleidoscopes" from the photos.  The original images are at the end of this entry.

This year's kaleidoscopes are maybe not as good as last year's -- see the June 2009 entry for comparison.

Spring Equinox . . .

Report from rural Mid-Wisconsin: 
The sunsets range from March 22 (just past the equinox) (the top photos) to tonight, April 7 (bottom two).   In between were a spring shower and a hawk of some kind.

Crocus have had a longish blooming time:  were ready to open about March 14, then waited out a cold week, and have been at it ever since.  Daffodils are close to opening.  The first batch of tomato seedlings are 5 inches high, but have had to stay inside this week.