Another River-front Weather Report

October 24, 2010

I love the light and colors of storms! Today's storm was more about shading than colors. It began early. In fact, the lightning flashed through my eyelids before my eyes were open. The lightning didn't last long, but it came back later. I didn't see any of the strikes, and they were not terribly close, maybe four miles away at the closest.

I've noticed that the seagulls hunker down and look very flat in the rain.

This time it's not rain, but hail.

Heavy hail.

Hail and rain against the side of the workroom window. I thought I was getting the mother and baby stuffed opossum (top of the bins on the left) in the photo, but they aren't visible. They seemed not to mind the crashing hail or the thunder.

Hail outside the window. This is where the lovely tangle of plants lived until last summer. The neighbors tore them out, then got as far as putting in a few big rocks, but no plants I guess until next spring (I hope).

When the downpour stopped, a familiar pattern of clouds emerged. So often, there's this layer of clouds over the river obscuring the hills of Washington. It takes one form or another, but is usually separate from the clouds above. I thought the arrangement today was striking.

And it rained again. As I type this at 9:37 p.m., I've just seen lightning outside the window. I wonder what's in store for tomorrow? The big winds didn't materialize yesterday. The forecast usually gives a hint, but it's usually not spot on.

Web stuff: I finally decided today that I had too many blogs going on, and while I like the theme of all of them, I concluded to integrate "On the Pavement" with Tapirgal's Daily Image. I had very mixed feelings, like ripping up a piece of artwork, but went for it anyway. I also spent some time putting these plastic floating/swimming fish online in a way that people could order them from the site. It turns out that the page on the gift shop blog featuring these fish was by far the most popular of all my pages, but since I didn't have them online in the store, people had to order them by phone. Here's the new set-up. Let's see if they're as popular as I think they'll be.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Schizophrenic weather in Astoria

There was some ice this morning, but not a lot. We'd been told to expect a heavy freeze, but it didn't come through. Most of the dark stuff is water on the pavement.

There was a bit of snow, but it hadn't penetrated the trees and the lees of buildings.

Inside, Santa's helpers spent the day packing and shipping lots of boxes, including last-minute inventory that arrived with no time to put it away.

This is 15th Street and Marine Drive. Schools were closed, in at least in part of our area, so I was surprised to see the bus. I thought the yellow and warm earth tones were pretty in contrast with the snow.

Snow and also raindrops on the kitchen sage and grass. The weather couldn't decide what it wanted to do today, so we got a mixture of stuff.

See what I mean? These pictures are in order. Now it's snowing like a maiac.

Two river pilots are either coming from or going to work. Nice day to go out on the water in a small boat and climb a ladder onto a ship, yes? They laughed a friendly greeting when they saw me taking their picture.

Then it cleared up again, sort of.

Here's the radio tower and our building on the left. It looks like a balmy summer day.

From inside The Animal Store a resin parrot and plastic meerkat take note of the scene.

After everything calmed down and melted, it hailed. Most of the white stuff in this photo is hail. Let's see what tomorrow brings.

A blog is a blog - Leila, Pterelas, and hail on the worn out deck

I keep struggling with the fact that some of these pictures are simply self-indulgent and have no redeeming artistic or social value. If it's going on the Web, it should be meaningful, right? Probably not. What is a blog? It's a web log, and it's mine. I like my pets. I want to remember them. I like the way Leila commandeers the chair by the washer and dryer, and Elvis likes to sit with her on the back of the chair.

Here's Pterelas, looking goofy and happy, as usual.

Leila and Elvis, no flash.

How fast the seasons change here! It's April and the grass has not only turned green, but has started growing out of control. A bit of hail reminds us of the season. It could still snow, as we often get our deepest (but not coldest) snow in April. Old-timers say the Grand Valley used to have a long Spring and Fall, but no more. There's basically only winter and summer now, with a very short Fall and Spring. At least it seems that way.