Monday, June 21, 2021

After the Rain

Some very windy storms blew in last night to usher in the astronomical summer at 11:31pm, bringing with it half an inch of rain on my side of town.

Today I took a walk to survey some of the local damage. Unfortunately one of my favorite trees took a direct hit from a straight line wind and one of its major limbs broke away from the trunk. But more fortunately, this seems to be the worst of it. 




and life goes on:

A momma duck and her ducklings after the storm

and then they killed the tree:



Tuesday, June 1, 2021

Seasons change

As we now roll into the summer season, I look back at the events of the last couple of months and am shocked at how much turmoil a spring season can hold. 

While I was caught up in the ice out dates of the local lakes and rivers, what I didn't realize was that the pipes had frozen at my mother's house while she was away and consequently flooded the house. An extensive amount of water damage, to say the least. Dealing with this has preoccupied a lot of unanticipated time.

But now that the reality has set in, and with very little help from the insurance company, I am compelled to relate this experience to the implications of climate change, insurance, and the unfortunate lack of adequate and affordable housing in the US. I will likely write about this more articulately on my other blog, Courage and Climate Change. But for now, I just needed to revisit my intentions for a lake poet's musings, which was to, well, muse and wax poetic about the lakes and rivers and weather in general.

Since I find myself awake at a much earlier hour than usual, I think now is a good time to return a bit more energy to this effort once again. 

What I can note is that the river has been quite low lately, based on the daily text updates I receive from the USGS for the Huron River in Ann Arbor near Canal Street. Save for a few good storms this past week, it has been rather dry this entire spring in southeast Michigan. 

But June is here, and the summer solstice will hopefully bring life balance along with it.