quinnkdotme

Yes, according to weather forecasters, more storms are coming our way.  Tonight we are expecting severe thunderstorms followed by more severe thunderstorms for all day Friday.  Tornadoes are possible, i.e. likely?  Sort of a daunting prospect, but what can we do?

Strange because today is absolutely beautiful.  March 1 and it’s 64 degrees outside, sun shining.  Verbal and I walked along the lake, and he barked at the ducks that are visiting us today.  He also manged to get stuck under a rowboat.  Sort of my fault. 

My grandmother’s dog Ginger is about 40 pounds heavier and, thus, bigger than Verbal.  She is also youthful and playful.  Ginger was chasing Verbal who sought refuge in the only viable way, digging through the sand to get under the overturned rowboat.  Unfortunately, once under to boat – he began to panic, and I could hear him ricocheting around the underside of the boat and digging in every which direction.  Finally, I was able to reach under and drag him bodily out from under the boat.  All in a day’s adventure.

In preparation for the coming storm, we are having a dinner party, of course.  A cousin is coming over for our version of dinner and a movie.  Eton Mess has been requested, so I made meringues this morning.  And continuing on the Anglophile theme, I am making Thatched Chicken Pie tonight, and we are watching Lo

Yes, according to weather forecasters, more storms are coming our way.  Tonight we are expecting severe thunderstorms followed by more severe thunderstorms for all day Friday.  Tornadoes are possible, i.e. likely?  Sort of a daunting prospect, but what can we do?

Strange because today is absolutely beautiful.  March 1 and it’s 64 degrees outside, sun shining.  Verbal and I walked along the lake, and he barked at the ducks that are visiting us today.  He also manged to get stuck under a rowboat.  Sort of my fault. 

My grandmother’s dog Ginger is about 40 pounds heavier and, thus, bigger than Verbal.  She is also youthful and playful.  Ginger was chasing Verbal who sought refuge in the only viable way, digging through the sand to get under the overturned rowboat.  Unfortunately, once under to boat – he began to panic, and I could hear him ricocheting around the underside of the boat and digging in every which direction.  Finally, I was able to reach under and drag him bodily out from under the boat.  All in a day’s adventure.

In preparation for the coming storm, we are having a dinner party, of course.  My cousin is

Yes, according to weather forecasters, more storms are coming our way.  Tonight we are expecting severe thunderstorms followed by more severe thunderstorms for all day Friday.  Tornadoes are possible, i.e. likely?  Sort of a daunting prospect, but what can we do?

Strange because today is absolutely beautiful.  March 1 and it’s 64 degrees outside, sun shining.  Verbal and I walked along the lake, and he barked at the ducks that are visiting us today.  He also manged to get stuck under a rowboat.  Sort of my fault. 

My grandmother’s dog Ginger is about 40 pounds heavier and, thus, bigger than Verbal.  She is also youthful and playful.  Ginger was chasing Verbal who sought refuge in the only viable way, digging through the sand to get under the overturned rowboat.  Unfortunately, once under to boat – he began to panic, and I could hear him ricocheting around the underside of the boat and digging in every which direction.  Finally

Yes, according to weather forecasters, more storms are coming our way.  Tonight we are expecting severe thunderstorms followed by more severe thunderstorms for all day Friday.  Tornadoes are possible, i.e. likely?  Sort of a daunting prospect, but what can we do?

Strange because today is absolutely beautiful.  March 1 and it’s 64 degrees outside, sun shining.  Verbal and I walked along the lake, and he barked at the ducks that are visiting us today.  He also manged to get

Yes, according to weather forecasters, more storms are coming our way.  Tonight we are expecting severe thunderstorms followed by more severe thunderstorms for all day Friday.  Tornadoes are possible, i.e. likely?  Sort of

Last night, we suspected there might be a tornado.  There were thunder and lightning storms but no rain.  The wind was blowing, but the temperature was freakishly high for the middle of the night.  I hadn’t realized before the similarities between the warm up for a spring tornado and the Santa Ana winds of California.  In both cases, the wind crackles with electricity and a strange sort of pressure.  Meanwhile, the warmth of the wind caresses with sudden whips and snaps.

When I came inside from walking the dog, we turned off the computer, the television, and turned off electricity on the surge protectors.  And, then we realized we forgot to go online and check for storm warnings.  Fortunately, if I lean against the windows in the den, my cell service provides just enough bars to access the internet… 10 minutes later the Weather Channel site loads, and we determine that there may or may not be tornadoes.

At about 2 in the morning with a sudden clap of thunder matched by a sudden slamming of the wind against the house, the next big storm announced itself.  This time there was rain, and I lay in bed listening to the rain against the windows and the thunder crashing above the house.  It’s kind of funny what we use to gauge danger, or maybe it’s just me.  I kept thinking as long as there is wind, there won’t be a tornado.  So I slept with half an ear to the wind outside.

At 5 this morning, a tornado hit south of us, killing 8 people.  I have always said that earthquakes scare me more because they have no warning.  A tornado at 5 in the morning didn’t give much warning either.

One thing about being out in the country is the vulnerability that is omnipresent.  Were a tornado to hit the farm here, there’s little we can do.  My grandparents would sit in the hallway (no glass and structurally safe) wearing construction hard hats and holding their radio and flashlights.  A somewhat comical scene as described, but it has always struck me that it is one of those moments that illustrate how tiny we are, how helpless we are to the whims of Mother Nature.

Of course tornadoes aren’t the only worry down here.  When my grandfather was a child, traveling gypsies would appear from time to time often providing entertainment and always providing for the theft of a few chickens.  Theft and vandalism are not uncommon down here.  And, the cropping up of meth-lab houses has increased the criminal activity here in the rural heartland.  Several years ago, in fact many years ago  as I was in college at the time – someone broke into a family farmhouse across the road as well as my great grandmother’s house further down the road.  Several antiques were stolen along with an inflatable catamaran which I had been given from a former employer.  I have often wondered why someone would want to steal an inflatable catamaran – it wasn’t that great of a boat.  In fact, it really could only withstand use in a pool or on a small pond, neither of which offered enough wind power to make the craft viable.

Even more sinister have been the poachers who have shown up at night to fish my grandfather’s lake.  He and my grandfather noticed lights or a cigarette’s glow across the lake at their house.  I believe they called out or shined a light to the area, and the poachers disappeared.  One time the police were called and fishing equipment was found left at the scene.  The police knew the poacher and so ended his life of crime at what we fondly know as Frog Holler.  His life of crime did actually continue in Wayne County where he was eventually convicted on meth crimes and sent to prison.

Not sinister but rather odd and disturbing is the report in the paper today about a man who has been missing since January.  They have not been able to find him, but he had left a note for a friend to take over his business.  The odd and disturbing part of this, not that disappearing isn’t disturbing, is the newspaper’s report that only a few months ago the missing man had been found by police  floating in a creek wearing only his sunglasses.  I had to actually think about it to realize he wasn’t found floating face down.  So I’m not sure what this story had to do with his current disappearance, but clearly the press thought there was a connection.

My braving the cyclones will allegedly continue on Friday when a new collection of storms will arrive.  I guess spring is here.

As ever,

K. Quinn

It’s a nice way to wake up.  And thankfully, they held their song until a little after 7.  Any earlier and I might not have been so receptive.

Just helped my grandmother rearrange furniture.  Rearranging is a dangerous hobby of my grandmother’s.  Every visit, things have moved and systems have been redesigned.  Trash disposal is one of the more frustrating subjects.  Being in the country, trash needs to be separated into things that can be burned, things that can be composted, things that can be recycled and things that go to the dump.  In theory, this is not a problem and in fact I think it is the better, more responsible way to deal with trash.  (Maybe the burnables pile isn’t so eco-friendly)  Where we get into trouble is that the containers, the locations and the timing of disposing trash are changed by my grandmother on a random yet regular basis.  It’s as if she is solving the global issue on trash, always trying new approaches and new tools.  While this may be admirable on some level, when it comes to figuring out what to do with an empty yoghurt container or a wine bottle, I am left to wander through cupboards, bins, and barrels to determine how to dispose of them.  The simple task of putting a bottle into the recycling, something that should take about 30 seconds – tops, becomes a 10 minute quest for the correct bin that might be in the kitchen, on the porch, in the garage, or moved to the barn.

The kitchen in general is another rearranging quagmire.  Dishes are moved depending on the season, the number of guests, and the apparent whims of my grandmother.  For a long time, we knew that blue handled silverware was stored on the porch in a buffet from my great grandmother’s house, and everyday flatware was stored in kitchen drawers. But, when setting the table, one must use the silverware that has been pre-rolled in the cloth napkins that may be on the counter by the dining room table, in a wooden box on the screened in porch, or maybe tucked away in the pantry.  Dishes roost in several locations and are “beaten” out on a need-to-know basis.  The only dishware that doesn’t require a search party  is glassware.  For some reason, coffee mugs have always remained in the cabinet to the right of the sink, and glasses are always to be found in the end cabinet.

Food stuffs don’t escape the reorganization kerfuffle.  The refrigerator is a land unknown, but fortunately a contained land.  While the jams and jellies may migrate from shelf to door to shelf, at least we are dealing with 25 square cubic feet of limited space and options.  Eggs, however, are easy to find but difficult to ascertain.  Fresh eggs are sometimes put at the front of the container, but lately the fresh eggs have been moved to the back of the bus so to speak.  This actually makes some reasonable sense to me as it forces one to use up the older eggs first.

Oils and vinegars also have a migratory pattern.  Vinegars have the most regulated route: on the porch or pass through window in the summer; spring and fall finds the vinegars collected on a tray on the counter; and vinegars winter in the refrigerator.  Oils are much less precise, and I suspect their mystery travels are due less to forethought than to absent-mindedness.

And don’t even get me started on utensils.  Utensils are at the mercy of visiting guests, who are so overwhelmed with the re-arranging protocols that when emptying the dishwasher they shove errant spatulas, wooden spoons, and knives into drawers, crocks, and racks haphazardly and quickly leave the scene of the crime.    Actually, most of the utensils have also maintained their homes on a continual basis, but I guess because everything else moves around we all figure it really isn’t worth memorizing where these things go.  Grammy will move them eventually.

I haven’t even begun to address the rearranging of books, magazines, papers, towels, gardening equipment, clothes and vacuum cleaners.  It really doesn’t bear thinking about.  But suffice it to say, my grandmother has raised puttering to an art form.  She is always busy, beavering away on projects to minimize, organize, and remove clutter.  I wonder if this is foreshadowing for me?

As ever,

K. Quinn

Still at the farm – potential LA trip has been put on hold.  But I am still seeking out entertainment in the heartland.  For instance, I went for lunch with family members in the Chowder Capital of the World.  Sadly, I didn’t order chowder.  Actually, I don’t think chowder was even on the menu.  And give that the only two other eateries in the town were a Subway and a McDonalds – I guess they were taking a chowder break.

I drove Verbal down the road to check out some cattle.  He was fascinated.  He shook with anticipation… although no idea what he was anticipating.

I baked a cake.  But you weren’t here.

Spotted 2 Canadian geese and 3 Shoveler ducks on the lake.  Verbal and his partner in crime, Ginger, managed to scare off the ducks.  The geese weren’t fooled.

And I have been very busy on the job hunt.

It’s a beautiful spring day on the farm.

Wish you were here.

As ever,

K. Quinn

Well, in my travels around southern Illinois this week I discovered things that just hadn’t occurred to me:

For instance, I discovered that the love of my life lives in Luka, Il.  That is according to Match.com. He doesn’t know it yet, by the way, so don’t go telling him.

Also, that if you go to Target at 8 in the morning when it opens, you will be greeted by an entourage of Canadian geese that guard the parking lot.  And, if you are really lucky, the guy in front of you will turn after paying for his purchases and bless you and the cashier.  Unasked, of course.

Men may not know grammar down here, but they do have manners.  So that’s a tough decision.

The Amish continue to shop at Wal-Mart. Really doesn’t impact me, just an observation.

Small town post offices really are the best.

Sixty degrees in February in Illinois is just unheard of, and it’s pretty nice.  Jogging in a t-shirt and it was only February 23!  Wow!

Watching old movies with Grammy is a nice way to end the day.  (Not really a discovery, as I knew this already)

Watching your city dog dig down crawdad holes is pretty entertaining.  Although it’s not so entertaining having to clean the mud off him afterward.

Waking to the sound of the blackbird in the  morning is just lovely.

As ever,

K. Quinn

You all probably already knew it, but today I think I confirmed it.  Had to drive to Champaign this morning, and driving through the farmland at 6 in the morning all I could think about was the incredible beauty of a country sunrise.  And yesterday, while walking the dogs around the lake, the sound of the songbirds gave me the feeling of coming home.  Perhaps, it’s that these sounds and sights are so familiar to me and that is the comfort.  I have known these sounds since childhood, and they really haven’t changed.  The gentle humming of a tractor in the distance, the whirring noise of an oil pump, the wind in the cedar trees near the house, and the songbirds who chatter as evening approaches.

Even in winter, although the landscape is browns and grays there is the silvery blue of the sky and the dark silhouettes of the bare trees.  Driving along the road, the stark landscape would suddenly warm with the bleached creamy yellow of a fallow field or the rays of sun across the green of winter wheat.

And, spring seems to truly be around the corner.  The temperature is somewhat mild, but the wind has an element of warmth behind it.  It’s not the bone chilling wind that cuts through you; it’s the hectic breath of spring rushing forth, pushing the seasons forward.

Enough waxing poetic.  It was a beautiful day, and tonight will be beautiful because I have the luxury of sharing it with my grandmother, mother, and an aunt.  Things to be grateful for.

As ever,

K. Quinn