Winter takes its toll

*UPDATE: To better illustrate just what went on, and due to popular request, I have added enhanced images.


After several snowstorms, we realized that our dear terracotta earthworm guy who lived in our lavender garden, named Señor Worm, was a casualty. He was a tough little guy, having been blinded after his painted-on eyes washed off in the rain. He stood guard day and night over our lavender, keeping it safe from harm. Since his untimely death, one of the chicks and hens plants got chopped or eaten by something. RIP, Señor, you were a great garden figurine!

We're not in Kansas, but we still have tornado warnings

The past two nights we've had tornado sightings near Bloomington. Now I love a good storm, especially when I'm at home with some tea, but it's not so much fun when I'm out somewhere else.

On Monday night, I was working at the survey call center (that dreaded mandatory assignment for my PhD program) when the tornado alarm went off in the building, an old 10+ story limestone dormatory. There was an announcement in the building and we all had to go into the elevator area in the center of the building until the warning was over. Someone had a fancy phone and got the weather forcast from it, and reported that the tornado was spotted west of Bloomington and the storm was headed toward the campus, first going right through our neighborhood. So I borrowed someone else's phone (of course mine didn't get reception) and called Paul, who was taking a nap at home. Thankfully there was no damage to our neighborhood, but Paul and Binsey waited it out in the downstairs bathroom anyway. Here's a shot Paul got of the double rainbow that happened right after the storm. I could only see a single rainbow from the call center, so I'm jealous!


The second tornado warning was last night.We'd happened to order pizza just before the siren went off, so we had just enough time to go pick it up and then go back and wait out the storm again. We could barely hear the siren, even standing outside. It sounded almost like someone's air conditioner was malfunctioning. If I hadn't heard the announcement on TV, I don't know if we would have known anything was going on. While we didn't get a tornado, we got a really loud and rumbly storm with torrential rain. So much that we got a fairly fast flowing river through our back yard and into our neighbor's yard!


At first I thought that was a bad thing, having all that water go through our yard and maybe leave sediment, but then I realized our next door neighbor (upstream) goes nuts with his lawncare, so all the fancy stuff he's been putting all over his lawn is probably now in ours! So that's not so bad after all!

Rain and more Rain

This past week we've had rain every day, but it really has been all for the better for us. Paul is very happy about it because prior to this, he was out watering the new grass seed three times per day. With the constant rain and cloudiness, there's been no need to water the lawn for about a week now.

I would have thought I'd be more productive with the poor weather, but really it just makes me want to have tea and cookies all day and listen to the thunder. Tomorrow's supposed to be sunny with a high of 75, so we'll see how that affects productivity around here...


In Binsey news, she's growing fast! We were worried she wasn't fattening up, but considering all the worms & fleas she came with, and the fact that she's doubled in weight since we got her despite her ever-extending spindly legs, we're not too worried about her thin build. I'm sure she'll fatten up once she slows down growing. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have a normal, healthy puppy!