WALKIN', WRITIN', WIT & WHIMSY

Wait a minute … it’s Monday?!

Oh, I get it … “THANK GOODNESS IT’S FALL!!!!”

Well that has me smiling bigtime!

And, Fall could not come soon enough as this Summer’s erratic weather has left me totally undone.

Many of my blogging pals and followers in North America and beyond have been sizzling like steaks or burgers on the grill and Southeast Michigan has had its share of wonky weather too. After a three-week drought in June, Mother Nature turned on the showers, with more rain than usual, giving us one of the wettest Summers in recent history and resulting in lush lawns, the likes of what you’d see in the Springtime. The Robins were happy for that rain which brought lots of worms and everywhere birds splashed happily in shallow makeshift birdbaths the result of potholes and uneven roadways.

Here in Michigan we similarly sweltered with humidity and heat spikes that brought erratic weather as Mother Nature continued on her mission to wreak havoc with multiple types of weather misery here, there and everywhere. The topics of hurricanes, tornadoes, torrential rain, earthquakes and wildfires have filled our respective news feeds for months in what climatologists tell us was the hottest Summer recorded in the Northern Hemisphere, maybe even on Earth – yikes!

And, as we processed that info, there was the usual round of jokes about the endless hot weather, with suggestions on how to bake cookies on your vehicle’s dashboard, or cook lasagna in your metal mailbox. Fellow blogger Shelley reported their driveway was 128F/53C and a snake never finished slithering across that concrete, as it cooked itself first – ugh!

The temperatures were red-hot for the 4th of July and Labor Day weekends.

Then, on those occasions when the hot weather cooled down radically for one day, we laughed at memes like “the temperature went from 90 to 70 like it saw a state trooper” (even though you don’t need me to tell you that a weather switcheroo like that really isn’t all that funny at all).

Southeast Michigan was impacted by seven tornadoes in the month of August. We had torrential rain and severe flooding on August 23rd racking up a month’s worth of rain (3.5 inches/8.9 centimeters) in six hours. The following day, the humidity and dew point levels were equal and extraordinarily high helping to fuel six tornadoes on the evening of August 24th. Those tornadoes touched down and did damage, all within 15-40 miles from my home. I won’t lie to you about how scared I was that night as I anxiously watched while severe weather approached. I did some virtual hand-holding with a friend, prayers were said more than once, then, at 10:40 p.m., with my emergency radio in hand, I donned a bicycle helmet and headed to the basement to await the all-clear that the closest tornado had passed by.

While thankfully that particular tornado never reached my City that night, just 15 miles away, an EF-1 tornado raced through Lake Erie Metropark’s golf course and its 105 mph wind and 5.4-mile (8.6 kilometer) rampage ended at the Detroit River. Other tornado damage in the nearby Gibralter area was still visible nine days later as I drove down West Jefferson Avenue to Lake Erie Metropark on September 2nd. Even though the bulk of the damage had been cleared from the main road, the sight of a huge fir tree snapped in half like a toothpick, massive tree branches littering front yards everywhere and even Phragmites reeds bent over sideways from the fierce 90 mph wind reported that night in Gibralter were worrisome.

Multiple high wind events this Summer worried me …

… as I imagined the same dead tree that dropped branches and caused a downed power line and fire in my backyard on December 2nd might have another episode. A few nights I stayed up to the wee hours of the morning, ready to head out the door if another downed wire/fire occurred.

We did have some wildfire smoke to contend with this year, but I really didn’t grumble as that weather woe seemed mild compared to how the rest of the world was suffering with each catastrophic weather event.

So I embrace the arrival of Fall … glorious Fall, even though the long-term weather prognosticators tell us this strong El Niño will bring a warmer-than-average Fall. I am still going to pack away the shorts and tee-shirts and don flannel shirts and jeans for those nippy mornings.

On a positive note, we are slated for a mild Winter – woo hoo, now that is something to crow about!

What does my little furry friend say about the Winter of 2023-24?

No, not Parker, or any of my other furry friends at the Park, where their peanut-stashing ratio in late Summer has been “eat one, bury one” but, as the chillier air settles in, often more peanuts go into the ground than the mouth. Begging increases, running over to sit on haunches and look extra cute as each walker passes on the perimeter path, even those that have never tossed them a peanut. (“Oops, so sorry to have bothered you, you don’t feed me, but you have a friendly face.”) So, I compensate and help them out even more in the Fall and Winter months as you know if you’ve been following this blog for a while.

I was actually mentioning my little friend below, a Woolly Bear Caterpillar, that I saw at Council Point Park a few weeks ago. The Woolly Bear Caterpillar is specially adapted to survive in freezing temperatures and will spend its Winter hunkered down somewhere and cocooning, much like some of us will do. That caterpillar will emerge as an Isabella Tiger Moth next Spring. If folklore is to be believed, the legend of the Woolly Bear Caterpillar is that the upcoming Winter can be predicted by the size of the segments in its brown and black “bands” i.e. the wider the rust-colored bands are on the back of the Woolly Bear Caterpillar, the more severe the Winter weather will be; narrower rust bands means a good and mild Winter. Hmm.

So let’s apply that reasoning to my furry friend below:

These scarecrow and harvest pics were taken on a recent stroll around the ‘hood. I honed in on the houses that always decorate, often with the same décor from year to year. I enjoy seeing scarecrows and the jeweled colors that signify Autumn’s arrival.

Forget those lazy, hazy, crazy days of Summer – my favorite season of all has arrived.