Quiet Spaces

I overmedicated for dust and pollen, last night, and ended up sleeping until 11:00, this morning. By noon or a little after, I was out with my camera. The winds were much diminished, and when I went out again after 4:00 p.m. the wind was calm. After going through a hundred or more photos, I picked out some favorites to post.

In between we have enjoyed a few sprinkles of rain. Temperatures are back into the sixties, for which I am grateful. Perhaps if we have less wind with the next set of storm, I will have tulips remaining afterwards. I do see that some of the later blooming tulips are forming. No sign, however, of the two double tulips. I’m concerned that they might not have survived.

The day started with an early morning thunderstorm moving through, and then the wind came up. In the midst of it all (rain, high winds, >90°F temperatures, brilliant sunlight) I managed to catch a few pictures of the tulips that survived Saturday night’s 28°F low and have now bloomed. The first is a closeup from the second photograph.

The sun was out, this morning, and so were some new flowers…others had also opened up. The daffodils are growing, but no flowers, yet, and the tulips are developing nicely.

Winter overstayed its welcome (and there’s snow in the forecast for this coming Friday), but the tulips are finally up, and these pretty flowers are open on the northeast side of the house. This year, the narcissus have made an appearance, also. I am hopeful that there may be blooms, this time.

Once again looking forward to flooding expected farther into spring than expected, I recalled the marvelous skies in the early evening of 17 July 2011, followed by still more rain. — Liz

Minor Flooding

A view of the Red River from just above the Moorhead (Minn.) bank, looking southwest toward Fargo (N.D.), taken just off of the Veterans Memorial Bridge. Almost everywhere, people have heard about the spring flooding along the Red, from Wahpeton-Breckenridge to Winnipeg. In 1997, one of the years that my husband and I were deeply involved in the flood fight (amateur radio), we battled ice and winds and loss of infrastructure over a wide area. There was not supposed to be flooding in the middle of July. There were numerous severe storms in the region on Sunday, when I took the picture, but only light sprinkles of rain in the city. Monday night provided thunderstorms and over 2 inches of rain in south Fargo, resulting in street flooding.