Congratulate me. I am warm and nothing has exploded (see previous entry). However, once I got down to the basement, I realized I haven't cleaned the furnace filter yet this year. You're supposed to spray it with a hose every summer, but my water pressure isn't high enough to do a good job, so I take it to one of those do-it-yourself car wash places, lean it against the wall, and hit it with the high pressure sprayer. (Every time I do that, everyone there says "Oooo, what a good idea!") I'll try to get that done during those 80 degree days we're supposed to have next week.
I forgot to tell you, Daughter, about Friday night. As predicted, it started raining early that evening. At about midnight, I realized I hadn't picked up the day's mail yet. I opened the front door to check whether I needed an umbrella, and I couldn't figure out what was going on. It was pitch black out, even though we were only two or three days off a full moon, so I couldn't see anything at all. The air was still, but the sound was absolutely incredible. It sounded like Niagara Falls out there. All three porch lights are, as usual, burned out (yeah, it's on the to-do list, I picked up replacement bulbs last week), but through the blackness I could (barely) see that there was no overflow downpour from the gutters. Strange. I grabbed an umbrella anyway.
I don't walk down the driveway at night anymore - every little sound from the woods scares me, and I figure if there are any rabid raccoons or foxes around a flashlight will drive them to attack (not outlandish - people hereabouts have been trapped in their cars by rabid beasties - shades of Cujo! (or however that's spelled)) so at night I drive down for the mail.
I stepped off the porch, and there was no rain! No wind! What was causing the Niagara Falls roar was the very tops of the trees whipping back and forth. Apparently there was wind up there, but not down here. Very strange, especially since we're so high.
I almost couldn't see the driveway surface for wild cherries. The wind had stripped the trees lining the drive. The cherries are mostly pits - tiny, hard, and perfectly round - I depend on foraging birds and rodents to keep the drive safe for walking. But Friday night, the van started sliding on the little ball bearings, and I couldn't stop it. I was afraid I would slide right through the curve and over the bank at the bottom. The van didn't stop sliding until it hit the grass sideways, and the tires finally caught hold.
I didn't go out again until today, to the PO and drug store, and there are huge trees and branches down everywhere, in the LOW areas. But not up here. Very strange.
I worry a lot about wind. The black locust trees are all sick. Cornell Extension says it's some virus or fungus or something, but once the trees get weakened by that, the leaf miners, twig miners, and trunk borers all move in. I'm afraid all my locusts are dying, and I've got probably 70 or more of them, at least 15 of which must be removed if they die because they'd likely endanger the house, street, or driveway. Another dozen could fall on the lawn.
A lot of the old mansions and farms around here have huge old black locusts lining the drives and fields, for an interesting reason: black locust is resistant to rot, so was often used for fence posts, and believe it or not, even when cut, and split, and used as fence posts, it will actually take root and grow! So there are lines of perfectly spaced black locusts where there used to be fence lines.
I really don't want to think about it. I wish there were something we could do.
PS - AOL News had a headline that went something like: "Ivan Spawns Killer Tornados". I read that four times, because the first three times, I got "Ivan Spawns Killer Tomatoes", and it sort of did and didn't make sense.
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