Friday, March 30, 2012

Mother Nature? We Need to Talk

Truth to tell, we can't be surprised by the snow we found at dawn this morning.

We have a little over two inches of the fluffy white stuff but the temperature is quickly rising from a low of 32 degrees overnight so it shouldn't be long before it all melts. And it's wonderful moisture for our less than adequately saturated ground, so all is well.

When darkness falls each night, our rotating solar panels automatically turn to face east where they know they'll catch the first possible rays of light as each day dawns. This morning they look a little blind with their snow-covered faces blankly tuned to an awkward northeasterly direction. (You can almost hear the conversation the panels are having. "Is this the right direction? I think east is over here somewhere? Maybe a little farther to the right? Can anybody else see anything?")

As soon as the snow melts they'll realize the error of their directional way and right themselves. And my mounds of snow-covered, perky, chirky, luxuriantly green chives will emerge and be fine. I hope.

20 comments:

LindaCO said...

Wacky wacky wacky. We could get snow here up until the beginning of May, but who knows. At this point, we'd all like some moisture - things are so dry.

dr momi said...

We have just a dusting of snow this morning...and a very dreary damp day. Guess what...after 4 years of doing just fine, my chives look like most of it was "burned" out! What! There's a few sprigs...nothing like yours.

Mama Pea said...

Linda - Yep, right there with you in being able to have snow for two whole more months . . . and it not being unusual! Rain, snow, we'll take any of it so that darn forest fire danger is down!

dr momi - Ooops, what happened to your chives? My two clumps must be almost 15 years old and not showing any signs of getting "tired." At least chives are something you can pick up at almost any greenhouse or nursery this spring. But . . . bummer!

Sue said...

It's snowing like crazy here now. We drove home from town at a record clip of......15 miles per hour. The forecast said it wouldn't stick. We have a couple of inches just in the past hour....and it's still coming down hard. I would love to have a job that paid $100K a year to always be wrong......

Susan said...

Poor solar panels - being a directionally challenged person, I can empathize. We are forecast to get a 'light dusting to 2 inches' tonight. I feel like I'm suffering from whiplash! And may I be the first one to remind you to freeze more chives?????

Mama Pea said...

Sue - I may be all wet (who said that?), but it seems to me that even though today's weather forecasters have scads of technological equipment to work with they aren't doing as good a job at predicting weather for an area than the old-timey farmers could do by walking outside, observing their animals, the clouds, the wind and the smell of the air. Amen. And so there.

Mama Pea said...

Susan - Obviously you've been able to see me walking with a limp from kicking myself in the butt so much for NOT harvesting some chives in the last day or so . . . as I kept thinking about doing, but didn't. Sigh.

Cat Eye Cottage said...

And we are supposed to hit 90 today in GA! I don't know much about solar panels, but that's really cool that they rotate to follow the sun. Do they do that throughout the day?

Carolyn said...

(Wonders if she always has conversations with her electrical equipment)

judy said...

Snow ,what you moved since yesterday,I told mother nature to behave herself. gosh ,I really didn't see snow for your future ,your a lot further north than I imagined or you moved to the north pole,wonder what weather they are having today

Katidids said...

No snow for us, we had rain last night but, like you it's not goign to be enough for the summer heat/gardening.

Sparkless said...

I'm sure we'll have another dumping of snow. If I go out and do anything in the gardens that should bring it on. It's been raining so much here the past week it sure is nice to see a bit of sun today.
I hope your snow melts quickly and your solar panels get their directions straight. LOL!

Anonymous said...

ROFL!!! Love the solar panel conversation:)

Anonymous said...

I love snow, but we don't get it enough to be tired of it. The rain, tho... I envy you your summer panels..

Leigh said...

The nerve of Mother Nature. Poor solar panels. I hope they don't wind up needing therapy. ;)

Mama Pea said...

The Weekend Homesteader - Um, I don't want to be impolite . . . but you can keep your temperatures! I start to melt at 90 and it ain't pretty! Yep, our solar panels follow the sun all day long. It's kind of fun to watch them twisting back and forth if there is a combination of large clouds and bright sunlight.

CR - Yeah, I do. Don't you?? ;o)

judy - I thought we'd wake to more snow this morning but the temp stayed right at 34 all night . . . and kept right on drizzling. That's fine 'cause we need the moisture.

Katidids - I wouldn't be upset if our rain continued all day today. (When we're done with it, I'll send it on your way.)

Sparkless - It seems like you folks in the northeast are the only ones getting enough moisture. Hope it all evens out soon!

Stephanie - Hey! You laughin' at me??

Ruth - We sure didn't get enough snow this past winter to be tired of it! Although snow in (almost) April doesn't seem as exciting as it would have in December!

Leigh - The solar panels will probably come out of this without needing therapy. There are a couple of us around here that might benefit from it though . . . not naming names, of course!

Dirt Lover said...

Ha! Since we don't have solar, I didn't know that the solar panels talked to each other. It's rained so much here lately that we are nothing but puddles. Still not up to our normal amount, but sure better than a month ago. Hope you get enough to get you out of serious fire danger this summer.
~~Lori

Mama Pea said...

Lori - When I'm outside I hear all kinds of voices. Don't you??

Erin said...

How crazy! It's good though, Mother Nature owes you a bunch of winter moisture!

Mama Pea said...

Erin - We're truly grateful for the damp, drippy weather. (It's too cold though!) Never satisfied, am I?