Stop whistling, that’s enough wind

We awoke today to the sound of wind. Not just any wind, but a wind that roars down the valley and wakes you from a sound sleep. It gains velocity as it falls from the headwall where it spills over into Tennessee from North Carolina; funneling into a steep narrow valley that compresses it, warms it, and accelerates it toward us. Just before it descends upon us, it meets the family compound valley upstream of us. It encounters a slight leveling and widening space there, which is just enough to cause the mass of air to deflect upward a bit so that the higher velocity core is about 30-50 feet above our house as it flies by. Then, downstream of us, the valley widens and the air mass drops closer to ground level. It’s simple micro-climatology, found in every mountain valley. It cools us on hot nights and is welcome. On days like today, driven by cold fronts and steep pressure gradients, it sends limbs flying, blows the tops off trees, and downs huge trees, blocking roads, dropping power lines, and blowing transformers.


I had the alarm set for 0631 today. There was no wind noise when I hit the snooze button. At 0715 our anemometer was showing a 15 mph gust. Loki and I set off down valley to meet Mike at 0930. By then, the trees were pitching and tossing wildly and there was a steady whine from the power, phone, and cable wires as the wind tore past them. It is really impressive to watch the trees in such wind. Some of these trees reach 100 feet in height. It takes tremendous amounts of force to move them, and they require incredible amounts of strength to withstand the wind. The sound of such winds in the dark of night is capable of raising the hair on the back of your neck. It’s a sound o f immense power, of branches rubbing against trees, branches falling in the dark, a rushing, tearing, lonesome sound. The sight of huge trees moving against a dark, cloudy sky brings up primeval unease. It should.

The dog was most unhappy with the wind – she doesn’t like windy weather at all- and tried to keep tightly by my side. The wind gusts were at 30 – 35 MPH by the time we hit our halfway point and turned back up hill. The difficulty from the elevation gain on the road back was compounded by gusts that literally were blowing us back a step if they hit us when we had one foot raised. We were back at the driveway by 1020 and I noticed a branch in the road up valley. I put the dog in and went up to photograph it and move it. This is on the stretch above our driveway, not yet trimmed.

Note that this is dead, blow down. Looking up valley (south

I went inside to show the photo to Gloria. At that point, the power went out of service. After shutting the computers down, and calling the outage in to the power company; I went out to look for any obvious blown transformers, downed wires, or other possible causes. Up valley, perhaps ten feet from the previous blow down, was the entire top of a poplar tree.

View is down valley toward our driveway on right. This completely blocked the road until we dragged it off to one side. It will need to be cut up with a chain saw. I won’t approach it again until the wind is no longer likely to blow other pieces of tree onto us. The interval between moving and photographing the first branch and this falling was no more than ten minutes. Had I been standing under it when it was blown off the tree, about 50 feet above, I’d have been seriously injured.

Power was returned to service about 2 hours later. The wind is still blowing at 10-15 MPH, gusting to 20. We’ve had one power flicker since. I’m hoping that the wind will subside a bit.

It’s a beautiful day, clouds over the mountains against blue sky and brilliant hillsides.

 

View over our roof, eastern valley wall color increasing daily

Looking down valley toward our drive on right. The tall tree on left was partially trimmed yesterday. Immediately after this photo was taken we watched another branch blow off. I suspect it will be taken down next week. If it blows over, it will drop the power lines (upper left)

In light of yesterday’s conflict with our neighbor, we pulled our copy of our property deed to review. There was a note that “water rights” from a spring on our property had been “sold to neighbor across the road a long time ago but were not in use” as of our closing date. We had no problem with that. We still wouldn’t if not for his behavior. However, he no longer uses the spring for drinking water – it is not safe or continual in nature. He currently has county water piped in. So our position is that no property possession was conveyed with water usage rights. We’ve printed that page of our closing documents, along with a copy of the survey. We think we have legal possession. The title search we paid for at closing found no conflicts in the last 33 years.

In fact, we closed on this property 3 years ago today.

This is the view from the northwest corner of our property looking up valley (south). Our driveway is about 25 meters past the leftward bend visible above. This is part of the property our neighbor has claimed is his.

Dinner tonight will be Posole. To the ample amount left over from the other night, I’ll add chicken stock, more hominy, and cilantro. I’ve removed some sirloin from the freezer for tomorrow night.

Stand by for more “Adventures from Moose Byte Scrawls.”


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Whistle me up a wind - but make it a fair one

I'm fascinated by figureheads from sailing ships.  This one is named Britannia.  Whether she orignally graced a merchant vessel or a man o' war, I don't know.

Sailors used to believe that whistling aboard ship would cause a gale to blow.  Hence, whistle just enough to cause a breeze.

Old sea legends state that women aboard ship are bad luck and that their presence causes a storm. But there is another superstition which claims that a bare-breasted woman could calm angry seas and quiet winds.   That may be the reason for so many mermaids and other half-dressed female figure heads.  Or perhaps they were simply more fun to carve and display in times when a glimpse of skin and a shapely naked woman were hard to come by and likely to result in incarceration or excommunication. 

I would love to create a figurehead but woodcarving is not my forte. 

The weather, today, was foggy and humid when I took the dog out at 0600.  Dogs, both up and down stream were barking at something that alarmed them.  Since we had a bear wander through earlier in the month and help itself to trash, I was somewhat cautious.  The light I was using, a 1 Watt LED only has a range of about 30 meters.  Loki seemed unconcerned about anything but sniffing for rabbits, so I took her out to the road, got the newspaper and strolled back to the house with our dog not at all concerned about the others. 

According to the radar, there is rain within 5 kilometers and a 70% chance of rain here.  It missed us last night. 

Speaking of being missed:

I've been trying to ask a couple of questions at town hall meetings sponsored by our local congressman.  At the large one in Johnson City, the line of questioners was broken just before me - time constraints.  AARP sponsored a telephone town hall meeting and called me to participate.  I had great questions already written out, certain to both raise valid concerns and irritate the congressman.  Time ran out again after I sat listening to people repeat the same GOP death panel rumors over and over for 40 minutes. 

Last night was to be another telephone town hall event.  I was prepared, had dinner made so Gloria could eat on time while I waited on the phone for a turn to speak.  The phone rang at 1820 and I walked in to put on the headset and pick up the call.  The answering machine, programmed to allow four rings, picked up after three.  I heard the recording say, "Sorry we missed you."    I have no idea what was discussed.  During the first two meetings, Congressman Roe delivered pure GOP party line - "No public option, no abortion, no, no, no, no, no!" 

The GOP and its higher ups are masters at spreading lies and misinformation to the most vulnerable segment of the population.  During the AARP phone meeting, I heard three different older women ask how long they would be allowed to live if they got sick after 65, ask if they would receive medication after 65, ask if they would be euthanized after 65.   These women genuinely were afraid of the fictitious death panels.  Roe told them not to worry about them but I don't believe he was that convincing.  And to be truthful, I wouldn't be surprised if he had wanted to leave some doubt. 

Roe is a retired OB/Gyn.  He keeps telling people how he performed surgeries on elderly patients which improved their quality of life.  No doubt this is true.  But his purpose in relating this is to bring up the scary word, "rationing."  He implies that any national or public option will result in draconian rationing.  Of course, he overlooks the fact that we ration health care by affordability every day in this nation.  The Canadian and British models do have flaws and they do wind up with some procedures rationed by availability.  You can only shove so many people into an MRI during a day.  The result is that non-emergent patients may wait longer for tests &/or procedures.  But that delay, however long it may be, is far less dangerous and far more acceptable than the failure to receive treatment because it is too expensive as happens here. 

The collection jars one sees on quick shop counters all over, begging for money to pay medical bills or to pay the upfront costs of surgery should convince any reasoning person that our health care delivery, determined and enforced by insurance companies,  is serverely rationed by affordability.    If you don't have the cash in hand, don't get sick.

Years ago, I was sent to Florida for an instrument training session.  This was in the mid 1980s and Florida hospitals were being acquired by hospital chains as fast as they could ink the contracts.  Included in the prepratory documents that I was sent was the warning that only one health insurance was now acceptable in the region where I would be for training.  I was advised that all hospitals wanted either that one insurance card or cash up front for any care at all, including emergency services. 

Chain hospitals still behave in that manner.  They deliberatly drop ER services so they don't wind up having to care for indigents or under-insured walk ins.  They don't staff an ER so no trauma patients, keeps their costs way down.  Of course, for patients in serious need of emergency treatment, it often means that they may wind up spending so much time in transit to the nearest ER that handles indigent and trauma patients that it no longer matters to the patient. 

Last night's dinner was chili-mac, made with ground bison and Dream Fields linguini.  Their pasta doesn't spike Gloria's glucose so when we want pasta that's what we use now. 

Tonight, left over pulled pork served up as tacos and refried black beans.  I'll use corn tortillas and serve Gloria's hers on a very thin, multi-grain sandwich roll that Arnold makes.  They come in several varities and will just handle a cheese burger. 

Dave Brubeck Quartet at Carnegie Hall is cued up and ready to play. 

I think I'll go out and whistle up a dog.  If I get a gale as well, that could be interesting too!