Alice Audrey

It’s been a heck of a Spring. We went for week after week of cool wet weather. This, along with an unusually large snow pack, resulted in the river getting as high as I’ve ever seen it. Luckily, the levies through town are pretty high so I doubt we’ll actually get flooded, but there have been many other places along the river where people have to wade to get to their front door. I’m thinking if we do over flow the banks, sandbags will be at a premium.

About a week ago we had two and a half days of high winds. They actually blew some of the shingles right off my roof. I’ve called a couple of roofers, but since people took damage all over town, I’m not surprised that I could only get answering machines and have not been called back.

Now it’s raining again. So far i haven’t had to put any buckets out, but it still bothers me that there are places on my roof that look like cow licks.

And then I hear from my internet friends about weather that is much worse than mine. One friend posted a picture her husband took showing the beginnings of three funnels. Yikes!

So, how’s your weather? And how are you?

Last Summer we were camping out when we ran across this thing:

Both The Girl and The Boy immediately started offering their ideas of what it was.

The Girl thought it might be the chrysalis of a butterfly until she noticed the legs, at which point she said “Ewww” and found an excuse to be as far from it as she could get, only to wander back and look at it again a minute later.

The Boy shrugged and started to say it was some bug, then stopped himself and started talking about pod people and alien invaders and was working up a real head of steam when Mr. Al saw it.

“Cicada.” Mr. Al said, then corrected himself. “Cicada skin.”

The two of us muttered about molting and the funny sound they make and how perfectly intact the thing is. Then The Girl found this:

Yep, a cicada. While The Girl and The Boy both said they didn’t think they were the same thing at all, I think it might actually have been the very same cicada.

What do you think?

I’ve been looking over pictures from last summer.

We stopped at a scenic overlook in Western Wyoming for lunch. While the kids waited for me to make sandwiches, they wandered around looking for anything interesting. The Boy came running to tell me he’d found some snake eggs. He made me go look. If you squint just right and tip your head while looking at the second picture, you can just make out some shells.

Yep. Quail eggs. I could have sworn he knew that snakes generally lay their eggs underground, and generally don’t have hard shells, but he’s still insisting they couldn’t just be from some bird because there was not nest. It was snake eggs. No sense arguing. He might be right.

How’s your weather? I’m pretty sure those of you up in the Northern Hemisphere like me are about ready for Spring. How about those of you Down Under? Ready for Fall?

Mr. Al comes home with all kinds of odd things. This pink flamingo stands about four feet tall, and is wired for lights. The lights don’t work, but Mr. Al naively seems to think he, or someone entirely too near and dear to him, can fix it.

Yeah, so maybe I could if I put my mind to it, but then what? Put it in the yard?

I actually get a kick out of pink flamingos when they are done right – like say a hundred of them in a yard, or a bunch knocked over, or one really awful…. hmmm……

Right now this sucker is sitting in the corner of our porch. I’m thinking it might disappear into the trash, or it might appear riding in the back of a miniature truck, or it might join the 1950′s hair dresser chairs in the storage unit.

If this turned up in your household, what would you do?

Any guesses what this is?

I was walking along a slick sidewalk, enjoying the fact I could actually walk on it, rather than having to slug through yet another snow drift or risk life and limb on the black ice they consider road, when I noticed the spirally print above.

It’s a footprint.

I know because there was a whole set of them marching along the sidewalk. Off hand I’d guess a man’s size 9.

Don’t see it?

That’s because whoever he was put the equivalent of tire chains over his shoes. It’s a set of springs that clamp onto the bottom of your shoe and supposedly give you good traction.

I wonder if they would fit on my truck.