Lance Mannion

Weather Report. November 11, 2019: Cold with showers and a hundred percent chance of increased caffeination

Posted Monday morning, November 11, 2019.

Monday. Mom Mannion's back porch at the old Mannion Homestead. 6:46 a.m. 40 degrees. No wind. Not even a hint of a breeze. Out on the porch waking myself up by having coffee in the chilled air. Expected the cold to drive me in before I finished my first cup. Now finishing my second and considering a  third. A light jacket and I’m fine. Sun not yet fully up. There’s a squirrel making its way along the top of the wire fence in the far back of the yard, the squirrel making its presence almost visible by a squirrel shaped shifting of the shadows and the fence by inspiring the question “What else can be holding that squirrel shape up?”  But the leaves on the ground nearer in are as bright as copper and shine in the grass that’s as green as summer’s, and there’s just enough light to make these notes by. Chickadees buzz in the neighbor’s pines. Now there’s the sound of light rain falling on the leaves and rustling among the leaves on the ground at the foot of the invisible fence that might be two squirrels making their way in the opposite direction as the first shadowy one. The windows are misting over. I think I will have that third cup.

Filed under How the Weather Was.

Weather Report. Sunday afternoon, October 20 2019: "Life's short, eat cookies" says the sign...Sorry, not when there are apple donuts fresh out of the oven to be had!

Posted Wednesday morning, October 23, 2019.

Sunday. Tantillos Farm Market. 12:26 p.m. 54 degrees. Wind NNW 1 mph. Cloudy, gray, fog over the orchards in the distance. Mist turning to rain turning to mist turning back to rain. Day started off a beautiful fall day, perfect morning for picking apples and pumpkins. But we were slow to get going and by the time we got to Tantillos it wasn’t the best weather for tramping out into the fields. But it was good weather for staying warm and dry inside the stand and breathing in the aroma of pies and apple cider donuts baking in the kitchen in back. “Life’s Short, Eat Cookies” the sign over the kitchen window says but we gave the cookies a pass and took home a dozen donuts fresh out of the oven, along with a half gallon of local cider and a cheerful-looking pumpkin picked off a table out front. Carving’s next weekend. The donuts and cider are already gone.

Filed under How the Weather Was.

Weather Report. Tuesday morning, October 15, 2019: A cardinal and a blue jay greet the day in their different idioms and the moon calls it a night

Posted Tuesday morning, October 15, 2019.

Tuesday. 7:10 a.m. 34 degrees. At the moment there’s no wind. Supposed to get blustery. 15 mph from SSE with gusts up to 24 mph. Clear sky fully light although according to the app it is only now sunrise. Moon’s still up, above the neighbor’s roof, white and nearly full, framed between the two large maples on her front lawn. Going to get up into the mid-60s later but it’s barely above freezing right now. No frost but when I go outside barefoot and in my pajamas to try---and fail---to get a better picture than the one I took out the front window and step out onto the lawn the dew-drenched grass is ice cold underfoot. A cardinal cheeper-cheeper-cheepers a ringing good morning. He’s answered by a louder blue jay screeching rustily as she flies between the trees, “Can it, Mr Cheerful!”. She’s late for work and the kids need to get up and ready for school.

Weather Report. Friday, October 4, 2019: It's fall. Do you know where your rake is?

Posted Saturday morning, October 5, 2019.

Mount Beacon, Dutchess County, New York, seen from the west side of the Hudson River. (We were traveling on the east side.) Copyrighted photo by Vijai Kalathur from his book Hudson Valley Illustrated.

Friday. 12 p.m. 61 degrees. Heading south along Route 9 after dropping Ken off at school. Approaching Fishkill, aiming to cross the river at Beacon. Leaves in the air over the road blowing straight at us but none slapping the windshield. Air we're pushing ahead of us lift them over the hood and roof or force them to veer off to the sides. The turnoff to the bridge is going to come up before we’ll be able to see Mount Beacon, but the Hudson Highlands are coming into view to the southeast. Think we’re looking at Quaker Ridge. Low gray clouds overhead and apparently stretching to New York City, but the sun’s breaking through to the east and shines on the ridge, lighting up the leaves on the trees on the hillsides bright scarlet and orange-red. Mrs M observes “There’s a sight that screams fall.” She re-thinks her word choice. Scream doesn’t connote how peaceful and comforting the scene is. “Maybe it whispers it.” I split the difference. “I think it just says it, matter of factly. ‘Hello, it’s fall. Do you know where your rake it?’”

Weather Report. August 27 2019: The blue-ing of Mrs M's hydrangeas

Posted Tuesday morning, August 26, 2019.

The bowl is full of coffee grounds, in case you're wondering what you're looking at. When I took this picture back in early July, they were slated for spreading around the roots of the hydrangea bushes by the porch. Like their gardeners, the hydrangeas here at the Mannionville Ranch like their morning jolt of caffeine.

Tuesday. 7:49 a.m. 51 degrees. Supposed to get up to 72 by this afternoon. Wind from the SSE at 5 mph. Cloudy but the clouds are high so it’s gray but not gloomy. No rain in the forecast. Thunderstorms tomorrow. Weather app predicts what I consider perfect summer weather for the end of the week. Sunny. Highs near 80 during the day, lows in the 50s at night. But fall’s coming on. Our flowers are showing signs. The blackeyed susans are doing fine. The coneflowers, though, are having a hard time keeping their heads up, and a few have toppled. The hydrangeas have blown. The few petals left on their withered blossoms have turned an ugly and burnt-looking pale pink draining to a lifeless white. But they were beautiful while they lasted. Bluer and fuller and heartier and happier-looking than I remember they’re having been in many years. Must be due to Mrs M’s tending. At the beginning of the summer I read that hydrangeas do best in acidic soil and that an environmentally friendly way to acidify the soil is to spread coffee grounds around their roots. Mrs M liked this idea and all season she’s been diligently following the advice. This has been good for her as well as the hydrangeas. One of the symptoms of her tumor and hydrocephalus that I missed was that she lost interest in her gardening, which she enjoyed almost as much as her cooking.. I attributed it to her work schedule making her too tired and keeping her too busy. She’s not back to form, yet. Maybe next spring. But tending the hydrangeas has made her happy, and the coffee grounds may have done the trick, although, like I said, I give the credit to Mrs M.

Here’s what the blossoms looked like at their bluest in the middle of July…

Filed under How the Weather Was and Diary of Her Recovery.

Weather Report. Saturday evening, August 24, 2019: Summer waning

Saturday night, August 24, 2019.

Saturday. 8:24 p.m. 67 degrees. Passing clouds. Breeze from the northeast, 3 mph.. Late evening grocery run. Twilight when I went into the supermarket. Near dark when I came out. Fully night by the time I was halfway home. Summer waning.

File under How the Weather Was.

Weather Report. Sunday morning, July 28 2019: "Kvetch! Kvetch!"

Mined from the notebooks Sunday morning, July 28, 2019. Posted Sunday morning, August 4.

I need to become more fluent in catbird: Grey Catbird looking slightly irritated, the typical expression of its species. Photo by Ryan Schain. Courtesy of the Macaulay Library, via the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology.

Sunday. 7:36 a.m. 76 degrees. Feels warmer. Real Feel 69 says the weather app but it feels even warmer than that. Probably the humidity. 96 percent. And that there’s no breeze. Wind at 0 mph. Catbirds are feeling as chatty as usual. Heat doesn’t seem to be cramping their style. Like I would know. Maybe they’re complaining about it. Would be hard to tell even if I was more fluent in catbird. They always sound as if they’re complaining about something. In fact, it’s not taking to much of a poetic license to transliterate their rusty gate call as “Kvetch! Kvetch!”

Filed under How the Weather Was.

Weather Report. Very early Sunday morning, August 4, 2019: The preferred late night snack of bloggers

The Old Mannion Homestead. Sunday 2:09 a.m. 66 degrees. Wind SSW. 3 mph. Up late working out on the porch. Peepers peepering nonstop.From inside the house, the musical drip of the faucet in the kitchen sink, drops hitting a knife and making it ring on a plate that won't get washed until morning, sounding like a bird piping contentedly in its sleep. Very light breeze bringing a chill through the open jalousies. Thinking I need a sweatshirt. Knowing I need fortification. Wheaties may be the breakfast of champions, but Cheerios with blueberries is the preferred late-night snack of bloggers.

 

Weather Report. Wednesday morning, July 17, 2019: A Summer for Butter Birds

Mined from the notebooks, Wednesday, July 17, 2019. Posted Sunday morning, July 28.

American Goldfinch on a mullein stalk, a more stable perch than the thistles in front of our house. Photo by Gary Fairhead, courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Wednesday. 6:55 a.m. 74 degrees---already! No wind. 88 percent humidity. Supposed to get up to 90 by midaftertoon. Goldfinch on telephone wire. Flies towards the house. Lands on a thistle in front of the window. The thistle bounces under his weight. Decides he doesn’t like it. Flies back up onto the wire, back to me now, surveying the neighborhood for a more stable perch near food. This has been a summer for goldfinches, not just in the neighborhood, but in the area. See them at the ends of low branches and at the top of tall bushes wherever we go. Bird populations fluctuate from year to year. Some years there are more of a species than others. Been a summer for cardinals too. Usually their peak is winter and early spring.  Rosalie---Uncle Merlin’s mom who still seems to make her presence felt even though she’s been gone 27 years now---loved goldfinches. Called them butter birds. The first time I visited her gravesite in the memorial garden behind the Episcopal church in Chatham her name hadn’t been put on the plaque inside the door yet. There were no markers in the garden. So I just took a seat on the bench and let myself miss her. I wasn’t alone there though. There was a bird perched on the overhang over the door into the church from the garden. One of her butter birds.

Weather Report. Friday, July 5, 2019: An old familiar face

Adapted from the Twitter feed and posted Friday morning, July 5, 2019.

American Goldfinch: Breeding male perched among apple blossoms. Uncredited photo via Wild Birds Unlimited.

Friday. 7:36 a.m. 61 degrees. High light gray sky. No wind. Weather app says 96% humidity. Can that be right?  Not yet uncomfortable out on the porch but can feel the heat building. High of 87 predicted. Goldfinch just made an attempt to land in our bushes. He couldn't get a good purchase and flew off. Closest one has come to the house in a long time which means it's the closest I've been to one in a long time. Probably he was looking to get at the thistles. All About Birds recommends planting native thistles to attract them. Most years we pull them before they bloom, thinking of them as weeds. This year I left them alone and they’re now several feet tall and looking like flowers instead of weeds. Goldfinches seem to come and go year to year around here. Some years we have a lot of them in the neighborhood. Some years it seems there are hardly any. This year is a bounty year. Good to see an old familiar face.

Filed under How the Weather Was.

Weather Report. Friday, May 31 2019: Roadside attractions

Posted Friday morning, May 31, 2019.

Friday. 8:23 a.m. 66 degrees. Clear blue sky. Beautiful morning here on the road home from dropping Oliver off at the school where he’s subbing today. Took a roundabout route and pulled off at the graveled turn around just above Forest to take a picture of the Trump flag mounted on the garage across 32. No breeze to lift it. A red-winged blackbird flew up out of a stand of reeds next to the car. Perched on a telephone wire, and turned to look back on where he came from with a keenly observant and wary air. Wondering if I was there to disturb the nest, I guess. Opposite roadside yellow with wildflowers I’ll identify when I get home. Picked a bouquet for the purpose that will go into a vase on the kitchen table to surprise Mrs M when she gets up to have her coffee.

Weather Report. Monday, May 27, 2019: Memorial Day Morning at Valley Forge

An appropriate place to begin honoring Memorial Day: Washington Memorial Chapel, Valley Forge National Park. This morning around eight, Monday, May 27, 2019.

Wednesday. 8:03 a.m. 66 degrees. Another beautiful morning at Valley Forge. Not as warm or humid as yesterday. An actual breeze freshening the air and causing the shadows of the leaves to play under the trees. Pulled into the chapel lot hoping to pick up some stray WiFi. No luck. Drove over to Von Stueben's statue. No WiFi there but the view across the parade ground is nicer than the scaffolding at the chapel. A mockingbird going through his routine perched on top of the Baron's cocked hat.

Weather Report. Tuesday, May 21, 2019: "No place is special except we make it so through myth and habitude"

Posted Tuesday morning, May 21, 2019.

“Moonlight” by Winslow Homer, 1874. Via Wikimedia.

Tuesday. 5:30 a.m. 45 degrees. Wind out of the north, 6 mph. It’s not August. It’s not the middle of the night. It’s five-thirty. Just after dawn. It was raining, softly, but it’s stopped. I’m not out on a deck. I was on the front porch with my coffee, not tea, but it got too chilly. But this poem by Sam Hamill describes my morning so far perfectly, at least the mood and the physical feel of it. So at the moment I love every line of it---except the last stanza. Where does the speaker get off thinking all his wife has to worry her in her sleep is that her sentimental old fool of a husband is wandering about in the night again, composing a poem that uses her as a convenient image? Mrs M’s still asleep, sighing in her dreams but probably not because she’s worried I’m out at the kitchen table, drinking coffee, pretending to write, and listening to the breeze that followed the soft summer rain stirring the leaves of our rose bushes which won’t blossom for another couple of weeks but when they do they’ll hold those red blossoms for more than a day. Still…good poem.

I woke past midnight
to the slightly burnt orange odor
of soft summer rain.

My wife slept beside me,
her breath punctuated with
the little sighs of a dreamer. Outside, pale moonlight
shone through the clouds, the great
evergreens dripping.

the katsura at the far end
of the garden turning
bright yellow already, although

it was early August.
I made a cup of tea and went
out to stand on the deck. I've clung to this place
like Han Shan-tzu
clung to his cave near the temple

on his beloved mountain.
I've watched these trees reclaim
a chunk of forest---slash,

waste and underbrush
when I came here
thirty years ago. No place is special
except we make it so
through myth and habitude. The forest reclaims itself
as best it can. Can I
do less? "No road leads the way," 
Kotaro duly noted his echo
of Han Shan's echo of Lao Tzu,
and hundreds of years between. I love beyond words this quiet rain
in these trees, the rose
whose stark white blossom lasts only a day, this garden
in moonlight, and the woman
who sighs, worried in her dreams. about her sleepless paramour
who rises in the night
to smell the rain.

---“Summer Rain” by Sam Hamill, collected in “Almost Paradise: New Poems & Translations”.

Weather Report. Monday, April 15 2019: Watching the tornado watch go by

Mined from the notebooks, early Monday morning, April 15, 2019. Posted late Tuesday morning, April 16.

Monday. 6:34 a.m. 56 degrees. Wind out of the east, 3 mph.  Startled awake at four by wind and rain and thunder and Oliver coming downstairs with his laptop to report a tornado watch. Rain heavy on the deck, the roof, and the porch outside the door. Loudest on the porch because the gutter was overflowing and the water was spilling out of it in a curtain that rattles the aluminum and slaps on the wood. The wind was gusting from the southwest at 29 mph. The tornado watch included our area and counties to the south and southeast all the way to New York City. The weather app said a severe thunderstorm warning was in effect until 4:15. Sure enough. Almost on the dot. Rain stopped, wind died, front had moved on. Silence. Lasted for about an hour then the birds start singing. They’re still at it. Sun’s up. Rain started falling again. A light shower this time. It’s let up but the prediction is it’ll be on and off all the rest of the day, sometimes heavy, sometimes just more showers. Wind will kick up again too. But the tornado watch has been cancelled and for now all is calm outside and cozy, snug, and warm within.

Filed under How the Weather Was.

Weather Report. Monday, March 25, 2019: Almost

Mined from the notebooks, Monday morning, March 25, 2019.

Wednesday: 9:30 a.m. 43 degrees. Wind out of the NE 8 mph. Power’s out. Been out for about an hour. Crews from the power company are at work putting up new telephone polls. Two long-bedded bucket trucks in front of our house. Couple more around the corner on the cross street, plus the crew chief’s pickup. Each of the bucket trucks carrying several poles in their beds. Good to see. Always good to see work being done. I’m not sure but I think the company’s stepped up its maintenance over the last few years. Seems that any day there’s nice weather wherever I go around the area I pass a crew at work. They’re not waiting for the old poles to rot or crack or blow over or for the bugs to eat them out or woodpeckers to dig at them going after the bugs. I remember it being an event when I was a kid and the Niagara Mohawk trucks came to our street to replace a pole that had split. Niagara Mohawk was terrific about getting the power back on after a storm. The object now is to keep the power on during storms. So our company’s become more assiduous about tree trimming and replacing poles that have barely weathered let alone rotted. So the wind and the snow don’t take as many lines down. Anyway...it’s always fun to watch the crews at work and watch the buckets going up and down. It’s a nice morning. Sunny. Breeze so light I hardly feel it when I step outside to supervise from the porch for a few minutes before going back inside to watch from the living room window. It’s almost a nice enough morning to sit out on the porch steps with my coffee and watch the whole process from there. Almost.

Filed under How the Weather Was.

Weather Report. Sunday, March 10, 2019: They weren't even saplings

Mined from the notebooks Sunday, March 10, 2019.

Sunday. Valley Forge National Park. 9:20 a.m. 45 degrees. Fog. Rain. Prediction is the sun will burn through by noon. Right now the fog is heavier than the weather app’s saying. Rain is lighter, more of a mist. On an explore through the park, coming back along 23, up from the road along the creek and rounding the uphill bend heading towards the chapel and von Steuben’s statue. From a distance, the oaks and the pair of log cabins on the hillside are pale gray shadows of themselves and grow barely more distinct as we get close. But the oaks seem to grow larger and their branches longer and more twisted. At another time of year, late fall to mid-winter, they would look ominous. The scene would look haunted. Today it’s only---only---beautiful. The oaks don’t conjure ghosts. They lay out the measure of time. The stories they tell aren’t ghost stories. Their story is the plain one of work being done. They are old, but probably not that old and they weren’t even saplings when Washington’s troops camped there. The acorns they sprang from hadn’t even fallen. Whatever ancestors of theirs occupied the hillside the troops would have cut down for lumber and firewood and used them to build cabins and fires. They’d have burned them in their wooden fireplaces and watched from their wooden bunks, wrapped in damp blankets the fires couldn’t dry out, as those grandparent oaks went up the wooden chimneys in smoke.

Filed under How the Weather Was.

Weather Report. Thursday, March 7, 2019: "Longest January I can remember"

Thursday. Around noon. 28 degrees. Wind from the west, 14 mph. Mrs M and I out for a late morning coffee run. Clouds have moved in since we left the house. On the way into Barnes & Noble we meet a woman on her way out. Middle-aged, average height, not thin but with no extra meat on her. Her jacket is fleece but she knows it’s not going to be warm enough. She’s barely out the door when she tucks her hands under her arms and ducks her head against the anticipated rush of cold. She was freezing before she set sneakered foot outside, chilled by the memory of how cold it was coming in. She’s aware of she must look comical to us, a true weather-wimp. She smiles with self-mockery when she meets our eyes. “Longest January I can remember,” she says with a laugh.

Filed under How the Weather Was.

Evening verse for a morning song

Posted Sunday morning, March 3, 2019.

Snow Moon. Quaker Hill Ridge, Dutchess County, New York. 11:40, Monday night, February 18, 2019. Photo by ES.

Something I didn’t know until our longtime blogging comrade and friend informed me by way of this post card: “February’s full moon is also known as the snow moon.” ES took the photo at 11:40 Monday night, February 18, 2019. The picture reminded me of the opening lines of "The Eve of St. Agnes" by John Keats. I appreciated the reminder. I don't read enough Keats anymore. Seems hardly anybody does. We should all fix that. Just by way of virgin martyr trivia, the Feast of St Agnes is January 21, and this year the moon was not only was full on January 21 but, you probably remember, there was a lunar eclipse and, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, it was a “Super Blood Wolf Moon!”  I didn’t see either the full moon or the eclipse. It was a cloudy night here. But it was a bitterly chilly St Agnes’ eve. Nine degrees! It was 19 degrees here the night ES took the picture. I don’t know how much colder it was up on the ridge but it was certainly colder. None of this figured in why I liked ES’ picture and asked her to let me post it here. Thanks, ES.

St. Agnes' Eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!

       The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
       The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass,
       And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
       Numb were the Beadsman's fingers, while he told
       His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
       Like pious incense from a censer old,
       Seem'd taking flight for heaven, without a death,

Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he saith.

---from “The Eve of St. Agnes” by John Keats.

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Filed under “Post Cards” and “How the Weather Was”.

Weather Report. February 12, 2019: The mental calm before the storm

Mined from the notebooks, Tuesday morning, February 12, 2019. Posted Thursday morning, February 14.

Tuesday. 8:00 a.m. 18 degrees. Very light breeze from the north. 5 mph. Snow predicted. And sleet. And ice. Nothing falling yet though. But the air is icy and the sky heavy and gray. Schools are closed already. Many offices too. Few other cars on the road as I head up to 208 on a grocery run. Just getting a few things. There are no signs of storm panic at the supermarket. People must have stocked up yesterday. Parking lot nearly empty. One register open and no line. Over at Dunkin there’s no waiting at the drive-thru. Across the street, no jam up at the pumps. It’s supposed to be a mess by mid-morning, but right now, as I sit here in the car having my coffee, it’s the proverbial calm before the storm, outside and in my head.

Filed under “How the Weather Was”.

Dunkin in the fog

Coffee run. Dunkin Donuts drive-thru, Modena, New York. Yesterday morning, Thursday, January 25, 2019, around 8:30.  50 degrees + heavy rain + melting snow = fog ∴ large coffee