Lance Mannion

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. 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

Weather Report. January 21, 2019. Evening: Slow motion hockey game

Tuesday evening. 8:43 p.m. 9 degrees. Wind from the west. 13 mph. Sky as clear as I wish it had been last night. Moon giving a luster to objects below. Where have I heard that one before? Milk and cookie run to Stewart’s. Library lawn iced over. Smooth and level as a skating rink. No one about, But down 208, under the roof of Pop’s Pavilion, there are at least fifteen people, all young men and on skates and with hockey sticks. The lights are on, the picnic area floor has been flooded and is now frozen, and a hockey game is progress. There’s hardly enough room for the two teams to maneuver without the players clipping each other’s shoulders. They skate and pass carefully, as if in slow motion, moving without speed and without hurry.

Weather Report. January 21, 2019: Nice of the moon to finally show its face

Monday. 6:30 a.m. 1 degree! Feels like –18 says the weather app. Wind from the northwest at 7 mph. Top half of the moon peeking out through the clouds over the rooftops to the west, silvering the scalloped ridges of the clouds

Well, hello there moon. Nice of you to finally show your face now that you're just being an ordinary full moon and are no longer blood red or eclipsing…

Weather Report. November 12, 2018: Sapphire Sky

Monday. 5:00 p.m. 51 degrees. Kingston. Long session of therapies this afternoon. Not quite dark when we walk out to the car. Sky sapphire blue.

Weather Report. November 5, 2018: Prism-shaped columns of mist

Monday. 3:30 p.m. 46 degrees. On the Thruway heading south, just below Kingston, on our way home after Mrs M’s therapies. Across the valley to the east, many prism-shaped columns of mist rising high out of the hollows, thick and white as smoke.

Weather Report. October 13, 2018: With a goose as my confessor

Saturday. 4 a.m. 46 degrees. Rain predicted. Wide awake, waiting for the coffee to brew, reviewing my sins. A goose headed for the river flies over the house, honking lonesomely.

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Filed under How the Weather Was.

Weather Report. September 25, 2018: Somewhere safe and comforting

 

Monday. 7:40 a.m. 51 degrees. Sun up just high enough to turn the sky blue to the horizon but the light is still soft and shadows long. Light wind from the north. 5 mph. Can see it in the tops of the neighbor’s maples. Out on the porch, of course, called out here by my friends the blue jays. Mrs M, bundled up in my barn coat, has joined me for coffee and coffee cake. I told her about how I think of the blue jays as my friends. That’s them whistling, I pointed out. Blue jays don’t just cluck and cackle and scream. They’re truly sociable birds. They’re talking to each other. Not flirting. Not marking territory. Just saying hello and exchanging news. I know Ms M loves me because she puts up so patiently with my bird lore lectures.

When she woke up I suggested we run away. I was already feeling oppressed by the length of my to-do list.

“Where to?” she asked.

“No place special,” I said. “Someplace safe and comforting.”

“Ok,” she said agreeably.

So here we are.

Weather Report. September 22, 2018: Wind picking up again with a hiss

Saturday. 7:07 a.m. 64 degrees. Wind from the northwest at 7 mph. Out on the porch. Barefoot and in my pajamas but with my barn coat over them. A few geese honking overhead. Clouds on the move, heading east, low, white cotton puff balls but with rags and tatters of dark silver, the color I used to use for unconvincing chrome on model cars and airplanes. The breeze bouncing the tree branches just before I came out here had stopped for a while but is picking up again with a hiss. A robin, startled out of the holly bushes, flies at an angle into the window, glances off the glass, and flies off, apparently unharmed.

Weather Report. September 11, 2018: Where did the summer go?

Tuesday. 12;07 p.m. 67 degrees. On Route 9, heading south, taking Mrs M to her appointment with her surgeon in Westchester. Low hanging mist chopping the tops off the wooded hills to the west. Last time I made this trip was June 5. Three months and six days. Seems like no more than a week ago. Then there were still flowers on the locusts and ash trees. Today there’s yellow in the birches and poplars, rust in the maples.

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Photo "Autumn birch" by James Jordan, courtesy of Mecklenburgh Square Garden.

Weather Report. September 5, 2018: Mourning Dove, Mourning Lance

Wednesday. 6:22 a.m. 66 degrees. Out on the porch. Sun up but sky clouded over. Pale gray. Thing patch of fog in the air I can see only against the background of the far, large maple just beyond our neighbor’s fence at the corner of her driveway across the street. The dawn chorus right now is a frenzy of crickets or peepers---can never tell---humming and chirping allegro. Only bird singing yet is a mourning dove somewhere behind our house cooing sorrowfully in counterpoint, the heartbroken call of woe that gives mourning doves their name. And I’m thinking, “You and me both, pal. You and me both.”

Weather Report. August 26: April makes a return appearance

Mined from the notebooks. Posted Tuesday morning, September 4.

Wednesday. 7:48 a.m. 61 degrees. It's a little chilly out here on the porch where I'm sitting having my coffee. This sounds like banal news but let's unpack it.

1. It's a chilly morning. 61 degrees. No humidity. Sunny. Cloudless sky.

2. I'm outside but not doing yard work! I'm having my coffee out on the porch. 

These two conditions have not occurred simultaneously since APRIL!