Windy, no rain

[altivo]

Well, they promised "terrible" thunderstorms for today. I guess some parts of the state may have gotten a few, but there was nothing here. The afternoon was sunny, the temperature pleasant, the only thing out of the ordinary was a gusty wind that perhaps approached gale force in the gusts. The tops of trees were waving about and making ominous creaking noises, but down at ground level you mostly just noticed the noise.

The NOAA radio alarm kept going off repeatedly with watches and warnings, but none were for this area. Tess wasn't happy about the noise the wind made, though. I took her out to the pasture anyway this afternoon, and it was a nervous trip out. She settled after a few minutes out there, though. Grass does that. She made one high speed figure eight while I had my hooves crossed that there were no gopher holes we hadn't noticed, and then stopped to eat grass. She was still eating grass a couple of hours later when I went to retrieve her. The wind was noisier by then but she was so contented and full of grass she didn't care.

One of the dogs wasn't feeling so contented though. When I came in from my two hours doing chores and bedding everyone down, there was a huge pile of barf on the floor. Feathers. In fact, obviously cardinal feathers. I'm guessing a cardinal crashed into the dining room window and Sarah went out the dog door and retrieved it. Ugh. I can hope she learned a lesson from that but I suspect not. Too bad it wasn't just a sparrow, we have those in great abundance. I prize the cardinals for their song and color. We are seeing red breasted nuthatches again, too. I hope they will stick around all winter.

There has to be something geekish, so I'll announce that OpenVMS is configured and running on the Alpha now. Transferring the license keys from my e-mail to the Alpha when networking on the VMS system wasn't yet enabled due to no license key was a bit of a trip, but I succeeded. You don't want to know how, but it worked in the end. Then the only major problem was convincing the VMS OS not to insist on trying to run its NIC at 100 Mbit Full Duplex instead of autonegotiating and discovering that our home LAN doesn't run that fast. That involved a utility I had never used before, and one that took some pretty bizarre syntax. But it's working now. The machine has been switched back to Linux so it can run BOINC all night, but sometime tomorrow I hope to start installing the "layered" products that I have, including language compilers, editors, and so forth.

Comments

Rain? We don' need more steenkin' rain!

[goldenstallion.livejournal.com]

Dear Rider.

Appears WE got your rain. Huge thunderstorm right over and one lightning hit right here close. Can't tell yet but it was not our internet antenna at least. FLASHBOOM! Lotsa rain and more. But calm and quiet as I type... must be the lull before the second half, according to weather on TV and stuff.

Oh I am sure our boys were out galloping after that hit. Of course it is still pitch black so... I always cross fingers and hope it was not one of the horses.

Imp

Re: Rain? We don' need more steenkin' rain!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, I agree we really don't need any more rain right now either. And we don't need these howling winds that have been blowing for 36 hours now. What we do need is a good frost. The trees are late coloring up, and the wind is going to take all the leaves off before I get to enjoy that fleeting moment of highly colored beauty.

One white oak by the arena did turn red overnight last night. I'm guessing that the evaporation from all the wind had something to do with it. The temperatures certainly aren't very low. I see a hickory behind the arena has gone golden as well, but mostly stuff is still green here.

Thunder only happens when it's rainin'...

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

Hmm... it's been a long time since I was in a "terrible" thunderstorm... there was once one I went through in Titusville where a lightning bolt struck a transformer less than thirty feet from where I was standing. Sparks flew and I swear I could feel an energy surge pass through the air, as if radiating from the contact point. I had a thing about thunder storms for awhile after that... but eventually forced myself to get over it. I've walked out into some pretty nasty thunderstorms since and just stretched out my arms and felt that sensation in the air... it's the same, even after all this time.

Re: Thunder only happens when it's rainin'...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Thunderstorms and even tornados are fairly frequent here on the plains. We tend to get a little jaded about them, though my dog always reminds me how awful they are. He's afraid of thunder.

We sometimes even get thunder and lightning in the winter when it's snowing.

Re: Thunder only happens when it's rainin'...

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

Thunder & lighting when it's snowing?!?! I've gotta see that!!!

Re: Thunder only happens when it's rainin'...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Falling snow actually creates quite a lot of static electricity. I can hear the hiss of it on a dry, quiet winter day. But yes, the structure of a snowstorm is pretty much the same as a rainstorm and can produce the same effects. Some folks here call it "thundersnow". It's not as common as the rainstorm variety, but sounds and looks about the same.

Re: Thunder only happens when it's rainin'...

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

Sounds cool... heh, I love that tingle of static electricity.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Thunder and dog barf, *pats the poor pony*
Yes there's nothing like coming home to that.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Thunder I don't mind, really. Dog barf, though, I can do without.