Mother Nature has a Wry Sense of Humor

Reconnecting with Nature

Linking up with Chrisy at Living a Good North Coast Life for Reconnecting with Nature, one photograph at a time.

Winter in the southern United States is generally a little chilly, but by now we've usually gotten some nice, warm sunny days and are seeing signs of spring - like crocuses and daffodils breaking through the surface of the ground and soaking up a little of the warm, February sun.  Not this year.  This year continues to be cold and snowy.

Since Sunday we have had an ice storm that left everything covered in 1/2" of ice (thank you winter storm Octavia), followed by snow, now being followed by bitterly cold air.  Jeesh.  Enough already - WE'RE IN THE SOUTH!!

I've been taking pictures of the yard because, well to be totally honest, I'm pretty bored.  I've been housebound for four days and if I'm going to stay in the house that long - I need something to do.  So I've been taking pictures and posting them on social media.  I must admit - even that is getting a little old.

As I was taking pictures today, I realized that Mother Nature has quite a sense of humor.

See what she did here?  The shed roof is snow covered, the tree branches encased in ice, and icicles hang down all along the roof edge.  Except right in front of the thermometer.  She didn't want to hide that!  She really wanted us to be able to see how cold it was!!

So it's cold - and snowy - and icy - and it's February.  A couple of months from now it'll be in the low 70's and sunny......

I'm counting on it!!

The calm after the storm

Linking up with Chrisy at Living a Good North Coast Life for Reconnecting with Nature

It poured late Saturday afternoon.  We were headed downtown to go to the CMA Fest concert and it was thundering, lightening and raining.  Raining cats and dogs, as they say.  They were calling for severe thunderstorms and, apparently, they were right.   CMA Fest brings in about 80,000 people over the course of the week, and about 65,000 attend the concerts at LP Field.  

Downtown Nashville has lots and lots of honkey tonks, and during CMA fest there are numerous music stages with live music.  Most of the crowd stays downtown until it's time for the concert.  The shortest route from there to LP Field is to cross the pedestrian bridge over the Cumberland River.  The storms were bad enough that they closed the pedestrian bridge and they delayed the start time of the concert.  The gates were closed and anyone who was already in the stadium was escorted to the concourse to wait out the storm.  We were in the car waiting for the text message telling us the gates were open.  FINALLY - about 8:00 pm, they opened the gates.  As we got out of the car, I looked to the right and saw the sunset.

Storm Damage

Well we are feeling pretty lucky about how we came through the storms Wednesday night (well, actually about 3:00am Thursday). The radar was ugly and they have now confirmed 13 tornadoes.

 

 

The Mount Juliet one is about 4 miles from us. This is one of the buildings that was damaged. There were a couple of people on the building at the time, but they were able to take cover and were okay.

This is just a short way from the other building. This is a Dollar General at the intersection of Lebanon Road and Mt. Juliet Road. That section of town was badly hit.

I'm not sure exactly where this one is, but you can see the size of the trees that were ripped apart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have to say, the winds were the worst we've ever heard. They started with that freight train quakity and then started swirling. The house was making noises I've never heard! They said there were 105 mile winds in downtown Nashville. I have since noticed that one if the flagpoles at the federal building downtown has been uprooted. that's some strong wind!!

We were watching the news, and the radar now has the ability to show not only where there is probably a tornado on the ground, but it shows where there's a 'debris field' - which is debris floating, or being carried by the wind. So they can pinpoint the areas that are in immediate danger. While the winds were so bad here, they were talking about this cell being just east of the Mt. Juliet radar station. The radar station is about a mile or so east of us, so we knew there were bad things happening around us. It's always so much worse at night. There's a certain amount of comfort in being able to see what's happening around you.

Fortunately we had no damage. It sure is a reminder that we need to make sure the storm shelter is ready for use.

 

Posted with Blogsy