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Ah … spring. All is right

Work had me driving yesterday in swampy terrain near Orangefield in Orange County. That’s in Texas, son. I hadn’t given much thought that spring was officially just around the corner.

Recent rains which had replenished badly needed moisture lost from our extended drought had also left roadside ditches full of water, a thought I pondered upon until I got on the country road where I was going. Then, like a 50-pound ox hammer — if such exists — it hit me. Crap on a cracker! it’s spring time.

It might be a week away from that infernal Equinox but just the same it is spring or my name isn’t Mr. Loofah Twaddlethorn. The grass and the growing leaves up upon the bottomland hardwood, illuminated by the sunshine, were of that hue of green that you can’t quite put your finger upon because you aren’t sure if it really exists. It’s sort of a hallucinogenic color of green. Or so I’ve been told.

The flowers are beginning to bloom, both those wild-growing weeds and those that were planted by the lady down the road. You know, the one with the house that appears as if it is a Southern fortress ringed with the brightest, prettiest azaleas and camellias you’ve seen in maybe 30 minutes.

And other manifestations of spring seem to be gripping me as time wears on toward an official change of seasons.

I feel worthless. That’s not to say I feel particularly bad. In fact, I may feel a bit better than normal. I just don’t feel like doing anything except to kick back and let the sunshine (in).

As well, and this might bring some disgust to someone who knows that I am a geezer-in-training, I noticed pretty girls, women-type-folks, with their skin exposed a might more than has been the norm. And even that which is unexposed all walks with a particularly fascinating perpetual motion. Yes, and it made me feel good. Me, the grumpy old man who sometimes writes sentences that are too long.

Spring. A young man’s fancy turns to love, or what’s love got to do with it. And maybe an old(er) man’s fancy turning to living and what’s life got to do with it. And I think I fancy taking a nap.

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Phil says: Six more weeks of something

Happy Woodchuck Day. I mean Groundhog Day.

I am unsure that groundhog would be a suitable substitute in the tongue-twister:

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Try it:

How much ground would a groundhog hog if a groundhog could hog ground?

I mean, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Of course, except in the realm of anthropomorphism, neither would one would likely see woodchucks chucking wood. That is, except in a GEICO commercial.

Either way, groundhogs, a.k.a. woodchucks, whistle-pigs and land beavers, don’t know syrup from mole asses when it comes to practicing climatology. That, nevertheless, doesn’t keep the town of Punxsutawney, Pa., from committing annual civic larceny by luring a groundhog out of the ground every Feb. 2, with said whistle-pig purporting to predict whether six more weeks of winter shall visit upon us.

Sorry, I know that is a bit strong. I am sure it is a fun celebration on Groundhog Day. Here is what Punxsutawney’s official Web site says of the goings on this morning:

“Hear Ye Hear Ye Hear Ye!

On Gobbler’s Knob on this magnificent Groundhog Day, February 2nd, 2012, Punxsutawney Phil, the Seer of Seers, Prognosticator of all Prognosticators, was summoned from his burrow in the old oak stump by the tap of President Bill Deeley.

At 7:25 a.m. he greeted his handlers, John Griffiths and Ron Ploucha. After casting an appreciative glance toward thousands of his faithful followers, Phil proclaimed:

As I look at the crowd on Gobbler’s Knob,
Many shadows do I see
So six more weeks of winter it must be!”

Burma Shave.

So by the prognostication of Phil’s shadow does it appear that we shall have six more weeks of winter, meaning sometime during the six weeks some place will actually receive winter weather. It really has been kind of a weak winter, nationally. Or, there shall be no winter at all. Or, the weather will stay as it is. As it is here, where I live, on the upper Texas coast, that means warm, humid, cloudy and even rainy weather. That rocks pretty much as far as I am concerned since we have suffered a very ugly drought.

Personally, I think predicting the end of winter is for the birds. Literally.

I saw a robin red-breast on Sunday when I went for a short walk. I started to pull out my cell phone and take a picture of it, but I figured it would be gone by then. It actually ignored me for about a minute or so.

Not long before seeing the robin, I saw a small V-shaped flock of geese flying el norte.

“Hey boys, I think we can get to Indianapolis in time for the Super Bowl,” says the geese squadron leader.

“Roger that. Honk honk,” the wingman replies.

When it comes to predicting weather by other than human beings using sophisticated science and radars and stuff, which member of the animal kingdom would you choose? A rodent or a bird?

If you are like a real person you probably could give a rat’s ass unless you are a farmer or someone else whose lives depend on the upcoming weather. And I might be wrong but most modern farmers probably don’t trust their livelihoods to either bird or rodent. That means there isn’t a lot we can do about what type of weather appears in the upcoming six weeks.

So it looks like we’re back to square one. Deja vu all over again, like Yogi Berra said. Why it’s just like that movie. What’s it called? I’m trying to remember.

Oh yeah, “Groundhog Day.”

 

 

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Get out the tin foil, sun’s a-comin’

Okay. Listen very carefully. A hell of a solar storm is wrapping itself over the planet. Everyone needs to follow these important instructions:

1. Take off all your clothes.

2. Rub Elmer’s glue all over your body.

3. Wrap yourself in aluminum foil from head to toe. When you get to the head, you need to start wrapping the foil until you can make yourself a cone. A cone will act as an antenna for the radioactive impulses emanating from the sun. The charges will flow along all four sides of your body from the cone into the ground. In about three months, this will be a great place to plant strawberries, squash or watermelons as the ground becomes charged with radioactive particles.

4. Once the solar storm passes, carefully unwrap the aluminum foil from your body and take a long bath in a mixture of white vinegar and soap powder.

5. Enjoy living without your aluminum wrap.

This is your brain on drugs. No, wait it is radiation from the sun, or something or other.

Chump.

Please don’t follow the above instructions. Someone would have to take you out into the desert or the forest and shoot you for being too stupid.

There is, however, a “space hurricane” as one story tells it. It is the most intense sun storm in almost a decade. The solar event is causing some flights over the poles to reroute due to the radiation and interference with electrical navigation and communication equipment. Then there is the aurora borealis.

The northern lights may be quite spectacular in some places due to the solar activity. Just how far south it might be seen is beyond my paygrade. But check out this story. Plus, this NOAA map shows the area of auroral activity worldwide and shows activity as far South as St. Louis, albeit not heavy activity. Theoretically, the lights can be seen anywhere north of the Equator, depending on the intensity of the solar activity and magnetic pole positioning. One story I read says the lights may be seen once or twice every 100 years south of the Tropic of Cancer, which runs along the middle of Mexico, the Gulf of Mexico and near Key West in the Western Hemisphere.

I doubt we will see the northern lights here in Southeast Texas because, thankfully, we are due some heavy rain. I’d love to see the aurora borealis. But there are always a lot of spectacular sites one may see out there in the sky. I’ve spent more time than I can remember looking at eclipses, meteor showers, Halley’s, Hale-Bopp and the heavenly bodies viewed with both telescopes and without. All you have to do is look up. And like the story in the Chronicle says, all you have to do is look north for the aurora borealis and, hopefully, have a clear night.

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Boom goes the thunder. Enter a brave new world of Houston football!

A clap of thunder about 2 o’clock this morning sharply transferred me from Dream Land into the here and now.

I immediately rose and went to the window, as I always do, to see the rain coming down in buckets. It’s called “drought behavior.” Shortly after listening to the torrential rain and various booms of thunder, the electricity flashed momentarily. It wasn’t enough to stop the alarm clock but a “beep” did warn me that my sleep apnea CPAP machine had stopped. Pushing the button to restart Mr. CPAP, I momentarily wondered whether I should get up and set the alarm on my cell phone as a hedge against a longer lasting lapse of electric power. I said: “ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz … ”

No matter how crappy my day was otherwise, I eventually and fully woke this morning to a new world. The world into which I had awakened had never before came forth with a Houston Texans playoff win. But lo and behold, Bevis and Butt-Head, here we were.

Although I half-assed picked them to win during a post last week I was really kind of doubtful as to the reality of such a feat. Sure enough, the Texans beat the Cincinnati Bengals 31-10 with air connections, ground-pounding  and defensive moves combining the two.

Andre Johnson rightly — as he is greatness and has been with the Texans for a long while — scored on a 40-yard pass play in which he made Bengals DB Adam “Pacman” Jones look like “Old Man” Jones. Pacman showed his great sportsmanship by storming off the field and shoving his defensive coach when the latter tried to say something to him. What a class act, that Pacman. Maybe it’s time for him to get serious about that hip-hop career.

Tailback Arian Foster, as was superbly described by CultureMap Houston’s Chris Baldwin, had the “Texans’ logo shaved into his head like a high school kid getting pumped up for the big homecoming game. It’s a move that delights his teammates, bringing a bunch of pros back to when they played the game for fun.” Foster infected the fans with that fun by scoring twice including a beautiful 42-yard run that brought a flashback of big man Earl Campbell from the “Luv Ya Blue” days.

Rookie J.J. Watt — an associate of Buckingham U. Badger during his college days at Wisconsin — looked as graceful as a ballerina when the defensive end leaped for an interception from Bengals QB Andy Dalton and ran the 29 yards for a game-changing touchdown.

It brought me a little happiness to see the Texans, who were battered, bruised and beat-up this year, pull off this impressive win. But I suppose that is just my fan-dom showing. Oh what the hell.

The Oilers Texans have their work cut out for them in the next go-round with the Ravens in Baltimore. The Birds beat them up pretty good when they last met, which was in Houston. As seemed to be the case last week, a lot of the sports talk people I sometimes hear on the radio have already written off the Texans. Yet it really doesn’t matter because even if they were somehow to pull off a conference championship or, God forbid, a Super Bowl win, they won’t get the respect they deserve. That’s just the way it goes if your radio or TV market isn’t named New York, or Dallas. Or if you are trying to be the “anti-homer” station.

It is wishful thinking but I pick Houston 20 Baltimore 19.

My other picks:

Denver 28

New England 21

LBJ has one last miracle in him.

Green Bay 35

New York Giants 20

Looks like a Manning won’t be going to the Super Bowl this year.

New Orleans 35

San Francisco 10

As long as Drew Brees ain’t hopped up on that cough medicine he advertises, the Saints look good. Just kidding about the cough medicine.

 

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Complexities of the coast, fog, smoke and all that jazz

Today I ended up doing squat. That kind of made me feel bad since I had intended to do more than squat. I even thought about going to the beach but I was concerned about smoke.

A massive – or so I was led to believe — wildfire had been burning in the area of the McFaddin National Wildlife Refuge. The beach I go to is McFaddin Beach, a part of this U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service area. I stuck my head out the door last night to check the temperature and I detected the rich, though not totally unpleasant, odor of smoke from burnt organic material. How do I know all that? Well, for one thing I grew up in the Pineywoods of East Texas where one could tell the smell of lingering woods fires from all else. Secondly, I’ve now lived here in Beaumont, about 45 miles from the uppermost Texas Coast, for awhile now and likewise recognize the distinct smell of burning coastal prairie.

This morning I woke up to a story that had gone, well, worldwide from what I’ve seen. A more than massive car pileup occurred near Port Arthur that was purportedly caused by a mixture of smoke and fog. The mess involved between 50 and 200 cars. That particular area is probably 20 miles South of where I live and about an equal distance from near where the marsh fire has been burning. It was pretty much a mess with 54 people injured, four critically. Helicopters, ambulances and buses took the injured to, I suppose, all the area hospitals.

I was kind of confused this afternoon when I read an article on the AP wire, quoting our county’s emergency management director saying the large marsh fire which I had heard so much about, was now out. I sent the EM coordinator an e-mail, asking how long these fires continue to smolder, because I took it that the smoke involved in the pileup was from the large fire I had been reading about. So far, I’ve not heard from him. I would be surprised if he does write me back.

The marshes abutting the beaches and extending for varied distances in all directions except South are part of the 1 percent of southeastern Texas-southwestern Louisiana tall-grass coastal prairie remaining from the some 7 million acres in pre-settlement days. I grew up looking at stately trees and gradual hills, saw a little of the world here and there and for the longest it took me a while to find the marshes attractive. But yes, I do find those marshes pretty and even more so because I know they are all that is what is left of ancient land in our particular environs.

A spark from welding was what was said to have caused the marsh fire which burned, according to at least one story, 10 acres. I think I’ve seen other stories indicating more acreage than that have been charred. But sometimes the fires on the wildlife refuge in Southeast Texas and as well in the federal area across Sabine Lake in Cameron Parish, La., are set in so-called “prescribed burns.” This is how it works, the US F&WS says:

 “Burning, if done at the right time of the year, will reduce the amount of dead marsh hay present and allow other species to grow. If fire is suppressed, several years of dense marsh vegetation will shade the surface, preventing other seeds from germinating or surviving. A productive burn removes vegetation that is just above ground and is usually conducted while there is still some surface water. Water acts as a barrier for the soil, preventing it from getting “cooked” while removing the vegetation. After a fire, most vegetation sprouts from the roots and the marsh is quickly covered with new growth. In addition, many other species of plants will sprout from seed as the sunlight warms the soil. “

Okay, well we’re getting out past the oil platforms. I talked to a nice lady at Sea Rim State Park, next door to McFaddin Beach, this afternoon and they reported no smoke at all. As a matter, she didn’t even see any fog coming to work this morning. However, she said perhaps several other marsh fires had also been burning in addition to the larger one.

I suppose that is the spotty nature of coastal weather and marsh fires. If I get my butt in gear and try to actually do something, such as go to the beach, I will make sure the fog is sufficiently “burned off” (no pun intended — at all.)