Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts

Friday, May 17, 2013

Omaha backyard salad


We don't need no stinkin' supermarket; we got a back yard. And a front one.

What you see here is an Omaha backyard salad, consisting of dandelion greens and mint from the yard, and some onions, Parmesan cheese and cherry tomatoes from the store. So I guess we need the stinkin' supermarket a little bit.

Put a little bit of sweet Sicilian dressing on there, and you officially have some cuisine.

Tonnaire! Ça c'est bon, oui!

Thursday, May 02, 2013

Did Johnny Paycheck have a snow song?


It started with the sleet Wednesday.

"It" is what this Omaha World-Herald article refers to in today's editions -- a rare May snowfall:
The 3.1 inches of snow that fell overnight in Omaha set three records for May - but not a fourth.

Omaha now has two new daily records and a monthly record, but not a new calendar day record, according to Barbara Mayes, meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Because the snow straddled midnight, it set two daily records:

• 1.9 inches on May 1 exceeded the previous record of 0.2 inches for that date in 1911;
• 1.2 inches on May 2, the first recorded snowfall on that date.

On the other hand, because the snowfall straddled midnight, neither single day accumulated enough snow to exceed the 2 inches that fell May 9, 1945. That remains the most snow to fall on a single calendar day in May. Until this year, it was also the most snow to fall in the entire month of May in Omaha. This year's 3.1 inches breaks that monthly record.

The 2.7 inches that fell in Lincoln Wednesday and Thursday set two daily records, Mayes said:

• 2.5 inches on May 1, first recorded snow on that date;
• .02 on May 2, first recorded snow on that date.Neither day's total was enough to beat the calendar day set on May 3, 1967, when 3 inches fell. That amount also remains the monthly record for May in Lincoln.

MOLLY THE DOG couldn't believe her eyes. She knew this wasn't supposed to be "cold white stuff time." It's supposed to be "hot tickly stuff under paws time." This confused her greatly.

In fact, her confusion was such that bad consequences began to stem from it.


LIKE THIS. After surveying the shocking scene outside, the poor thing began to lose corporeal integrity. Over the next few minutes, it got worse and worse.

And then. . . .

And then. . . .

And then, Molly the Dog was but a vaporous presence. I'd hear a mournful "WOOOOOOOOOOO!" and see what seemed to be a ghostly apparition shambling around the house.

Soon enough, all that was left was the "WOOOOOOOOOOO!"

It was awful.

It hadn't even begun to properly snow yet.

COME THIS MORNING, this (below) is what we found when we opened the front door. On May freakin' second.

Snow.

Slushy snow covering the front stoop.

Soupy snow covering the driveway and street.

Heavy, wet snow covering the greening lawn.

Shoveling off the stoop and the front walk was like shoveling the last half of a Slurpee. It was like the Jolly Green Giant spilled his snow cone -- hold the syrup.

It sucked. Sucked worse than a snow cone with no syrup, because with that, at least you have shaved ice on a hot summer's day.

MAY 2, Omaha, Neb., was no hot summer's day. Or even a lukewarm one. It was a windy-ass, snowy-ass day. Halfway through spring.

I think Molly the Dog may have had the right idea with that losing-physical-integrity thing, dammit.



WOOOOOOOOOOO!

Sunday, April 07, 2013

There is no place like Nebraska

 
When the missus and I headed to Nebraska's spring game Saturday afternoon, little did we know that we'd end up seeing the best thing we'd ever witnessed in a football stadium.

College kids don't always put their best feet forward. That goes double for too many college athletes. But just when cynicism threatens to overcome one's jaded self, you see a bunch of college kids and their coaches do something extraordinary for a 7-year-old cancer patient -- one who had been befriended by former Husker running back Rex Burkhead when he was 5 and undergoing brain surgery. That led Burkhead to enlist his coaches and teammates into a Team Jack campaign, and now a larger effort to fight pediatric brain cancer.

But on Saturday, what this all meant was giving a little boy who has known much suffering a moment of great joy as 60,174 people in red went wild. I was yelling; my wife was crying.

It was wonderful.

Whether little Jack Hoffman lives to age 10 or -- may God will it -- to age 100, he will be a Husker fan for life. So will we lucky people who got to witness this moment of grace at Memorial Stadium.

Go Team Jack! Go Big Red!

Monday, March 28, 2011

Springtime in Nebraska


Welcome to springtime in the Great State of Nebraska -- 30ish and snowing.


Molly the Dog is wondering about this . . . and missing the 70ish temperatures of a week ago for her trips outside.

Tuesday, June 01, 2010

June is bustin' out all over . . . Doppler radar


Welcome to June in the Midwest.

This, in particular, is how the last month of spring is being ushered in here in Omaha, by God, Nebraska.

You have your dark, ominous clouds. You have the weather radio going off. You have the local television stations dropping everything to track the storms and relate an ongoing stream of thunderstorm and tornado warnings.

And you wonder what you might have time to grab just in case you have to make a mad dash for the basement.


Yes, dogs, you are on the list of things to grab.


Wednesday, April 07, 2010

The year's first cuppa springtime


It's cloudy, and chilly, and it's been rainy around the Big O lately.

And the other night, we even had our first big thunderstorm of the season. Welcome to April on the Great Plains.

Welcome to spring.


Next week, the weather forecast calls for sunny and 90. Or snow, I forget which.


WHAT I DO KNOW is that the mint is coming in all over the back yard, and we're going to be in high cotton -- so to speak -- until late fall. You know what that means, right?

Mint tea, made with fresh-cut goodness from the yard.

In honor of the occasion, I thought I'd immortalize the first pot of the year in pictures -- from fresh cut sprigs of green gold to the steeping pot, to the fourth cup of the evening.

It's early April, my allergies are about to do me in, the weather is all over the place, they tested the tornado sirens this morning (meaning it's that time of the year) . . . and life is good. And it's served up in a cup.

Friday, March 19, 2010

March 19 on the Plains


Yesterday, it was 65 degrees in Omaha.


Today, this.

Tomorrow, the first day of spring. Don't trust a thing until the middle of May, though.

Such is life on the Great Plains.