and real ones
The first thing I did this morning was “secure” my backyard.
A squall line that wreaked havoc on the “Dixie Alley” tornado path last night, late, will blow through the Lowcountry mid-day today. It’s already “very, very windy,” which is how my son described OKC yesterday. And OKC is always very windy. Always.
So when I checked on my seedlings and birdfeeders and equipment in the backyard this morning, I moved things around a bit, and added weights and covers to things. If it looks like the proverbial “torrential rains” I’ll move the seedlings onto the porch. (I may have to dig up my whole perennial garden, anyway – fire ants…as Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say “it’s always something!”)
Which leads to the first thing I found online when I finally opened my laptop – solar storms! I trust this link for serious news and we know the Elon Musk thing really happened. …
… So, be ready for some glitches, I guess. And maybe even the northern lights! In places they are not normally seen.
We saw the northern lights in the mountains of New Mexico, on a trip to Taos and Santa Fe, in 1981. Everyone came out of their tents in the campground and marveled. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen them.
I grew up in Maine and sailed across the north Atlantic from Nova Scotia to Norway….home field for aurora borealis…but I saw them in northern New Mexico on a night that likely involved the same sort of solar system anomaly.
We weren’t as tuned in in 1981, or the whole campground wouldn’t have been as amazed. In fact, if it was today, with our access to technology, someone like me would have told us to “look up tonight.” And there would have been no confusion about what they were — which there actually was 40 years ago, because they were showing up in the wrong place!
After awhile, a lot of us just brought our lawn chairs into the clearing, and watched until they went away. It was a cold night, too. But aurora borealis are as close to magic as you can ask for. Natural light shows that cover the sky.
So, if you are anywhere north and west of the Appalachians and the sky is clear tonight, look up and look north. You might seem something remarkable.
This illustration has nothing whatsoever to do with this line of thought, except that it’s an imaginative sky and sort of westerny. I add color with older pieces that may or may not fit! CJS