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Flying After Dark
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 Photo Info
Posted By: Dan Nickens
Date Posted: Sep 21, 2020
Description: Thunderstorms are a fact of Florida flying during the summer. Like
alligators, they are just a part of our environment. And like alligators,
they may be admired but must also be respected. That usually
means giving them adequate separation. After some earlier afternoon
storms, the skies cleared and it looked even lazy SeaRey flying would
maintain proper unsocial distancing. Besides, the cells out there on
the horizon looked like they had passed through their youth, middle
age, and progressed well into a dissipating old age stage. And the
earlier thunderstorms had cooled things down (relatively, it's still
Florida) making late storms less likely.
Date Taken: July 31, 2020
Place Taken: Tajmahangar, Little Lake Harris, FL
Owner: Dan Nickens
File Name:    - Photo HTML
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Medium    - <img src="/show.php?splash=7gcl5MfvCm">
Thumbnail - <img src="/show.php?splash=7gcl5MfvCs">

Category: Florida Summer Flying
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Read what others had to say:


Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    Upon further evaluation there was evidence portions of the cells were slipping back into a more
angry middle age (cumulus) stage. The radar showed that, for old cells, they were remarkably
vigorous. But the storms didn't look all that big and bad as to stay at home, not so severe at all.
Sure, there was lightning showing up occasionally, but it wasn't all that frequent.

The things that birth thunderstorms, heat and humidity, are standard fare for Florida summers.
Florida has as many thunderstorms as anywhere in the world, including equatorial Africa and the
Amazon. There are on average 80 days with thunderstorms and lightening annually in central
Florida. Unlike the African and the Amazon, where storms happen year around, it's the summertime
when we get most of our storms, fast and furious.

The FAA recommends keeping 20 miles away from severe storms, but not much worry about
sneaking in a bit closer to these puppies. And, I was flying with clear skies overhead, no anvil
overhang in sight.

Besides, I was looking at the radar composite view, not low tilt, so maybe it wasn't so bad as the
colors showed. ADS-B magenta in the high resolution mode is anything more intense than 55 dB.
It's not like it couldn't be a lot worse.
     Attachments:  

2 First Look 5692
2 First Look 5692


       Attachments:  

2020-07-31 18.06.38
2020-07-31 18.06


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    Well, there wasn't a storm anvil in sight a few minutes earlier. This thing was maturing pretty
rapidly. But it wasn't over the lake I was headed towards (Lake George). And the edges looked
pretty ragged.

Floridians know thunderstorms aren't all bad. Marjorie Kinan Rawlings, an immigrant to the state,
described her gentle view of Florida summertime rains in Cross Creek: "The rains last usually until
mid-August. We wait for them anxiously, for in the last weeks the elements seem stationary. The
sun seems to stand all day in one steady blazing. May is sometimes the hottest month of the year.
One day in June a cloud passes over the sun in the late afternoon. The cloud spreads until all the
sky is gray. The air is so still that even the restless Spanish moss hangs motionless. Although the
sun is hidden the atmosphere is stifling. Then an impalpable breath stirs. The tallest palms in the
east grove bend their heads, the moss in the hammock lifts as though a silent hand moved through
a gray beard. There is a sibilant sound in the pecan trees, the grayness thickens, and rain marches
visibly across the palms and orange trees and comes in at the gate. Sometimes it is a gentle
shower, sometimes a rushing flood. After it has passed, the air is as fresh and clean as April and the
night will be cool for sleeping. The sun strikes through the wetness, there is likely to be a rainbow,
and palms are rosy in the evening light."
     Attachments:  

3 Ragged Fringes 5730
3 Ragged Fringes 5730


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    The spreading shelf looked ominously like a mushroom cloud. What seemed ragged from a distance
was looking a lot more virulent up close.
     Attachments:  

4 Spreading Shelf 5711
4 Spreading Shelf 5711


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    Single cell storms are pretty easy to see and avoid. It's when they start getting together that the
avoidance gets dicey.

A single cell thunderstorm is sometimes referred to by meteorologists as a "pulse cell." When two,
three or four cells join up, it's a multi-cell cluster. The clusters can form lines, often associated with
"seabreeze" fronts in Florida. And then there is the monster of thunderstorms: the dreaded
"supercell" with tornadoes, high winds and hail.

But, Florida isn't Kansas. Most summer storms aren't usually that nasty, especially those that follow
rains earlier in the day. No reason for worry just because there may be more than one within visual
range.
     Attachments:  

5 Encroaching Cells 5732
5 Encroaching Cells 5732


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    Florida storms are often filled with lightning. It is the "lightning capital" of the United States, with
annual strikes of over a million. Most of the strikes come from under the cells, though a really nasty
"positive" strike can happen under the anvil portion of a mature cell. A positive strike can occur up to
10 miles away from the generating cell.

Stopped at a little lake, I got the chance to watch as the clouds grew my way, dropping more rain
shafts. And it was now within five miles. Still, clear ahead to the east. Onward, upward and away
from positive strikes!
     Attachments:  

6 More Outpouring 5741
6 More Outpouring 5741


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    Looking back towards where I had just come from, it was pretty clear the storms were growing and
closing ranks.

A Line-Storm Song
by Robert Frost

The line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift,
The road is forlorn all day,
Where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift,
And the hoof-prints vanish away.
The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee,
Expend their bloom in vain.
Come over the hills and far with me,
And be my love in the rain.

The birds have less to say for themselves
In the wood-world's torn despair
Than now these numberless years the elves,
Although they are no less there:
All song of the woods is crushed like some
Wild, easily shattered rose.
Come, be my love in the wet woods; come,
Where the boughs rain when it blows.

There is the gale to urge behind
And bruit our singing down,
And the shallow waters aflutter with wind
From which to gather your gown.
What matter if we go clear to the west,
And come not through dry-shod?
For wilding brooch shall wet your breast
The rain-fresh goldenrod.

Oh, never this whelming east wind swells
But it seems like the sea's return
To the ancient lands where it left the shells
Before the age of the fern;
And it seems like the time when after doubt
Our love came back amain.
Oh, come forth into the storm and rout
And be my love in the rain.
     Attachments:  

7 Developing Alliance 5779
7 Developing Alliance 5779


    
  
Don Maxwell - Sep 22,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    There was an early Frost that year, 1907, when he turned 33. "Be my love in the rain" is a vintage Rod McCuen line, sixty years early. Frost got much better after that.     
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    Looking back over more shoulder, flying away over quiet ponds, the storms were spotted in my rear-
view reflecting mirrors, but still nothing ahead.

Emily Dickinson
A Thunderstorm

The wind begun to rock the grass
With threatening tunes and low, -
He flung a menace at the earth,
A menace at the sky.

The leaves unhooked themselves from trees
And started all abroad;
The dust did scoop itself like hands
And throw away the road.

The wagons quickened on the streets,
The thunder hurried slow;
The lightning showed a yellow beak,
And then a livid claw.

The birds put up the bars to nests,
The cattle fled to barns;
There came one drop of giant rain,
And then, as if the hands

That held the dams had parted hold,
The waters wrecked the sky,
But overlooked my father's house,
Just quartering a tree.
     Attachments:  

8 Reflected Growth 5791
8 Reflected Growth 5791


    
  
Don Maxwell - Sep 22,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    Dickinson was born tough and keen and only got tougher and keener. Most days when she said something, it was so.     
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    Wind driven from the storms is particularly hazardous to SeaReys. They can send out micro and macro
bursts to blast any little planes from the sky. And, double jeopardy, to capsize SeaReys upon the seas.
The FAA recommends keeping 20 miles away from storms to avoid their blasting winds.

The rain got to the lake edge just as I did. But, Lake George is a big lake: 10 miles, north to south. I
still had some room. And the water was nicely calm, not whipped into a frenzy by gust fronts. I relied
upon what I could see from the water, not the bureaucrats' cautions (at my own peril).
     Attachments:  

9 Onshore 5797
9 Onshore 5797


       Attachments:  

2020-07-31 18.32.57
2020-07-31 18.32


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    Calm before the storm?
Strange storms. Where was their wind?
I assumed it was being sucked up, not being thrown down and out at me.
Yet.
     Attachments:  

10 Moving In 5822
10 Moving In 5822


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    It looked like my calm place was going to be short-lived. The rain was starting to encroach on my
space. Time to bug out.
     Attachments:  

11 Deceptively Calm 5824
11 Deceptively Calm 5824


       Attachments:  

2020-07-31 18.43.35
2020-07-31 18.43


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    Exit stage So' by So'west.      Attachments:  

12 Getting Out 5845
12 Getting Out 5845


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    When I got some separation from Lake George, I turned back to see more development to the east.
South towards home was looking better and better.
     Attachments:  

13 Growing East 5865
13 Growing East 5865


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    Florida thunderstorms are creatures of both air and water. Their probability of occurrence is affected
by macro scale pressure systems and smaller scale sea-breezes, lake-breezes and river-breezes.
The real action takes place when the large scale winds converge with the smaller scale effects,
"enhanced convergence", and unstable air gets pushed upwards.

The large scale wind pattern is controlled during the summer by the Atlantic subtropical high
pressure ridge. As it moves north or south of the 30-degree north latitude line, summer wind
patterns across the state change. In turn this affects the probability that a storm will form, as well
as their location and timing.

This time, they were starting to pop up over my chosen waters. They weren't supposed to be
growing in the cool of the afternoon, but there they were. Better south, except for the cell that was
now growing to the north and west of home base. Hmmm.... Oh, well, it was more fun to follow the
river than run directly home.
     Attachments:  

14 Lining Up 5874
14 Lining Up 5874


       Attachments:  

2020-07-31 18.58.04
2020-07-31 18.58


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    The storms were growing and the sun was settling. Light was getting bent around the growing
blackness.
Home, James?
Naw.
According to the Doors we're Riders on the Storm anyway.
"Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Into this house we're born
Into this world we're thrown
Like a dog without a bone, an actor out on loan
Riders on the storm"
     Attachments:  

15 Bending Light 5898
15 Bending Light 5898


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    The reflection was not double trouble, because it meant the water was still free of gusting wind from
the rampaging storms.

Marjorie Kinan Rawlings described a violent Florida thunderstorm in "Cross Creek" this way:

"The atmosphere is ominous before the rain.....The day was sultry from its dawning. The sky was a
sheet of zinc, against which the sun beat hot and furious hands. Thee seedling zinnias and
marigolds drooped and finally lay bent against the earth, sapped and exhausted. At three o'clock in
the afternoon, the temperature on the veranda, with the dark slats blinds drawn, was ninety eight.
The red-birds dabbled indolently in the warm water of the bird-bath and did not sing. Pat the
pointer dug a futile hole under the guava bushes and lay on his side, puzzled by his discomfort."

Her friend and maid was reluctant to leave the house. "She said, 'I aimed to wash me out a few
pieces, but seems like my backbone is melted in the middle.' I said, 'Try to rest. No one can work
in heat like this.' She said, 'Tain't exactly the heat. It's something in the air, suckin'."

"In the west a white cloud rolled itself together and turned gray. Thunder boomed across the lake.
The sound was muffled, as though the detonation came from under the water. Lightning flickered
like a tongue, then went tasting the south."

"The gray cloud spread as though it were a great maw, feeding on the sky. It swallowed the last
morsel of blue in the north and thunder crashed across the swamp. It was the longest day of the
year, but by five o'clock the world was dark."

"Pat whined at the door and I let him in. Lightning sizzled over the young grove across the road. I
had expected friends that afternoon but they did not come, kept away perhaps by the ominous
skies. City folk are afraid of the country in a storm. And I, too, was afraid. At first it annoyed me
and I shrugged it off. The thunder beat closer its invisible drums. I went back to the kitchen to ask
for an early supper. Adrenna sat crouched in a chair, her arms fold over her face.

She said, 'I ain't afeered. But I wisht I knowed is the sperrits after me.'

The spirits were after me, too. I returned to the veranda and paced up and down, up and down."

"Suddenly the palms rattled their fronds, the pecan trees bent before a nameless pressure, and the
wind and rain roared in. The rain fell in a flood. I thought of the mother duck on her nest under the
allamanda, where the eaves of the veranda made only partial shelter. Her clutch of blue-white eggs
was soft under the thick down of her breast, but the dark head must be bowed under the force of
the torrent. The rain pounded on the shingled roof and poured in sluiceways at the house corners.
The thunder and lightning were the attacking cavalry of the enemy. The rain fell for an hour. Then a
cosmic broom swept it away as swiftly as it had come, and there was the sound only of spent water
dripping from the eaves. The thunder and lightning were routed, and the clouds that held them
rolled away into the north, like dark driven horses. Unbearable, heavy hands released their pressure
from my shoulders. I went out to the clean washed road and walked a long way along it, and turned
to walk back home again in company with the sunset.

The sun itself was trivial. It sank humbly into a modest bed of subdued gold. But in the north, the
east, the south, cloud piled on cloud, arrogant with color, luminous with lemon yellow, with saffron
and with rose. Three bands of opal blue lifted suddenly from the sun. The west took over its own.
The unseemly magnificence of north and east and west faded. The sun at the horizon came into its
full glory and the west was copper, then blood-red, blazing into an orgy of salmon and red and brass
and a soft blush-yellow the color of ripe guavas. Northeast and south faded instantly to gray, timid
at having usurped the flame of the sunset. Then suddenly the west dimmed, as though a bonfire
charred and died. There was only a bar of copper. All the sky, to every point of the compass,
became a soft blue and the clouds were white powder, so that in the end it was tenderness that
triumphed. I went home to sound, cool sleep.

The next morning the world was fresh and bland. The sun shone benignly, without virulence. Pat
romped with Old Jib and the redbirds trilled from the feed basket. The mother duck came quacking
from her nest for a little corn. A light breeze ruffled the allamanda.

I said to Adrenna, 'What a lovely day!'"
     Attachments:  

16 Double Trouble 5907
16 Double Trouble 5907


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    The clouds were closing ranks to the west making for a pretty solid line. Fortunately they were growing
in place, not moving much. Heading home was still an option. But, I figured I could play a little
longer....as long as there was still a way home.
     Attachments:  

17 Convergence 5920
17 Convergence 5920


       Attachments:  

2020-07-31 19.18.48
2020-07-31 19.18


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    No point in looking far afield in another direction. The eastern horizon was now popping too.      Attachments:  

18 Eastern Barriers 5933
18 Eastern Barriers 5933


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    Backtracking? Well, no point unless you can land on the river. That gave me a perspective that said I'd
better be on my merry way away from where I'd been.
     Attachments:  

19 No Backtracking 5957
19 No Backtracking 5957


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    It was lightening up between the cells, or at least oranging up. A reason for optimism? Surely a sign
of the lateness of playtime.
     Attachments:  

20 Lightening Up 5982
20 Lightening Up 5982


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    Well, there was a bad news on the southern horizon when I turned that way. A cell was growing there,
crowding me back towards home.
     Attachments:  

21 Southside 5989
21 Southside 5989


       Attachments:  

2020-07-31 19.39.54
2020-07-31 19.39


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    My backup plan had been to get some last minute splashing on Lake Apopka before retreating home.
The rain arrived there about the same time I did.
     Attachments:  

22 Lake Edge 6011
22 Lake Edge 6011


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    The top of the cell was blasting up, but I decided it looked a bit too ragged to be really nasty.
Rationalization was working overtime.
     Attachments:  

23 On Top 6026
23 On Top 6026


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    Down low I could see gusts out on the water, but the west side surface was still plenty calm. I could
easily choose my water to avoid nasty winds. Rationalization? Surely.
     Attachments:  

24 Down Low 6030
24 Down Low 6030


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    The storm might not be growing up, but it was definitely growing out.

The Rising of the Storm
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

The lake's dark breast
Is all unrest,
It heaves with a sob and a sigh.
Like a tremulous bird,
From its slumber stirred,
The moon is a-tilt in the sky.

From the silent deep
The waters sweep,
But faint on the cold white stones,
And the wavelets fly
With a plaintive cry
O'er the old earth's bare, bleak bones.

And the spray upsprings
On its ghost-white wings,
And tosses a kiss at the stars;
While a water-sprite,
In sea-pearls dight,
Hums a sea-hymn's solemn bars.

Far out in the night,
On the wavering sight
I see a dark hull loom;
And its light on high,
Like a Cyclops' eye,
Shines out through the mist and gloom.

Now the winds well up
From the earth's deep cup,
And fall on the sea and shore,
And against the pier
The waters rear
And break with a sullen roar.

Up comes the gale,
And the mist-wrought veil
Gives way to the lightning's glare,
And the cloud-drifts fall,
A sombre pall,
O'er water, earth, and air.

The storm-king flies,
His whip he plies,
And bellows down the wind.
The lightning rash
With blinding flash
Comes pricking on behind.

Rise, waters, rise,
And taunt the skies
With your swift-flitting form.
Sweep, wild winds, sweep,
And tear the deep
To atoms in the storm.

And the waters leapt,
And the wild winds swept,
And blew out the moon in the sky,
And I laughed with glee,
It was joy to me
As the storm went raging by!
     Attachments:  

25 Getting Dark 6055
25 Getting Dark 6055


    
  
Don Maxwell - Sep 22,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    Dunbar was born in Dayton the year after Orville Wright. Did they know each other? Dunbar died young, three years after Kill Devil Hill. Dayton then was the most inventive city in the USA in terms of patents issued.     
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    Lake Apopka is 8 miles wide east to west. The storm made it to the middle of the lake and I was
looking too closely at its gaping teeth.

Before the Breath of Storm
by Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts

Before the breath of storm.
While yet the long, bright afternoons are warm,
Under this stainless arch of azure sky
The air is filled with gathering wings for flight;
Yet with the shrill mirth and the loud delight
Comes the foreboding sorrow of this cry—
"Till the storm scatter and the gloom dispel,
Farewell! Farewell!
Farewell!"

Why will ye go so soon,
In these soft hours, this sweeter month than June?
The liquid air floats over field and tree
A veil of dreams;—where do ye find the sting?
A gold enchantment sleeps upon the sea
And purple hills;—why have ye taken wing?
But faint, far-heard, the answers fall and swell—
"Farewell! Farewell!
Farewell!"
     Attachments:  

26 Heart of Beast 6063
26 Heart of Beast 6063


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    I had decided to run back homeward when I spotted the hopeful sign of a little rainbow. Maybe the
storm was a-
dying.

The Rainstorm
by James W. Whilt

Here in the deep tangled forest
All is quiet and still,
While far to the west the thunder,
Re-echoes from hill to hill.

And the lightning's flash, ever vivid,
In great gashes knives the air;
The rain comes down in torrents,
A deluge everywhere!

Bathing the heat-sick flowers
That they may bloom once more;
Painting the grass a greener hue,
That grows by our cabin door;

Making the pastures fresher,
For the cows and shepherd's herds,
Making the pools by the road-side,—
Bath tubs for the birds.

Then the thunder peals louder and louder,
Firing its shrapnel of rain.
The clouds charge after each other,
And the drouth is defeated again.

Then through a rent in the clouds
The sun's searchlight casts its ray,
And the Rain-God looks over the valley
And sees the result of the fray.

And as He sees his conquest,
His victory's flag is unfurled,
In a beautiful colored rainbow,—
He is telling all of the world,

What a victory was his, what a triumph!
It's flashed down the milky way,
Then the sentinel stars dot the heavens,
And the dew-drops sound taps for the day.
     Attachments:  

27 Little Rainbow 6097
27 Little Rainbow 6097


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    I had almost convinced myself to hang around a bit longer when the rain consumed the rainbow.

The Storm
by Hannah Flagg Gould

Wild are the winds! the heavens are dark!
And he is out on a pathless deep;
Who will manage the weltering bark?
Who o'er him will the night watch keep?

God of the ocean, earth and air,
Over the high and perilous wave
Carry him safe, for thou art there—
Thine eye is watching; thine arm can save!

Author of light, the skies unveil,
That the shining hosts, from their lofty arch,
May again beam down on his wandering sail,
As in glory they move on their nightly march.

When he has closed his weary eyes,
Lulled by the billows that harmless roll,
Visions of bliss and beauty, rise
In flowery dreams to the waking soul!

But who shall dream, till the storm is past?
Who 'mid the elements' war shall sleep?
Spirit of mercy, hold him fast!
For he is out on an angry deep!
     Attachments:  

28 Faded Rainbow 6103
28 Faded Rainbow 6103


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    Turning towards home everything looked clearer. An easy out.

Squall
by Leonora Speyer

The squall sweeps gray-winged across the obliterated hills,
And the startled lake seems to run before it;
From the wood comes a clamor of leaves,
Tugging at the twigs,
Pouring from the branches,
And suddenly the birds are still.
Thunder crumples the sky,
Lightning tears at it.
And now the rain!
The rain—thudding—implacable—
The wind, reveling in the confusion of great pines!
And a silver sifting of light,
A coolness;
A sense of summer anger passing,
Of summer gentleness creeping nearer—
Penitent, tearful,
Forgiven!
     Attachments:  

29 Clear to Home 6105
29 Clear to Home 6105


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    Home water was golden. I was golden, having escaped all traps raised by the unexpected storms.

The Storm
by Emily Dickinson

There came a wind like a bugle;
It quivered through the grass,
And a green chill upon the heat
So ominous did pass
We barred the windows and the doors
As from an emerald ghost;
The doom's electric moccason
That very instant passed.
On a strange mob of panting trees,
And fences fled away,
And rivers where the houses ran
The living looked that day.
The bell within the steeple wild
The flying tidings whirled.
How much can come
And much can go,
And yet abide the world!
     Attachments:  

30 Golden Home 6118
30 Golden Home 6118


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    The water was beautiful. Too beautiful. I wasn't ready to quit. I decided to give the storms one last
look.
     Attachments:  

31 Light Between2 6152
31 Light Between2 6152


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    I raced back to Apopka to see if the storm there was settling down. It wasn't. It was closing down
the lake. Aarggh!
I just about lost my breeches.

The September Gale
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

I'm not a chicken; I have seen
Full many a chill September,
And though I was a youngster then,
That gale I well remember;
The day before, my kite-string snapped,
And I, my kite pursuing,
The wind whisked off my palm-leaf hat;—
For me two storms were brewing!

It came as quarrels sometimes do,
When married folks get clashing;
There was a heavy sigh or two,
Before the fire was flashing,—
A little stir among the clouds,
Before they rent asunder,—
A little rocking of the trees,
And then came on the thunder.

Lord! how the ponds and rivers boiled,
And how the shingles rattled!
And oaks were scattered on the ground,
As if the Titans battled;
And all above was in a howl,
And all below a clatter,—
The earth was like a frying-pan.
Or some such hissing matter.

It chanced to be our washing-day,
And all our things were drying:
The storm came roaring through the lines,
And set them all a-flying;
I saw the shirts and petticoats
Go riding off like witches;
I lost, ah! bitterly I wept,—
I lost my Sunday breeches!

I saw them straddling through the air,
Alas! too late to win them;
I saw them chase the clouds, as if
The devil had been in them;
They were my darlings and my pride,
My boyhood's only riches,—
"Farewell, farewell," I faintly cried,—
"My breeches! O my breeches!"

That night I saw them in my dreams,
How changed from what I knew them!
The dews had steeped their faded threads,
The winds had whistled through them!
I saw the wide and ghastly rents
Where demon claws had torn them;
A hole was in their amplest part,
As if an imp had worn them.

I have had many happy years
And tailors kind and clever,
But those young pantaloons have gone
Forever and forever!
And not till fate has cut the last
Of all my earthly stitches,
This aching heart shall cease to mourn
My loved, my long-lost breeches!
     Attachments:  

32 Rolling In 6170
32 Rolling In 6170


       Attachments:  

2020-07-31 19.47.12
2020-07-31 19.47


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    Out on the lake it looked like hell fire red rain was taking over. I might have pressed my luck a minute
too far.
     Attachments:  

33 Raining Red 6186
33 Raining Red 6186


    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 21,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    Prince sang,
"I never meant to cause you
any sorrow
I never meant to cause you
any pain
I only wanted one time to see
you laughing
I only wanted to see you laughing
in the purple rain
Purple rain, purple rain
Purple rain, purple rain
Purple rain, purple rain
I only wanted to see you
bathing
in the purple rain"

I didn't really want a purple bath. No apocalypse for me. I went back home and stayed there this
time.
     Attachments:  

34 Purple Rain 6205
34 Purple Rain 6205


    
  
Don Maxwell - Sep 22,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    Thanks for the delightful meteorolog, Dan! Keep up the cumulo-distancing.     
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 22,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    And thank you for your literary insights (and eec antidote), Don.     
  
Don Maxwell - Sep 22,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    Here's a reply of sorts (or an antidote) from e e cummings:

what if a much of a which of a wind
gives the truth to summer's lie;
bloodies with dizzying leaves the sun
and yanks immortal stars awry?
Blow king to beggar and queen to seem
(blow friend to fiend: blow space to time)
– when skies are hanged and oceans drowned,
the single secret will still be man

what if a keen of a lean wind flays
screaming hills with sleet and snow:
strangles valleys by ropes of thing
and stifles forests in white ago?
Blow hope to terror; blow seeing to blind
(blow pity to envy and soul to mind)
– whose hearts are mountains, roots are trees,
it's they shall cry hello to the spring

what if a dawn of a doom of a dream
bites this universe in two,
peels forever out of his grave
and sprinkles nowhere with me and you?
Blow soon to never and never to twice
(blow life to isn't; blow death to was)
– all nothing's only our hugest home;
the most who die, the more we live
    
  
Wayne Nagy - Sep 22,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    Your adventure with Mother Nature was superb ,Dan. My flight to Arcadia today for our weekly gathering for Taco Tuesday was fun,
but much less dramatic. :-)

Keep the outstanding pictures and "trip notes" coming. They make my day (actually , night by the time I read them.)
    
  
Dan Nickens - Sep 22,2020   Viewers  | Reply
    Less dramatic is my aspirational goal, Wayne. And tacos on Tuesday would be bonus!     


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