Cop Car's Beat

2021 - a clean slate

For a few days the weather guessers have been telling us to expect snow and freezing rain this past Wednesday. By the time it got closer to Wednesday, the nasty weather had been pushed forward to Thursday - then to Friday. As it turned out, AFAIK, the rain/freezing rain that was to precede and proceed the snow and was to have started at around Midnight last night did not show up. When I trudged through the accumulated snow and blowing snow to retrieve our morning paper, there was no sign of slipperiness as I expected from a coating of ice. But...the world from our house, looks fresh and clean with its white coating. It is still snowing, but only half-heartedly with tiny flakes. The sun has been trying to peek out for the past hour. I've already had my first bowl of snow ice cream - for breakfast. (I'll take a small break, here.)

The first photo was taken at about 8am (the camera's date/time was off) at which time I measured a bit over 4 inches of snow on the patio table. At about 11:30am, I measured 5.5 inches. The sun came out just before noon and the snow had quit. By hovering your cursor over a photo you may reveal the caption to each photo.

When the weather turns bad, we always have a bountiful number of birds at our feeders. This morning, we've had European starlings (ugh!), a passel of slate-colored juncos (with one pink-sided amongst them), a handful of house finches, a like number of American gold finches, a few tufted titmice, one white-breasted nuthatch, one red-bellied woodpecker, a couple of downy woodpeckers, and a female cardinal - that I recall.

Please note the blue feeder in the above two photos. I have a hook on a pole that I use to retrieve/replace feeders through one or the other of the living room windows during weather such as this. A bit after these photos were taken, I tried to retrieve the blue feeder for re-filling. Unfortunately, I used one hand/arm in the process and fumbled the feeder when I took its full weight at the end of my pole, dumping it off onto the ground. I replaced it with another tube-type feeder rather than going out and trampling about in the snow. The snow looks better without my footprints.

Added at 3:33pm - No more ice cream

It warmed up, quickly, once the sun came out. About half of the snow has already melted. What is left wouldn't be fit for snow ice cream. It is 35 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cool ice formations on the back deck, this morning

Just enough snow to beautify

We had received nearly an inch of rain in the hours preceding the temperature's finally dropping below freezing; thus, the snow was too sparse and too icy to provide that needed for snow ice cream for breakfast.

Week in Review - 10/30/2020

Our family members do not normally exchange greeting cards for Halloween. However, 2020 is not normal. I blame that fact for WichiDude's and Dudette's having sent Hunky Husband and me a really cute card. It lights up and it plays a recording; but, I did not make a video. A still photo (below) will have to do.

Within the past couple of years, our neighborhood has been gifted with a couple of new neighbors whom I've mentioned in previous postings. They are welcome additions to the neighborhood and have gone out of their way to bring a sense of community to it. For instance, Adam & Krista (next door - with the new fence) and their small children, distributed pumpkins throughout the neighborhood about 10 days ago. Krista's parents live on a not-far-distant farm and had grown the pumpkins, bringing them to town to share.

Unfortunately, I did not think to take a photo of the pumpkin sitting on our front steps, where the neighbors placed it; but, I did take a photo of some of the pumpkin sauce that I made from half of it. The other half has been cooked up and is being/will be used in various casseroles and breads. I cannot tolerate wasting food and the hard freeze that arrived last night was forecasted, so I beat it to the punch.

As you can tell by the update of contents and date on the lid, I am not only frugal when it comes to food, but also frugal with things. I re-use lids on jars of foods that I expect to use within a few weeks and to keep refrigerated until use, not really caring that the seal may fail.

Not failing, was another new neighbor from a bit farther down the street, Cathy. It was she who picked most of the cherries off of our little cherry tree this year. At the time, she left a lovely cherry cobbler on our front porch for us. Saturday, she left us a jar of cherry jelly and a loaf of her home-made, whole-grain bread on which to smear the jelly.

Although I have not usually eaten breakfast for the past several years, her bread and cherry jelly just could not be resisted. Sunday morning, I spread a little butter on a couple of slices of the bread, gently warmed them in a skillet to a nice, lightly-toasted state, and spooned jelly onto them. The bread tasted fresh-from-the-oven.

As we were expecting the deep freeze to move in, last night, I took a photo (below) of the tropical plants that had taken root from the pot I had over-summered in the basement escape window well. The photo also includes a volunteer redbud seedling and the two hostas that I had planted there in 2019.

This morning, the scene was captured in the photo, below. Soon, the leaves will die - as will the roots of the tropical plant, in all likelihood. The toads and frogs have burrowed into the sand for the winter.

Unexpectedly, we had just enough snow for me to be able to gather enough from our patio table for a bowl of snow ice cream. It was rather icy, so not the best; but, at least I got a bowl! (When I thawed the snow/ice in the rain gage, I measured 0.51" of liquid. We've had another two inches of rain since then.)

Speaking of beating the weather to the punch, I also gathered in our last two tomato plants during the past few days, placing them in the garden cart in the garage until I had time to strip the green tomatoes from those vines. I used very nearly all of those green tomatoes in putting together a batch of green tomato relish. Below is a photo of the three full 1/2-pint jars of relish. There was a fourth 1/2-pint jar that was nearly filled; but, I started using it at dinner, this evening (Monday).

Having never before made green tomato relish, I pulled two recipes from the internet and used them as a guide. Since it will be at least eight more days until I will make it to the grocery store (it only has special old-people hours on Tuesday mornings and the streets are rutted ice at this point), I had to make do with what I had on hand - part of a green pepper (substituting three banana peppers from our garden for the rest), for instance.

I was pleased to note that the relish is delicious!

Spooky woods

We awoke to a foggy day, yesterday. Our back woods looked a bit spooky. The first three photos were taken at about 7:50am.

The last two photos were taken at about 8:35. The passing of 45 minutes made a big difference; but, the last of the fog lifted an hour or two later.

Early this morning, I was awakened by a huge thunder clap. By the time I went for my walk, some of the concrete areas were dry; but, there were standing pools of water in all of the neighborhood. We had received only 3/4" of rain, but the ground has been saturated for nearly the entire past 6 months.

About an hour ago, Hunky Husband went for a jog. He got too rambunctious and overdid it. His monitor says that his heart rate peaked at 189 beats per minute. That's about 25 beats per minute higher than his normal peak. He's a smart man, but I sometimes think he doesn't, as Mom used to say, "have the sense that God gave a goose." Or a gander, for that matter. His story is that the monitor went wonky. I don't know. It took him a lot longer than normal, today, to quit panting and sweating.

UPDATE ON WHAT'S BEEN BLOOMING

Across the street, the neighbor had one daffodil in bloom on March 12. Our first one bloomed on March 13. The ornamental pear trees have been abloom for nearly one week, now. It's been a good thing to have the rains, for the past couple of weeks: It keeps the stink from the ornamental pear trees from being so overwhelming. Bogie's creeping phlox have been blooming since about the 13th.

Most of our daffodils have yet to bloom.

  

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

 

 

 

 

The tulips are up, but not abloom.

Week in Review - 10/19/2019

Tuesday, as I mentioned in a comment to a post on Liz's Finding life hard? I had a neat, weather-related experience. As I wrote, there, "While working in the yard, this morning (a balmy 17 degrees C when I went out), I noticed that my clothes were suddenly soggy - and that the concrete patio was completely dampened. The dew point dropped, suddenly, and the moisture came out of the air in an instant! I've been caught in sudden fog while flying, but this was a new experience."

About an hour later, I noticed that the sun had come out, again. Looking out the window, I saw the fog bank that had just moved out. Grabbing a camera, I photographed the beautiful scene. In the first photo, below, The fog bank is the lower, dark mass of cloud, separated from the higher-level clouds, in the photo, by a small strip of blue sky.

Below is a zoomed-in photo of the largest piece of blue sky. Obviously, as is generally true when fog is present, the winds were light-to-non-existent; but, eventually, we had a totally blue sky.

 

This was the week to get a bunch of paperwork/licensure completed. Last week my renewed passport arrived, the old passport having expired in 2017 or 2018. This week, I took that passport plus a bunch of other paperwork to our local driver's license office (about 1 mile from our home) to get my "Real ID" driver's license, along with early renewal of the old license that was to expire next spring.

Below is a copy of information from Kansas Real ID web page delineating paperwork requirements. I have high-lighted the documents that I actually took with me. Please note that, by taking my passport, I was not required to present any of the documents listed in item 4. That would have been a real drag since I've changed my name twice and I'm not convinced that I have original copies of the documents attesting to those changes. Fortunately, for me, I proved to the Federal government, many years ago, that I am who I say I am, using my current name that was assumed in 1979, and they no longer require me to present documentation of name changes.

That same web site explains the need filled by a Real ID.

The REAL ID Act was passed by federal lawmakers in 2005 to enact the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation for a “set standard for the issuance of sources of identification.” This established a minimum security standard for state-issued driver’s licenses.

Beginning October 1, 2020, anyone 18 years and older will need a REAL ID compliant driver’s license or another acceptable form of ID to fly within the United States.

In addition, a REAL ID will be required to enter federal facilities where identification is currently required for entrance.

Courts, Post Offices, Social Security offices do not require identification for entrance, so they are exempt.

Kansas began issuing REAL ID credentials in August 2017. REAL ID is not a required credential but will help ease the check-in process when flying or entering a federally protected facility.

Since I no longer volunteer as a Government Liaison, I don't know why I should need to enter a federally protected facility - nor do I anticipate any need to fly; but, I've learned in life that I should be prepared. A couple of times I've been caught short by previously-made short-sighted decisions. The consequences of those decisions cost me money, time, and convenience.

Earlier in the week, I went into Wichita to renew my car tag which was set to expire at the end of October. Unfortunately, during the past year, the car tag office that had been in our City of Derby for several years had been closed. I wanted to go online to renew my tag; but, unfortunately, if I ever received a notice for renewal, I could not find it and a PIN from that notice is required to renew online. After waiting for 1.5 hours, my phone number appeared on the queue display as being the next person to be called. At that point, one of the employees got in front of our crowd of about 100 people to announce that another tag office, about a 7-minute drive away by freeway, had only one person to serve. About half of the crowd disappeared to avail themselves of a shorter wait. As I had taken Hunky Husband's tag renewal notice and check with me, I was able to pay for and receive the little stickers to add to each of our license plates (below photo).

Hunky Husband finally got around to opening the box to extract his new computer. In the olden days, one received an Owner's Manual with electronics. It was, for a computer, perhaps 100-200 pages long. Prominently featured in that booklet would be a cartoon of the front and back of the unit with arrows pointing to each feature and assigning a number. That number could then be looked up on the same/next page to give the name/description of the feature. Not anymore!

With this computer came an 8-page booklet, Quick Setup Guide. The front of the guide shows cartoons of only the ports into which one is to insert a plug with a representation of the plug to be plugged into each port. Well, I set about hooking it up (without need for the 8-page booklet!) and got to this point (photo, below) when I was stumped. Arrgh! This computer, being a new model, has no VGA port. Oh, swell. I hadn't even thought about HH's monitor being so old that it is VGA. **Gnashing teeth** Now, I must decide whether to go with an adaptive cable or bite the bullet and get HH a modern monitor. As this will probably be HH's last desktop computer system, I'll purchase the monitor. It'll work out better, in the end, I'm sure.

Take another look at the above photo. At the upper right-hand corner of the back of the unit you'll see "something" (closeup, below).

It looks like a short-wire antenna (WIFI?) to me. Whatever it is, it is flimsy. The upturned leg at the bottom was bent at about 45 degrees when I first saw it. I decided that it was supposed to have a plastic cover similar to the black plastic box 6" below it, below the upper fan. I looked for it in the plastic bag in which the unit had been encased, and found it; so, the fragile thing, whatever it is, is now protected by a black plastic box. (I can't really read the lettering on the thing or I might be able to learn definitively what it is.) I've made an exhaustive search, online, for labeled diagrams/photos of this computer. The online "User's Guide" to this computer has zero graphics included! In fact, by reading it one might conclude that software setup is the only real problem with computers.

Below are scans of the two pages (front cover and inside front cover) in the HP Quick Setup Guide that include graphics.

Rude awakening

Not since 1976 have I set an alarm to waken me. That rude awakening I can live without - especially since I have an internal alarm that wakes me at the "correct" time, no matter whether that is 3:00am or 6:00am. You can imagine my surprise, this morning, when a voice woke me at about 5:30am. Hunky Husband was my alarm. His phone had awakened him with a tornado warning and the emergency warning sirens were blaring in our neighborhood.

Quickly, I arose; donned my gardening clothes (old jeans cut off below the knees and an old tee shirt); put on a pair of eye glasses; put our valuables in their emergency hidey-hole; and put my jump boots, a hatchet, and two large screwdrivers (1 blade, 1 Phillips) into our own emergency hidey-hole. Only then did I join HH in the living room to watch the radar returns being shown on television.

By the exterior lighting on our house, we could see cottonwood limbs strewn all over the back yard - including our patio. The television reports soon indicated that the tornado danger that had been indicated for our area had moved on to terrorize other areas east of us; but, evaluation of the damage would need to be made nearer to sun-up when there was sufficient light. By 6:40am, I went outside to the serenade of chain saws, up and down our street, wielded by neighbors whose trees had sustained more damage than had ours.

The sun is not yet up; but, I'll post a few photos of our yard. Our damage was due to straight-line winds that probably gusted to about 70mph.

Our gingko tree in the front yard, planted in 2001, stands tall, straight, and proud. It shed but one small limb.

CORRECTION of 6/23/2019 4:03pm

So far, no one has corrected me (including the family members to whom I emailed a copy of this posting) in saying that our gingko tree had lost a branch. As anyone who looks at the photo can tell: that is no gingko branch, but another of the hundreds of cottonwood branches. It had to have flown over or around our house to end in that position! Sorry if I mislead you.

But two limbs were broken from the cluster of small redbud trees in our front yard, planted in about 2004.

The sugar maple tree in our front yard, planted in 2001, may be sick but it shed no limbs! The large cottonwood which, in any weather, is prone to shedding hundreds of small branches per month, shed all over the back yard. You can also probably see in the background that the creek is up - not out of its banks, but high. (The creek is visible to the right of the table, on which I note that the rain gage was knocked over by the wind.)

Fred's fence took a beating. Since the fence had already met its life expectancy before Fred moved in three years ago, and since one of the connections between sections has repeatedly failed, it wasn't a surprise to see a section of the fence down - plus another couple of boards a foot or so to the right of that section. The only thing on which it fell that I care about is a small red maple tree that I've been cultivating for Dudette.

I came in from taking the photos, without doing any yard work, because I was getting rained upon. I think it has stopped, so it's time for me to get back to work. Below is the section of the Planting Bed along the driveway in which I weeded and spread mulch, yesterday - with leaves added by the storm. Guess what yard work I'll be doing, today? HH has volunteered to help. Yay! Real muscle to apply to the task of cleanup.

ADDITION of 6/24/2019 9:30am - Information from the county emergency management office (excerpts)

The NWS [National Weather Service] determined that straight-line winds hit Derby early Sunday morning on June 23, 2019.  The damage was caused by 75 to 90 mph straight-line winds and damaged primarily softwood trees across southern and southeast Sedgwick County.  The path of the storm was about half a mile to a mile wide that stretched along a nearly 11-mile path from northwest of Peck to Derby.  Public Work crews in Derby are working on clearing debris and restoring power to the residences in the area.

....

Rainfall over the weekend totaled about 1.5 to 3 inches and the current warnings affecting Sedgwick County Rivers are as follows: 

....  

Big Ark[ansas] at Derby:  From early this morning until Tuesday evening.  At 3:00 AM Monday the stage was 11.6 feet.  Flood stage is 12.0 feet and Minor flooding is forecast.  Forecast - Rise above flood stage by early this morning and continue to rise to near 13.0 feet by this evening. The river will fall below flood stage by late Tuesday morning.  Impact - At 12.0 feet, the river will be out of its main channel and expand to a width near 600 feet wide. Expect flooding of low-lying areas around the river.  The Derby Park facility on downstream east bank of the Market St bridge is inundated.

Sounds bad, does good

When first I saw this embedded video from YouTube at Ronni's Time Goes By, I could think of several reasons why the system would be a bad idea. The people in the video answered each of my concerns. Enjoy! Note the spontaneous formation of hexagonal close-pack by the balls.

 

Derby Weather - Starting on Dudette's birthday, 5/28/2019

Happy birthday, Dudette, and many, many more!

Yesterday, we were predicted to have a non-rainy day, today, so I started unpacking from the "shall we evacuate" exercise. Now, our emergency management folks are telling us to expect severe thunderstorms (with hail) and torrential rains - starting at 4:00pm-6:00pm and lasting throughout the night. And...the nursery just called to say that they will arrive in a few minutes to plant the replacement dogwood tree. Yay!

Addition of 5/31/2019 7:17am: The torrential downpours missed us by a few miles. Yay! Yesterday and today have been dry - except for the heavy dew each morning. I've been "killing" myself working in the yard - hauling in bags of dirt, spreading it into the low spots, spreading mulch over the dirt, cutting the dead stalks off of the spent irises, pulling tens of thousands of tree seedlings, pruning bushes - and I doubt that anyone can tell that I've done a thing! Hunky Husband has mowed the grass twice this week, at the highest setting for the first mowing and at two notches lower, today.

Members of the second hatch of house finches are starting to crowd the nest on the front porch and the bluebirds have been feeding something within their nesting box.

The weather guessers say that we will have more waves of rain during June. Jason gave me the grand tour of their yard which includes a peninsula that is about five feet lower than the rim of the creek bank. There are huge trees spaced along the creek bed causing the water to snake around in about 50-foot (lateral) waves. Much erosion was in view that is not visible from our yard.

The temperature is 88 degrees Fahrenheit and the chiggers are biting. I'll let anyone else who wants it have summer in Kansas. Bah, humbug!

Addition of 6/1/2019 4:55pm: No wonder the house finch nest looks crowded. There are five youngsters in that nest! Below is a (poor) photo of mom feeding the brood. The photo was taken through a dirty window, without flash, which means my essential tremors blur the view.

Addition of 6/5/2019 1:12pm: All five of the young house finches have fledged. Since the nest is now three stories tall, I should probably take the swing down and clean it. I noticed that the young birds seemed to have mites and I don't want the next brood to get leftovers. 

Derby flooding - starting 5/20/2019

For ease of later retrieval, I am importing the flooding information into this posting out of the Tee Shirts posting. To see photos of flooding earlier in the month, please see One more entry into the non-ecclesiastical litany on flooding at CC's. 

Status report as of 5/20/2019 8:36pm: The creek is up to its banks, now, we've already had 2" of rain, and are expecting another 3". We are under possible evacuation alert - eastern part of Sedgwick County, on a creek. For the first time, ever, I have packed essential stuff into my car (it filled 1/2 of the trunk.)  If the water gets high enough (which we are expecting it to do), Hunky Husband will pack his car. If we evacuate, I expect us to leave at the same time. We plan to take turns watching the back yard through the night. 

Note to Bogie: Your quilt and materials are in my trunk. I'm not losing all that work to any flooding - lol!

Status report as of 5/20/2019 9:22pm: Hunky Husband just toddled off to bed. When he came in to give me a good-night smooch, he showed me an alert on his cell phone. Our City of Derby is under Flood Watch through next Sunday! I have the night watch.

Status report as of 5/21/2019 8:52am: The creek is high and thus somewhat out of its banks; but, it is flowing well and has not yet come up into the wild grass area of our yard. So far, I’ve not seen any logs floating down the creek – thanks to the clearing action of the flood a couple of weeks ago, no doubt. It rained off-and-on, all night. I failed to ask HH how much rain he removed from the gage.

Status report as of 5/21/2019 11:15am: Hunky Husband reports 3.3" in the rain gage. Sporadic rain falling.

Status report as of 5/22/2019 9:55am: We are breathing a sigh of relief, this morning. The creek is within its banks and the sun is shining. of course, rain is to resume this afternoon, they say. I unloaded my car trunk; but, I put the contents into my den rather than distributing it back into our household. I needed to haul some bags of dirt in my trunk to fill in low spots around the house's foundation. In planting the sedums that I bought Monday, I noted that each hole that I dug (about 2" deep) filled with water within 10 seconds.

Status report as of 5/23/2019 6:30pm: We had been told to expect thunderstorms starting at 4:00pm. At 4:08pm, it started raining, heavily. At 4:11PM, it stopped. We were on the edge of the storm, so we breathed another sigh of relief. I finished planting the sedums, after dinner, getting them all (36 plants) into the ground. I also staked the walnut tree that had been knocked over by the rushing waters of the flooding. If the staking works in flooding that we yet expect to have this week, I'll stake the umbrella catalpa tree that had, to a lesser extent, been knocked askew.

Below is a photo of the second tiny bouquet from Hunky Husband's rose garden, for the year. The large blossoms are Peace and Midas Touch tea roses, while the small blossom is from the fake Mr Lincoln.

Status report as of 5/24/2019 4:42pm: I went to the gym, this morning, then picked up Elegant Friend. We had lunch, toured the demonstration gardens that Kansas State University has up the that area of Wichita, then called it quits. I drove home through heavy rain and a small patch of stuff that looked like melted hail. (Hail in the forecast had been the reason I headed home so early.)

At about 2:00pm, it started raining heavily here at the house - at the rate of 4" or 5" per hour. Fortunately, the heavy rain lasted but about 15 minutes. The street was 2/3 covered by water (the crown was above water) and I noted the standing water locations that I still need to fill in with top soil. There was a small tornado about 10 miles from us about 30 minutes ago. We expect more storms (we see them training up toward us on the doppler radar display on TV) throughout the night and tomorrow. Hail and possible tornados are possible. Our big worry, of course, is the creek rising from all of the runoff. 

Status report as of 5/25/2019 8:47am: We received a total of a bit over 2" of rain, yesterday. We watched the creek rise, but it never really exceeded its banks. This morning (6:00am) the water level had fallen by about 2', but still very high.

A turtle made its way from the pond across the street from us (behind the facing houses) toward our creek. It came up the edging between our yard and Fred's. Unfortunately, my photo session disturbed the turtle and it took the long way around Fred's property. My bad.

               
 

Status report as of 5/26/2019 9:30am: It has been raining, off-and-on, all night and morning. The creek is about 1' higher than the highest it achieved, yesterday. Flood warnings have been extended through Tuesday, May 28. Tomorrow I shall probably start a new status posting. This one is getting rather long.