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We are on the northern edge of a stalled weather front that runs from Texas / Oklahoma right up the Ohio River Valley. For the past five days we have experienced one low pressure wave after another, bringing either violent weather with thunder storms and even some tornadoes, but mainly very heavy rainfall. I checked the NOAA web site this morning, and to the south of us in an area centered on Jaspar, and stretching east to west, much of that part of the state is at a cumulative 6 – 10″ of rain or more for the storm period.

This link goes to NOAA and weather.gov web site, with a link on the left to choose “Rainfall Storm Total” to flip the radar image to show cumulative storm totals over southern Indiana. In fine print above the image it will state the date range covered by the cumulative data. FWIW, the first static image defaults to a date range not necessarily through current date. Just click the ‘storm total’ link, and it will expand the date range stated above the image.

While driving home from some shopping this morning just before lunch, we passed at least two mature dead racoons on the busy US 41 Bypass, which is undergoing heavy construction. This is not normal. There is constant traffic on that stretch, and animals avoid this main thoroughfare because of that. I have almost never seen animals killed by traffic along that stretch. Carol told me she had read in the Bloomington paper, the Herald-Times, that the heavy rains have created flooding and conditions that are driving wildlife out of their normal habitats. The report quoted a group that specializes in trying to help wild life. Given that these are essentially urban animals, that habitat was already constrained in the area of the bypass, which is pretty well built-up and populated.

I wonder if this explains the turtle pictures below. I had been on a walk to take pictures of wildflowers during the brief period of broken clouds and a little sunshine earlier in the morning, before we left to go shopping. It is not usual to see a turtle up near the golf paths and open areas of the golf course mid-morning. But there he was. I have to wonder if the heavy rain is not affecting him and his movement patterns.

Here are a couple of the pictures. He is an absolutely beautiful box turtle.

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March 1st. An auspicious omen in the skies, a very old crescent moon, and a very bright Venus at dawn.

February started with yet another winter storm sweeping through Indiana. This one included a lot of sleet and ice. We were fortunate in Bloomington, the ice was not that great, but the northern half of the state was hit pretty hard, with an inch or more of ice in some areas.

Spencer, coming out of one of the shelter houses for the cats on the deck.

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It has been a snowy winter, with Indiana getting as much as 12″ above average snowfall by the end of January in some areas of central Indiana.

This past year, we fed the birds daily on the upper deck. You can sit still long enough on the lower deck, and they will return and feed while you watch.

We planted a bed of day neutral strawberries last spring, and kept the runners and flower buds trimmed back until late July. Then we let them start producing. The deer discovered them, and we had to set up a second water scarecrow to keep them away. We got a pretty nice supply of strawberries up until late Fall. Note there is one non-strawberry item in the bowl, a red habanero pepper, that got in there by accident, and was not noticed when I set up the picture.

The heat, the dry weather, and finally the squash borers pretty much decimated the vegetable garden by late July this past year. We had gotten a lot of produce up to that point, but the heat and dryness won. So in early August, I tilled up and plowed some more compost and peat into the garden that was not still producing, and planted a variety of greens. By watering them I managed to get them going, and into November we were harvesting and eating fresh collards, kale, turnip greens, and lettuces. The bunch of turnips above is an example, we got some of the best turnips we have ever grown in this late planting.

It started snowing off and on in November, then snowed in waves through December. I think we had snow on the ground most of that month, and for a lot of January, too. The picture above was taken on Christmas Day, when we decided it would be nice to have a fire in the fireplace.

We all took turns fetching wood from the wood pile to store under the deck, so it would be easily available for building fires.

We planted this white pine in the back yard about 15 years ago. It was barely three feet tall at the time. This shot manages to capture the spirit of the snowy day it was taken, and gives some new meaning to the term “white pine”.

Appropriate to the snowy winter we have had, a lorn and lonely snowbird, a Junco, sits on the rail of the lower deck waiting for the grub to be distributed for the day.

The lower deck has looked like this again and again this winter. It has helped to keep it swept clean as quickly as possible, sometimes more than once during a storm, to keep the snow from accumulating and icing up too badly, and making the deck unusable. Although the weather has kept the cats pretty much snowbound in the house, they like to be able to spend time sitting on the deck observing off and on through the day, as well.

We have had Pileated Woodpeckers in the area for years, and it is always a thrill seeing them at a distance in the trees, or flying by the house. For bonus points, we looked out after putting fresh seed and seedcakes out for the birds on New Year’s Day, and there was a pair of Pileateds on the railing.

I managed to get a few shots of one hanging off the feeder. They are very sensitive to motion and noise, and if they sense you are behind the glass of the door, they are gone in a flash.

The morning sky was pretty dramatic both on January 29th and again on the 30th, with crescent late moon and Venus. I managed to get this shot on the 30th, using an F2.8 telephoto lens.

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