Other than notes about the weather, the notebook pages are empty this week. I’m blaming allergies for the chest conjestion which has clipped my wings the past couple of weeks.
I was supposed to have a part in Superior’s National Day of Prayer observance and had to cancel. A week later I was asked to record a podcast spot. Same story, I had to cancel. Many years I have attended multiple high school graduation activities but thus far this year my count stands at 0.
After being surprised in Lincoln by the April 26 storm outbreak, I have been keeping a close watch on the weather. We had fewer than normal customers and telephone calls at the newspaper office on Monday and I should have gotten a lot done. I have little to show for the hours spent at my desk because I was constantly checking the internet for weather updates.
I tried to write several stories but kept encountering blocks as my attention was diverted to the latest weather report.
My mother’s fixation on the weather used to make me mad. She absolutely had to be sitting in front of the television at 6 and 10 p.m. for the Joe Kenny and Bob Taylor weather forecasts. Then after she moved to town and subscribed to cable television, the Weather Channel became her favorite. Had my father not controlled the channel selector in the evenings, I think she would have played the Weather Channel 24/7.
Thankfully, Superior has missed the damaging storms thus far. Instead we have received several beneficial rains.
The trees are leafing out, the grass is growing and the countryside is turning green.
For as dry as we have been the last couple of years, the countryside here is absolutely beautiful. One doesn’t have to go far to find areas still in need of rain. Earlier this week, dirt was blowing from no-till fields less than 100 miles from here.
A newcomer to the area made me aware of how beautiful our hated weeds can be when she commented on how much she enjoyed the fields of purple flowers (i.e. henbit). She was right, the white flowers of bindweed, purple flowers of henbit and musk thistle, and the yellow flowers of dandelions and sunflowers are beautiful if we fail to consider all the work it takes to control them.
For my lung conjestion, I have been drinking warm tea with honey and lemon. I’ve also been adding locally harvested honey to my breakfast oat meal and lunch time biscuits. And I think it is helping to clear the conjestion.
Probably the busy bees used the nectar from the often hated weeds mentioned earlier in this column to make the honey.
And so before I move on to other writing projects that should have been finished before now let me close with a line lifted from an older friend I visited with in late April, “Be well and do good things,”
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