FEAR OF FLYING--THINGS part 1

There is probably a whole generation of children who were traumatized by The Wizard of Oz movie.

I was one of them. I saw that Kansas tornado sucking up Dorothy’s home and was never the same.

Funnel clouds just don’t happen where I grew up. Micro bursts, dust storms, yes. Big spinning winds, not so much. That did not stop the nightmares. I had dreams of looking out the window of our little farm house and seeing a dozen twisters headed our way. I would wake up in the night in my nest on the top bunk to find myself surrounded by little black tornados. I swatted them down with my pillow until I woke myself up.

It did not help that the grandmother that babysat me had a reproduction of “Tornado over Kansas” by John Steuart Curry hanging over her sofa. That picture still gives me the heebie jeebies.

I learned I needed to take cover in a low place in the event of a twister. So I practiced running the hundred yards to a concrete pipe that formed a bridge for a ditch. By the time I got too big to fit in that pipe I’d outgrown the worst of my dread of tornados.

By the way, lilapsophobia is the name of the phobia relating to the fear of hurricanes or tornadoes.

FLAUNTING THE FISH

As a favor to the fishermen in our house this is a post to display a recent catch. The guys went ice fishing in Montana and spent the day bringing in their legal limit of trout. All of the fish were large. The biggest weighed in at just under three pounds. It was a good day for the guys, bad day for the fish.

The ones they brought home were all rainbow and brown trout.

They are beautiful creatures. I have mixed feelings about them not swimming free in the lake--yet knowing their salmon colored fillets will soon be grilled with lemon pepper and a dusting of corn meal, and served with a wedge of fresh lemon.

DEALING WITH SNOW

Here in snow country we get some of our best storms in February. We don’t expect to see our lawns until March.

park bench in February

That’s just the way it is.

So we can’t help but smile a little over the mass hysteria caused by snow storms in places less prepared.

The university students from lower latitudes and altitudes get so excited and run outside to watch the first white flakes falling out of the sky in the fall. By December the novelty has worn off.

Now, in February, they are feeling a little overwhelmed.

(Mom and Dad sent me to hell and now it has frozen over.)

Although the campus grounds crew keep the walkways clear and dry.

Snow Days are not that common.

Public schools continue unless the weather becomes a blizzard.

Heavy snowfall is cause for celebration at all the ski resorts. The farmers welcome the storms as a promise of water for crops in the summer and an opportunity to break out the snowmobiles.

Winter weather does last TOO long, though.

Sometimes we just wish it would STOP.

No, we panic when the thermometer shoots to the top in July and August. We expect comfortable outside temperatures in the afternoon.

If we can’t get cool by opening a window for a little breeze or by shading up on the porch, we don’t do well. Many houses around here don’t even have air conditioners.

DH and I finally invested in a little window a.c. unit for our home a couple of years ago, but we only need it for a few weeks each summer.

I guess it just depends on the kind of conditions you’re prepared for.