Ill Winds

I’d have  a picture of the creek here in this top spot, but I haven’t quite gotten that friendly with the Mac quite yet. 

UhOh. The winds have really picked up just at dusk, the ice still clinging to the trees at about 50% of the full coating from earlier in the day. I have the feeling we’ll be firing up the Alladin lamps later tonight.

Thankfully, neither of us had to leave the house today–at least by car–so we have been able to enjoy this weather phenom more than our usual.

But the prospects of reading by candle light later on are not cheery, and I expect to find a roadblock to my multiple computer fixes that will wait until line repairs some time tomorrow. Maybe the tree trimming they did this summer (by helicopter, you may remember) will pay off for us.

For the first time in six months, the noise of the creek is the first thing that gets your attention on stepping out the back door. The half inch of rain (in the form of ice initially) is rushing across the frozen surface of the pasture, not sinking in, headed for Goose Creek, the Roanoke River, and the Atlantic.

Even so, we’ll get a bit of recharge to the water table. Speaking of which…

The central topic for this year’s Earth Day event in Floyd may be “Water and Life–in Floyd”, so if anybody has any great tips on water related movies, material or speakers in our area (and this includes any of the dozens of water-connected topics) please let me know.

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fred
fred

Fred First holds masters degrees in Vertebrate Zoology and physical therapy, and has been a biology teacher and physical therapist by profession. He moved to southwest Virginia in 1975 and to Floyd County in 1997. He maintains a daily photo-blog, broadcasts essays on the Roanoke NPR station, and contributes regular columns for the Floyd Press and Roanoke's Star Sentinel. His two non-fiction books, Slow Road Home and his recent What We Hold in Our Hands, celebrate the riches that we possess in our families and communities, our natural bounty, social capital and Appalachian cultures old and new. He has served on the Jacksonville Center Board of Directors and is newly active in the Sustain Floyd organization. He lives in northeastern Floyd County on the headwaters of the Roanoke River.

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