The Year of Weather Discontent

It has been an unusually brutal year in terms of weather.

First we had the winter from hell.

I mean, I like winter and this past one drove me nuts with the amount of snowfall we received. [The fact that we had a record 9 or 11 snow days to make up for school speaks volumes.]

One storm after another lined up and dumped all over us.

Now we have been having the summer that has only brought more of the same.

Sure, the precipitation is in liquid form, which means we don't have to shovel and scrape, but how many times are we going to have to Shop-vac the basement?

All this is my prelude into having driven to Des Moines yesterday to attend the State Fair Photography Salon reception.


I received an Honorable Mention on the interior photo of Sacred Heart Church. (They also are exhibiting the photo of the lily close-up I entered.)

It's been hot and sticky here for the past 4 or 5 days, yesterday being no exception. There have been excessive heat warnings and general heat advisories issued by the national weather service each day. With that, in Iowa - in August, usually also comes plenty of thunderstorm watches and warnings.

We drove home in a doozie last night! The clouds were dark, low-lying and menacing. The wind shifted a couple of times. Torrential curtains of rain prevented us from seeing the 2-lane roads we were on. We already had to go out of our way because of road construction detours only to discover that the other way into town from the south was flooded. (We discovered this in the midst of a thunderstorm warning I might add.)

We had to turn around and go many miles out of our way until we could finally get into town and home safely.

Between the heat, humidity, rain and plethora of mosquitos and other unwanted bugs birthed out of this weather pattern....most people are spending as much time cooped up indoors this summer as they did over the winter.

Good thing I have lots of knitting to do! (There is a silver lining to every cloud!)