Zoo Animals Show Sounders Spirit
Cranberry Saw Us
Can't Miss It, Weekend Edition: Nov 6-8
Fall Flashback
Symphony of the Superhero
Photo courtesy of Adam Lyon
Lightning, thunder, and heavy rains are beautiful and exciting, particularly to us in the Pacific Northwest who get to witness them so infrequently. When a storm comes in we always hope we're near a window (or camping, so said people on the bus this morning) so that we can catch random glimpses of nature's fireworks.
Other people react differently, though.
When a storm whips up Dad, back in Illinois, mans a rake and guards the culvert at the bottom of the driveway against sticks and leaves unless he wants water in the basement again. Father-in-law, also back in Illinois, sedates the dog unless he wants to lose yet another couch to panicked chewing.
John Muir climbs a tree.
Ever since we heard the story of Muir climbing to the top of a Douglas Fir to experience a storm we think of him up there every time the weather gets fierce because, clearly, it's the most worthwhile thing someone could possibly do in the face of a storm. He did it in California, so what? We have Douglas Firs and the ghosts of Muir here, too.
In its widest sweeps my tree-top described an arc of from twenty to thirty degrees, but I felt sure of its elastic temper, having seen others of the same species still more severely tried—bent almost to the ground indeed, in heavy snows—without breaking a fiber.
I was therefore safe, and free to take the wind into my pulses and enjoy the excited forest from my superb outlook. The view from here must be extremely beautiful in any weather. Now my eye roved over the piny hills and dales as over fields of waving grain, and felt the light running in ripples and broad swelling undulations across the valleys from ridge to ridge, as the shining foliage was stirred by corresponding waves of air. Oftentimes these waves of reflected light would break up suddenly into a kind of beaten foam, and again, after chasing one another in regular order, they would seem to bend forward in concentric curves, and disappear on some hillside, like sea-waves on a shelving shore. The quantity of light reflected from the bent needles was so great as to make whole groves appear as if covered with snow, while the black shadows beneath the trees greatly enhanced the effect of the silvery splendor.
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Oh my gosh! I was discussing this very thing last weekend with my dad!