h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ditto (except for weeding!! - I just looked around ) - I've got primroses in flower too, but they've been in flower practically all winter . It's great though isn't it? Everything is in bud, just waiting to "spring" open

Why are you guys pulling out weed and who's Bud?!

I am definitely not weeding yet - there's loads more to pop up yet - leave it till they've all shown their true colours - then I'll get 'em

Bud is, erm, perfectly formed, but very young - needs to mature a little more - then Bud will perform & look beautiful to everyone's delight ... & taste

Not nice to tease a tart!



I'll make you all signs like the one I gave Sharon (my sister). It's on a metal stick and reads: WEEDS

Why weed when ya' could lie back an' read<?>

Lucky, lucky Pandora!
You have cute little kittens to play with whenever you want.

I'm .

I'll come & chase all those infuriating little fur balls away

Woof!

You must like Ohio an awful lot, Shirps.

why must I like Ohio?

You'd have to like Ohio a lot in order to travel all the way there to scare Pandora's kittens. They're in Ohio.

Of course, you could do all that without liking Ohio, but then you'd just be a masochist. Suit yourself.

I jusss adore Paul H.!

Paul H. I'm just teaching the kittens to fetch and do decorative things with toilet paper before I bring them to you! I thought you knew ...

...*tosses a big bone for Shirps to chew until the weather breaks...*

See what odd things we say? >until the weather breaks< I mean, what's it gonna' break? The ice storms already broke 'bout everything breakable.

Once, when I was just a very little girl, my mama ran back into the house as we were going some where saying, "There's a storm coming, I'm just gonna' crack the windows." I thought about that the entire time I waited. Upon her return I asked, "Why'd you break the windows?"
(some of you may not know that it was thought, especially for those of us in brick homes, it would keep a tornado from imploding your house if the windows were opened a crack)

Well, Paul H., if Pan's in Ohio then I am sure it is a real beautiful place ... just hold on while I sneak into the cargo hold & come flying over - I've got a bone to chew during the journey - just warn those troublesome furries that I'm on my way

Old clever clogs here said he'd heard of that - sortof equalises the air pressure. I suppose he means like before a cannon is fired you open your mouth so your ears don't pop.

Pan, have you ever been caught up in a tornado (so to speak)? Well, any of you?

Caught up in a tornado? No.

The closest I came was in 1953, when my mother took me to Worcester for the day. We went a day earlier than planned, and had a picnic beside a tree on the outskirts of the town. The next day, when we *should* have gone, the Great Worcester tornado rolled through, killing 90 people, injuring thousands, and doing massive amounts of damage . The tree we had micnicked beside was knocked down. The apartment buildings we could see across the field were smashed to smithereens.

All these years firing cannons and no one said a word!

My dad ended up in a tree when he was a child! He was running to let the animals out of the barn. I can imagine pops flying in the wind!

I've been at high sea during 40 + foot waves. I lashed myself to the rail when all hands were called below. It was very cool! The sails of the three mast clipper were smacking so loud you could barely hear the thunder!

And I've been at Lake Erie (just down the road) during several water spouts!
Fish fall from the sky when all's set just right! Just pick your fish from the ground!

Then ... about five years ago we had *The Fourth Of July* Tornados!
We had just gotten back to the cabin after putting our beloved golden retriever (Cassie) to sleep at the Vets after she'd eaten an entire bottle of my pain meds! On the way home I made Bear stop the car so I could scream into a field. I'm not prone to hysterics but that was a rare moment. By the time we got to the cabin we could see the tornado! It was ripping the ground away from local farms!!
At the cabin we have 'bilco doors' (I call them: Auntie Emm doors)you can only access the cellar from outside! (that was my bright idea) Bear took our other dog (Belle) on the lead to the basement thinking I was right behind him. I'd gone back inside for a blanket. That's when yet again the hand of intervention saved my hide! I swear this to be true!! Just as I was trying to pull the door to the cabin shut against the wind ... a sheet of ply wood from a new house down the road came through the open door past the swimming pool and right at me! I screamed! I opened my eyes & the board was hanging in mid air! Just as I was asking Bear how he ever caught that ... the board flew out the open garage doors as Bear walked through the door by the pool! He had just enough time to see that board take flight! Then he dragged me into the basement. Strange, huh?
The tornado took a lot of people's wet lands yet left our unscathed!
Barns fell that had stood for over a hundred years ... it was awful!
I stood out in the road to stop sight seers from going any further as the power lines were down and crackeling.

There was a funny bit to that day. One of the cars I stopped contained a friend of mine who has been directing plays in England for several years!
Mike jumped out of the car & grabbed me!
Only time I ever saw Bear run!!

My mama went to Xenia Ohio after a tornado fairly leved it as they were in need of skilled nurses. Guess my whole family has been affected several times by tornados. My sister could servive an atom explosion in her basement! And SHE'S the only one who doesn't have a "storm story"!

I love storms. Not property damage ... but the power of it ...

Pandora, there's more to the Worcester Tornado story.

My uncle in Detroit heard about the storm on the news, and tried to call our house to see if we were all right. He couldn't get through. I guess the phone lines were out in our area.

The next day, my grandmother in Michigan was sititng on her front porch, and saw a tornado go down the next street. This time, it was my family that heard about it, and tried to call Michigan. We couldn't ge through either.

About twenty years after that, a small tornado tore through Lancaster, which is the next town over from our town. It uprooted some trees, but didn't hurt anybody.

In the late 1970s, a tornado went through the Longwood Tennis Club In Brookline (next to Boston), and killed a 14-year-old girl who sought shelter in an equipment shed. The storm picked up the shed and dashed it on the ground.

I've been in two - they were windy. Luckily no real damage for us, but the town got torn up a bit. I saw waterspouts forming overhead by the shore of Lake Michigan too.

what tales! I do live an uneventful life

I remember the storms one year in the 80's. The weather forecaster, you over here will well know the name: Michael , hadn't predicted the storms at all. A one-time friend of mine owned a timber company (together with woodland) on the Norfolk/Suffolk border. He was ed afterwards about the damage to all the trees - the younger ones weren't too bad, they'd sort of bent with the gales, but many of the older ones had just been uprooted.

In the same storm a tree in the road outside our next-door-neighbours house had blown down across their car & laid facing their house.

I love lightning storms when I can watch from inside with the lights out & the curtains drawn back & I'm wearing no metal

Remind me to tell you sometime about the cruise we had last April around the Adriatic

As we say over here: "Well, we mustn't complain!"

- oh for a waterproof coat & boots

PS: Anyone here watched/watching "Super Volcano" on TV?

Had Mr told ya' all about the wind how would that change the outcome of the tree damage?

No person on this green lives an uneventful life Shirps. Not possible. Nope.

Ah yes, you're quite right (again ) - it would have made no difference whatsoever, but the thing was that he was paid by a tv company to be a weather "forecaster" - he didn't see this storm coming, so all were caught unawares & his forecasting skills became a standard sortof "joke"

Weatherwise I meant uneventful - I wish I could have a year of complete , just to get caught up & stabilized - even to do start painting again

I did actually venture into the garden today - for a whole half hour just pulled up some dead stalks & cut back one dead plant to enable some crocuses to be seen & moved 3 bricks (from our kitchen work) to the end of the garden to be dealt with at some other time. I filled the bird bath too - phew, it wore me out: , with a tipple of thrown in, did wonders

I think this past year was 'sposed ta' be MY year. Fungswhay that!

I'm hoping to be able to walk some distance by the time the Fireman's Fest arrives this Summer.
Might even need to be running by then. Either away from or after a fire truck. Depends...