Small Farm Life at Two Mile Ranch » weather

Wall, shelf, rotation and debris

Fritz Nordengren — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 13:52:47 +0000

August 12, 2007 - this shelf cloud brought winds that took down more than half of the roof during construction at Two Mile Ranch.

Tim and I were talking at coffee the other morning, he brought up storm spotting and a class being taught up near the county line. Having seen the storms that can move through an Iowa summer, I agreed and have signed up to be a spotter after taking the National Weather Service 2010 Spotter Training.

Now admittedly, attending a 2 hour class makes me as much of a meteorologist as having a single bullet in his pocket made Barney Fife a Deputy, but I think the hope of the weather service is that an extra set of eyes on the ground makes their ability to warn of dangerous weather easier. Not only do they wish for spotters to report what they see in the sky, but also watch for flash flooding.

As I drove back from the training, I was thinking about the videos they showed, many from storm chasers (not just spotters) who’s thrill comes from video making of storms. The soundtrack from these home videos, in addition to swear words of exclamation as something gets blown over, is the line “We’ve got debris”.

Do you remember who made this line famous? It was Helen Hunt in the movie “Twister”. Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Jami Gertz make up an odd love triangle (okay a foursome if you count the tornado).

So Hunt plays a free spirited storm researcher — Gertz is the more structured analyst. It’s a typical “brains vs beauty” choice for Paxton, although both are beautiful women.

The “we’ve got debris” line may be the most famous, but my favorite line is buried deeper in the film. Gertz, the straight woman to the more emotional Hunt, says this to Paxton as he rediscovers his love of storm chasing. Gertz and Paxton have just come through a terrifying storm and Gertz says to him:

“When you used to tell me that you chase tornadoes, deep down I thought it was just a metaphor.”

Makes me smile every time I think of it.

M R Ducks

Fritz Nordengren — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 23:04:27 +0000

Black Cayuga Ducklings

It was really simple enough.

I was just going to the feed store to get cracked corn for the pheasants and some starter feed to stock up for this year’s new pheasant arrivals in a few months.

While I was there, I got to talking with the owner and he asked,

“You wouldn’t want 4 Black Cayuga ducklings would you?”

Keeping in mind the forecast for the weekend was 8 degrees and snow, and without heat in the barn, there is really no good place to keep ducks at the cabin, so I said no, but looked at them anyway. What he really wanted to do was get rid of the largest of the ducklings. I told him I needed to think about what they would need and I could get back to him on Monday.

“No”, he said, if no one took them today, he would get rid of them.

Hmmm.

So I figured the worst that happens is they don’t survive, and since I have two ponds of natural duck habitat, they would have a nice place to live once spring came…so I took them.

For now, they live in a rabbit cage in the little cabin. In a few weeks, I’ll move them to a pen in the barn, and then in a few more weeks, out to the pond.

So far, the suggested names include:

Duck Vadar
Bat Duck
The 4 Tops
Mocha
Black Coffee
Gilbert
Indiana Quackers
and finally Gladys Knight and the Pips

Black Cuyugas are good egg layers and good meat ducks — but rather than go to the trouble, I’ll put them to work eating the algae out of the little pond. We’ll see….

There is an old visual joke that is often attributed to the Iowa test of Basic Skills, however, it is usually used to refer to anyone you want to teasingly make fun of. The test reads like this:

M R ducks

M R not
O S A R
C M wangs?
L I B! M R ducks

The “key” or translation is

Them are ducks
Them are not
Oh yes they are
See them wings?
Well I’ll be! Them are ducks

Post Christmas beauty

Fritz Nordengren — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 01:35:57 +0000

The post-Christmas weather included an ice storm, 56 degree days, a inch or two of snow, and wind.

Today was a picture perfect day.

Pheasants roosting on the ice covered fly pen that used to be their home

Pheasants feeding in the snow

The cabin at Two Mile from the East hill

Radar Love? Here’s a software tool for weather radar

Fritz Nordengren — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 10:49:39 +0000

We’ve got a thing that’s called radar love
We’ve got a wave in the air, radar love.
- Radar Love – Golden Earring (Hay and Kooymans)

If you live in an partially off grid farm, or you dont have a television or get poor reception, keeping an eye on the weather can be a challenge. But if you connect to the Internet, for examle by cell phone – data, or by satellite, there is a free tool that you may find helpful.

The Oklahoma Climatological Survey offers a free download software called Weather Scope. Available for both Mac and Windows users, this software installs easily. It takes little understanding to get it set up and working, but for instance, to view local weather radar from the National Weather Service, simply chose the radar source from a state-sorted lists of National Weather Service radars.

The initial view include state borders, and not much more detail, but you can add urban areas, principal highways, county borders, and you can also download county roads for some locations.

Close up view showing county road detail

Weather Scope showing Iowa Radar and Texas radars during Ike