Wild Weather in Colorado

While I was sitting in the Boulder Justice Center, listening to testimony to the Grand Jury, all hell broke loose around us.  When we stepped outside, after the hearing, we looked up at the clouds above us, and said it smelled like rain.  Got in the car, got home, turned on the news, and gaped.  Several reported tornadoes in and around Berthoud and Simla, over two feet of hail in southwest Denver, and 5 to 8 inches of rain fell around the tornadoes.  A lot of the town of Hygiene is under water, and the Big Thompson River may flood (look out, Lyons).  The Cache le Poudre River is flooding again.  Boulder is under a Flash Flood Warning until 9 o'clock tonight.  Then, early this morning, the road caved in in Sheridan, a suburb of Denver, and swallowed a police officer driving his police department SUV - the hole is more than 15 feet deep, and contains active gas lines.  Yikes!

Hail in Denver this morning

Yesterday's hail next to a golf ball

Yesterday's hail in southwest Denver

The tornado at Simla

Tornado damage near Berthoud

Tornado damage near Berthoud

Tornado that struck Berthoud

Sheridan police SUV slowly sinks into 15 foot deep sinkhole

And today is National Doughnut Day!

Lots of Things

There were 8 tornadoes reported in the Denver area yesterday afternoon and evening, not just 5; and there was a lot of wind and hail damage in the metropolitan area.  We had rain and hail fall in Boulder multiple times during the evening and over night.  It started a little after 5 p.m. and lasted until about 3 this morning - thunder, lightning, wind, rain, and hail.  Luckily, the hail I saw here was the size of, and smaller than, green peas, so it didn't do too much damage.  - In some areas of Denver, between the wind and the hail, some of the soft sidings of buildings looked as though they'd been subjected to gunfire. - I had to close my patio window and door, because the wind was blowing from the east, and the hail was hitting the concrete patio pad, and then ricocheting up to the door and window.  It was an interesting experience.
   There was a slight to-do after the Preakness was won by California Chrome, before he shipped up to Elmont, New York for the Belmont Stakes.  Having won the first two races of the Triple Crown, Art Sherman, the trainer made a comment about racing in the NYRA area.  -  Humans have been wearing "Breathe Right" nasal strips for many years now.  They keep your nasal passages open, so you aren't deprived of oxygen while sleeping or exercising.  Human athletes have been wearing nasal strips almost since the day they were introduced... - The New York Racing Association did not approve of the use of nasal strips on racing thoroughbreds when they were first introduced, saying that there had not been enough study to decide whether the nasal strips were an assistance "offering unfair advantage" to the wearer or not.  Up until Monday, NYRA had declared nasal strips illegal in racing in their state.  California Chrome wears a nasal strip.  He has used a nasal strip in his last six races, and has been undefeated in all of those races.  He has also been ridden in each of those six races by Victor Espinoza.  Any horse, at any race track in the US can (now, with the NYRA's ruling) wear a nasal strip.  Some trainers like them, some don't. In a Sports Illustrated article, a writer stated that since the NYRA has allowed nasal strips, "all of thoroughbred racing suffers from the decision."  He never wrote why, or how, thoroughbred racing suffers from the decision; nasal strips were allowed at all US tracks except in the state of New York prior to the ruling.  Is he stating that New York racing is better than any other states?  Yes, Art Sherman did hint that one of the horse's owners wouldn't be happy if they couldn't use the nasal strip.  But I don't think that would have actually stopped California Chrome's connections from trying to be the first Triple Crown winner since 1978 (Florida-bred Affirmed).  Another way to look at the nasal strip "controversy" is to realize that while the nasal strip may help hold the upper nostril passages stay wide open, all the air the horse breathes must then pass through the 'bottle neck' of the horse's trachea, leading to the lungs...  I do not believe that a nasal strip gives a horse an unusual advantage.
   We are heading for Memorial Day Weekend here in Boulder (and, yes, everywhere else in the United States)... In Boulder that means it is time for the Boulder Creek Festival and the running of the Bolder Boulder 10K road race.  Information about the Boulder Creek Festival may be found at:  http://www.bceproductions.com/boulder-creek-festival/    Festivities begin at 6 p.m. on Friday night, 24 May, with a free concert at the Central Park band shell, and will continue until after dark on Monday, 26 May.  On Monday, the Boulder street system, and a lot of the mass transit system, will be shut down for the 10K Bolder Boulder for the morning and part of the early afternoon - beware!  A map of the race course may be found at:  http://media.bolderboulder.com/BBCourseMap.pdf

 

Pomona Tornado

One of my regular clients had a family medical emergency, so I unexpectedly spent last night away from home. Sarah, I received your message this morning. I'm glad that Aunt Theoda's place made it through the tornado with only a loss of some trees; I'm sorry to hear about the neighbor's home... And I'm happy to hear that everyone else in the family and their property is OK. (Do you think your Dad was kicking up his heels on his birthday?) You greatly relieved my mind with your message! And, heading along with the weather, we're coming up on a time of a lot of solar storms, so one can expect all sorts of electrical outages. (See: http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2009/may/08/boulder-scientists-predict-a-weak-sun-cycle/ ) Kathy and Jim fly to Florida tomorrow, so folks there can blame any nasty weather on them - the Snows in Florida in May.

I hope to go see the new Star Trek movie this coming week. Cheyenne, a friend of mine, saw it yesterday and said the new film is "too good for mere words." I did have to laugh yesterday afternoon, when our (the apartment complex's) new sprinkler system was turned on. There is a sprinkler head less than an inch away from the south corner of my patio; yesterday, the kits were outside, running around, when I heard this strange hissing sound. Both cats promptly came inside. I looked out and saw the still recessed sprinkler head bubbling water (it looked like a Tonka toy dump truck tire spitting water out of the tire rim); after 10 minutes, I had a considerable puddle of water on my patio; then there were a series of hisses and the sprinkler rose about a half inch and alternately bubbled or shot a small spray of water out at a distance of about 6 inches; then for 6 minutes, the sprinkler head rose up completely, and watered a neat half-circle of about 20 feet. After this, the head retreated into it's shell, and water bubbled onto my patio again for a few more minutes. We had a nice breeze yesterday, and, before 5 minutes had passed, the area that had actually been watered was bone dry again. The sprinkler across the yard fared even worse - it only bubbled and created a large puddle of mud (which Lovey has enjoyed immensely!).

Calvin Borel has agreed to ride Rachel Alexandra in all of her races for her new owners and trainer Steve Asmussen. If the new owners decide to run her in the Preakness, then Borel will be riding the filly and not Mine That Bird. I am truly glad that I don't have to make that kind of a decision! Other than being breezy, yesterday was a beautiful day for graduation from CU... and it was so nice out that Rosie did not want to return home at the end of our morning walk. The closer we got to her house, the slower she walked - until I was almost dragging her along behind me, while Remy was eager to get back home. I have promised the red kids that they can come over and spend an afternoon with Suki and Boo in the backyard this coming week... I'll set up a huge water tub for the dogs, and sit under the apple tree reading... a nice relaxing day....
Have a super weekend!!

Three Twisters in Thirty Minutes!

Yesterday was quiet - bright and sunny in the morning, cloudy and cool in the afternoon, with thunder rumbles and light rain in the evening. I would have liked to have seen the Olympics closing ceremony, but Hila's house has no TV and no radio, so I read, as usual. When I returned to my apartment this morning, I found that there had been 3 tornadoes within 30 minutes near Denver - luckily, none caused damage. And when I looked out on my patio this morning, I had to laugh - my neighbor had lined up a dead mouse and a rather tattered dead sparrow on the outer edge of the patio. Her note the other day blamed me for the deaths of any and all critters near my apartment - because I feed the critters.

The hens have laid 4 or 5 eggs for me each day, and I harvested in the gardens yesterday afternoon - tomatoes, cucumbers, 5 kinds of squash, Swiss chard, and, being allergic to them, I did NOT touch the huge red onions that look ripe for pulling. The canatloupe need about 2 more weeks on the vine, but the squash plants are blooming again, and we should get a double harvest of them. The cherry and Roma tomatoes are over-producing themselves - and one can gather almost a quart a day from them.

The Democratic National Convention begins today in Denver. When it was first announced that local people could get a ticket to see Obama's acceptance speech, I toyed with the idea - but my dislike of crowds convinced me not to go - along with the fact that when I went to sign up for the ticket, 5 hours after it was announced, all 50,000 had already gone and I was the 28,657th on the waiting list for cancellations. In a way, I really want to be there for the history, and at the same time, I know I'll get a better view, hear the speeches much more clearly, and be more at ease if I watch from home. And - it's pretty well accepted that if you're below the 5,000 number on the waiting list, that you might as well go whistle in the wind.

I'll be home after tonight for about a week - I can sleep in my bed and schmooze with the kits... then I'll be off with Spike for awhile in Niwot. I will correct the Nocks family tree on-line this week and start putting up the Devine-Boyer and the Lancaster family trees; as well as mailing out (finally!) the Martin and O'Neil family trees to Idaho.