Schlagwort: rain

Jumping Ice

While New York, just shaken by an unusual earthquake, prepares for a severe tropical storm, we’re having much more harmless weather conditions here, but unusual as well: today we had a hailstorm, something rare for this area.





 
While I took some photographs, hail jumped through the open terrace door, some of the ice balls made it all the way to the other end of the house.


 
Our water lilies got perforated …

 
Several loads of torrential rain followed in the hours after the hail. And we discovered that the skylights in Sabine’s room aren’t completely tight – one of them above her bed. The mattress was partly wet. We had to drag it in front of the heating, hoping it will dry soon. Adventure!









Humming Tree

This year seems unusual, weather-wise, too much sun for April-May, too little rain, and the plants grow and are flowering more than ever before, or so it seems. At the moment, our Laburnum anagyroides (Golden Rain) is pretty amazing and if there is a quiet moment, without wind, cars, or planes, you can hear that the whole tree hums with bumblebees. What a great natural sculpture!



 
Postscript: our wonderful Golden Rain tree eventually was killed by voles – apparently the roots were tasting too good, and I could pull the big plant out of the soil with one hand.

My God, It’s Full Of …

SHROOMS!

I can’t remember an August that has been this wet. July was sunny and hot, very hot, too hot too long, and August has been raining almost all the time.

 
The mushrooms seem to be the only ones who enjoy this. I’ve never seen the forest uphill of our house so full of them. I just took these photos during a 30 minute walk.

Cold May

Unusually cold and wet, this May 13th, and it’s been like that for several days, and it will be like that for some more days. (9°Celsius is 48° Fahrenheit)



 
Today is Ascension Day (I can’t help imagining Jesus with a jetpack on his back, roaring off into the clouds) – anyway, I haven’t taken a walk for days and today is a good day for that, at least it doesn’t rain at the moment.


 
Incredible to watch the plants grow ! The Bergisches Land is one of the rainiest areas in Germany. The soil is heavy and not good for crops of any kind, so agriculture is usually limited to keeping cattle. We don’t have as many flowers as the more fertile regions in Germany but … there are some if one looks closely. I started in our own garden …





 
The meadows have already grown up high … the dandelion season seems to be mostly over.








 
I love walking through the forest on the hill opposite of our house … the birds were singing, and I didn’t meet anyone else … except for some deer.