Springtime in Indiana

 

Ah, springtime in Indiana.  Flowers, budding trees, morel mushrooms, nesting birds, dogwood, forsythia, rapidly fluctuating temperatures, ferociously high winds, torrential rains, tornadoes. . . .

 

This weekend was something out of a sci fi novel, unless you live in Indiana where, of course, such diversity in weather is to be expected. 

 

The temperature was freezing.  Then it was in the seventies.  Then it went down to the forties, rose to the sixties, dropped to the thirties again, rose to the fifties, and dropped back down to the thirties.  This morning, it was in the sixties.  By noon, it was in the forties.  Tonight, it's supposed to be in the twenties.  Even the animals seem disoriented.  Is this why the cat is having some kind of seizure on the deck?  Should I start putting out better quality garbage?  Is there a live-and-ticked-off mouse caught in his throat?  Or is he just nuts. . . .

 

The wind damage in this general area was significant.  Some of the touchdowns caused a lot of destruction, especially to the north and south of us.  I am going to relax my usually hard-nosed test make-up policy this week; several schools were closed and my students had to stay home with their children; several homes were damaged and my students had to stay home and wait for insurance adjusters and carpenters, etc.  I refuse to penalize these students for Mother Nature's temper tantrum.  They will be able to make up this work for full credit when they are able to return.

 

Those who did manage to come to class today got doughnuts. 

 

It was difficult to get to school today.  Trees are down, everywhere.  Debris of all kinds is blocking the roads.  Along one stretch of highway, there was enough drywall to cover a house, which at one time I'm sure it did.  Many people have not had any electricity since Saturday night.  I feel really bad for those people whose homes were demolished or damaged.  In Indiana, in the springtime, this is a fact of life.  It's the luck of the draw.  Mother Nature plays no favorites, and next time it could be YOU.

 

The crocuses in the front yard are gone now, pummelled into the ground by the hail.  (Did I mention the hail?  The size of gumballs, it was, and made me feel as though I were living in a huge hollow drum, Saturday night.)  After the hail comes the dead silence, and after the dead silence comes the sound of a roaring train, except it isn't really a train, it's a tornado.  Fortunately for us, THIS time we didn't hear that train a'coming.  Other times, we have. 

 

This county is riddled with train tracks, so any time there's a storm, and a real train coming through, people tend to panic.  If you are a train afficionado, you'll go nuts with joy here.  This town looks like an FAO Schwartz Lionel display.  We've got train tracks going through our downtown, even.  I almost had a baby in the car because of that one.

 

Anyway, all over the county there are shingles, siding, lawn furniture, trees and their various parts, splintery wood, hollow plastic toys, kiddie pools, etc.  And the wind is still blowing hard.

 

Watch your step.  And watch your head.  Stuff comes flying at you pretty fast and pretty hard, these days.