An hour or so after I made the last post (Water, Water, Everywhere) the fog lifted. I sorta like the fog. At least being in the clouds is better than being under water. Things do seem a bit colorless in the fog though.
Anyway, shortly after the clouds lifted above our roof, the sun actually started to peek through the holes appearing. (Did you know the sky is actually BLUE!?) A gentle breeze started to blow and I decided to give it an hour or so to dry out the lawn/dandelions before I got the lawn mower out.
I spent a tense hour and a half as the sun and clouds dueled for aerial dominance. The sun finally got the upper hand and gained ground although there were still a few very threatening, dark, ominous clouds about. Most of the real baddies seemed to be staying on the other side of the valley.
Since the lawn was so full of dandelions in flower and/or seed, I opted to use the bag instead of the mulch setting. The stuff was so dense, I could only go about 40 yards before I had to empty the bag. Made for some slow going but I added lots of organic material to the compost pile. I did avoid adding fauna as well as flora. Three snakes (two garters and a ring-necked), two wood frogs, and a very young American toad escaped the whirling blades of death to life another day. Fine by me as they are all insect eaters.
As I cut, the minor rain gods continued to have a little fun with me. Three times it showered. Never hard enough to make me quit--especially after I got wet from the first one--but just enough to be annoying. Of course, all that stopped when I finished mowing. THEN the sun came out for good. It's kinds nice. I could get used to it.
When I finished mowing, the air was filled with what I first thought were dandelion seeds being dispersed by the steady but light breeze. Then I realized that all the white fluff in the air was from the poplar trees and not the dandelions. The dandelions seeds are like tiny umbrellas with the seed where the handle would be. The poplar is more like a ball of very nebulous cotton. And there were a lot of them! I remembered seeing what looked like a white scum on the puddles along the edge of the roads in places yesterday. Now I realize that the "scum" was collected and soaked poplar fluff. On a dry day--such as this afternoon became--that fluff can gather in windrows and roll across a hard surface until it's inches thick. Get it wet and it mats up and--given enough water beneath it--will float like scum on a pond only silvery white. One thing about poplars: they are prolific! At times it appeared to be snowing.
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