Surreal Georgia

Heavy Thunderstorm

This was today at 5 pm. It looks as if it were already 9 pm, so dark! Shortly after I made this video we hadn't any electricity no more, nobody in the village. Even the telephones were dead. Authorities took nearly one hour until they fixed it.

 

 

Damn! It's already evening now, I'm tired and I have to look after my other house after this severe storm. I just heard at the telephone that there was also a thunderstorm. So I better look after the house. One hour to drive. And I have to get up at five o'clock next morning. No fun, absolutely no fun!

 

Five Senses - Photo Challenge

As I told you I have a day off. The weather was a bit better and so we spent a little time in the garden drinking some coffee and talking or only having our own thoughts while enjoying the quiet garden scene. 

Five senses (touch, hearing, sight, smell and taste) by Hans Markert (1840 - 1884, Austrian painter)

My favorite and most important sense is sight. I'm a painter and so this is the sense I mostly use and which is most developed. But I couldt say that the other senses are not important. What is life without the ability to taste delicious dishes, what without smelling beautiful scents of flowers and spices, what without the gentle touch of a beloved person, what withour hearing voices or music? All five senses are the origin of biggest joys in our lives. They are the doors which connect us to the world.

So I sat there in the garden, enjoying the warm sunlight (touch), breathing the fresh and spring like air (smell), relishing a good cup of coffee (taste), listening to the chirping of the birds (hearing) and watched what was around me (sight):

I saw a little bee in the bush besides me,

a lonely daisy between my feet,

some violets in the lawn,

a blackbird looking for food

and the beautiful blossom of a quince.

I enjoyed this afternoon in the garden very much using all my senses. But now the sun is gone, big clouds are on the sky and it is too cold to stay outside on the garden bench.

 

************************************************************************************************

Regular participants are:

Ree

Lisa 

Taia

and me. Feel free to join us!

 

A Day Before Easter

We had a few goals for Easter: New bathrooms ready to use and a clean house again after all the dust we have been bearing for weeks now. But time is short. On the other hand I'm very, very stubborn in reaching my goals. So I hope to make it all today.

I'm so excited making a little film about a tour through our house. Maybe I can do it tomorrow.

Today there is still a lot of work that has to be done: First of all we have to buy food for both Easter days. Then I have another appointment with the plumber, who has to fix the last things in the bathrooms and who wants first of all money. I hope that the guy is done in a hour and leaves me alone. There is only the afternoon to clean this really big house and the dust is covering everything. Also in the bathrooms there is a lot to clean like paint on the tiles, loads of dirt and dust... I don't know how to manage this all alone (Anna is still too weak to help me), but I won't stop until it is done, I swear! I want a clean house on Easter and I want two days without any work that has to be done. And: I'm excited to show you the results!

The weather is poor in Germany. It's colder than it was on Christmas. For today snow is forecasted! Isn't it crazy? It makes me feel depressive, because I'm always glad when winter is over. I'm longing for a little sunshine and warmth. The grass still hasn't grown much. I can't remember that I haven't mowed the lawn before Easter. But it wouldn't make sense to mow it, because there is nothing to mow. On the other hand I'm lucky about this, because I wouldn't know how to do this additionally at the moment.

This is a pic of the nearby town Warburg. It looks idyllic, but it isn't, because it's extremely cold and the wind makes you feel not very comfortable.

For Easter we haven't planned much. Anna still needs time to recover, because universtiry starts on Tuesday again and I'm much too tired to have big plans. We are going to make some Easter eggs (boiled eggs for breakfast) and preparing some simple meals, nothing big, nothing that takes long. Maybe I can get a little asparagus and a good piece of steak and perhaps I can make a little potato salad with sausages for the second Easter day on Monday. The weather is too cold for a picnic or other activities outside, so we are planning a long weekend playing games and doing nothing. Maybe I should correct tests and prepare the exams for my pupils, who are going to leave school this summer. 

Sigh! I have to hurry now!

Beautiful Morning

What a difference a little sunshine can make! It's a beautiful Sunday morning and life energy is coming back slowly.

I was just outside my door and this is what I saw, our little street in the sunlight! It's so beautiful outside!

I looked after the work we did in the flower beds in front of the house:

This is flower bed no. 1; we planted a lot, also some herbs for preaparing tasty meals.

 

Some colorful spring flowers near the entrance...

And this is flower be no. 2. It's always in the shade and very dry. I hope the plants will make it there and once cover all the soil there.

Even the bathrooms look a lot better after I worked a lot on them yesterday. I didn't manage to wall paper, because I had the wrong paste, but it looks better as you can see:

 

 

See you later with the photo challenge!

Close Up (Photo Challenge)

 

 

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! The extreme cold here in Germany seems to be born down. It has been snowing since early morning, very small snowflakes, because it's still very, very cold. But the sky is cloudy and the air changed. This dry and extremely cold air is away and some kind of wet air followed. This means that in a few days the wind will blow from west and not from east any more, where there is the Russian land with extreme frost. West, this means wind from the Atlantic where there is the Gulf Stream with warm water and warm, but wet air.

 

 

And this is in Wethen out of my kitchen window. At the moment we use the kitchen in the upper story. Actually I wanted to catch the snowflakes, which were shiny and white in the lamp light, but at the moment I have only got a very crappy camera, so it went wrong.

*****************************************************************************************

 

 

http://margareetaville.blogspot.com/

http://bustershouse.wordpress.com/

http://jayahrsblog.blogspot.com/

 

 

Water

Rain! I love rain, at least when I can stay inside. I love the noise of falling water. It's so comforting, so relaxing. Rain means life for all beings on earth.

I chose this photo for my photo challenge today (the topic is is "water") because we are glad about this warm winter, which brought much rain, but no snow so far. We are glad about every day with temperatures above freezing point. We are glad about the rain and strong wind, because this means that the winds are coming from west and therefore the weather will stay warm. This January is about 6 degrees Celsius (about 12 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than average so far. Thank goodness after we had four very, very hard winters.

I love rain!

 

My Sky

My sky looks like this today:

But the clouds became already much more dark. I'm nod sad about this weather we have till the end of November, just the opposite. After 4 very hard and cold winters with incredible amounts of snow I am glad that this winter is warm so far. We had about 10 days in November with temperatures below freezing point, but it was only in the early mornings. Only one ice day. December had only four days with temparatures below freezing point, but no ice day. And in January we had no frost day at all so far. It's storming, thundering and raining. But that doesn't matter to me.

I's prognosed that no real winter will come at all. Thank goodness! It makes me an my wallet happy.

Afraid of Winter - Weather Prognosis

I'm always afraid of winter. And it's getting worse, because the last 4 winters were extremely cold in Northern Germany. I hate the cold, I hate the darkness, I hate paying a lot of money for heating, I hate getting up in the cold, I hate ... winter!

So I just googled after a good weather prognosis of winter 2011/12.

For November the prognosis was: Too warm, sunny and dry and not more than 8 days with nightfrost. Well, this was totally right. Until now we only had a few days with frost and it is already getting a bit warmer. All in all it is very sunny and dry, which is unusual for November. Normally we expect grey and rainy days.

For December they forecasted very cold and snowy weather. Ugh! I hate snow, I hate frost. The coming December will be much colder than average. Mostly December at us is cold in the beginning, but near Christmas it's always getting really warm, but wet. So December will not be a normal December and we must prepare for great cold and much snow.

But the news is getting better for January, which will be just average with temparatures a little under or above freezing and maybe one shorter period of permafrost. Just  a normal January. Did I already mention that I hate January most in winter? It's so endless long, the days always dark. I am always happy when it is over. And when the christmas decoration is gone it's simply dreary.

But the news is getting really good for February, which is normally as cold or sometimes colder than January with a lot of snow and much frost: February will get really warm with rainy weather. But this doesn't matter as long there is no frost on my opinion. So I hope that winter is mostly over after January.

All in all I am very pleased by this prognosis, because after December I can look forward to mild weather periods. Let's hope that the meteorologists are right!

________________________________________________________________________________________

Prognosis by: http://www.langfristwetter.com/english.html

 

Irene is Generous

Hurricane Irene travelled to Iceland. There she is turning the swirl of air counter-clockwise.

For us in Germany it means that warm air from the Mediterranean Sea is drawn in northern regions. The result is a wonderful sunny and clear Indian-Summer-day with crisp and cool air in the morning with these typical fall fog and now bright sunshine and a pleasant warmth at noon.

Look, this is Irene today - the blue isobars near Iceland.

We are taking advantage of the last sunshine and warm weather this year spending all the time in the garden. I`m just preparing lunch, some tomato-salad, baked potatoes and of course Bratwurst (fried saucages, typically German). The sausages and potatoes are nearly done and we are going to have our meal outside in the sunshine.

Thank you, Irene!

This is our village. 500 inhabitants....

Fall Drairiness

Rain, nothing but rain

Wet summer shoes

Raindrops

Rain on the garden furniture

Abandoned garden house

Wet garden table

 

The summer is over, fall has come over night. Yesterday it was still hot and sticky, today it is cold, pretty cold. I've put on a winter shirt with long sleeves and a thick knitted jacket, but I'm still cold. This is not the lovely side of fall, no Indian summer. This is the cold and ugly side of fall. We are afraid of the cold season which is around the corner. We have to be prepared to put on the heating very soon and have to winterize garden and both houses, the present house in Driburg and our domicile to be in Wethen.

This time during fall and winter we will mostly stay at great grandfather's house in Wethen (which is still mainly a construction site) because Anna is going to move back into this house from Kassel. So this will be our domicile from now on. We still hope selling our present house in Driburg soon. 

The weather makes me sort of depressive. I'm afraid, very afraid of winter. 2011 was an extremely bad year until now. We never experienced so much bad situations in such short time. When will there be better times?