Blarg and what with the wind?
What does high wind sound like out on flat planes? Does it have the sound of a mild tornado? This wind here today is high, gusty and multi-directional. On days like this, there are no birds out or singing. The wind barrels though the dense trees with the sound of distant thunder. A rumble followed by a howl or a cry. It makes wind devils in chimney floos and timbers in the roofs and attics creak with an unpleasent sound, like neglect. Pine trees actually do whisper when there is a breeze, but today they are hissing. The cats are put out by the sound. Its a constant 15 miles per hour. The wind is one big stream of moving air with sudden gusts up to about 30. I have to go to work today and I don't want to. Even with sheltering valleys and dense forrest, the wind tends to move your car around on the road as if there was no shield. The cats would rather I say home so they can snuggle up to me. Maiko, Natalie's demur black one, is curled up in her chair on a cushion wrapped in fleece. Meera, the white and gray kittenish brat who used to tease my Mim endlessly, seems to have gone back to the warm heavy folds of my unmade bed where she will remain until 'mommy' comes home. Meera has decided that I belong to her. Her pet. Maiko gives me tenative attention even when mommy is home, partly because she likes me and partly is because mommy is consumed with 2 things when she settles down for the night, her laptop and Meera. Meera hogs all the lap. However when Maiko is in a determined mood, she'll oooze herself between mommy and her laptop, laying on Natalie's wrists so she can't type let alone move. Nat is too nice and patient a person to repremand Maiko or to even move her off. The futile squeaks of struggle usually alert me that Nat is trapped by cats and I usually finder her with only on arm free helpless gropping for the glass of water or pesi on the coffee table. Although I bring the coffee table within her reach or refil her glass and bring her a snack when she is trapped by cats, I laughingly have told her that I draw the line at having to bring food and drink to her very lips! I miss my Mim. Last night, whatever the rain and the wind were doing to the pressure inside the house, it was making a skip-hop sound on the floor. The very sound Mim would make when she was walking. I kept hearing it all night and when it would stop, I kept expecting to feel her clumsy leap up on my bed and her uneven weight coming across the bed so she could lay her head on my shoulder, like a baby's and settle the rest of her in the crook of my arm. Blah, Grumpy today. Massive amounts of drama on LiveJournal. I may have to go forth and get another online journal but I am not going near FaceBook or MySpace. I also am coming to the conclusion that I may have to bit the bullet and get some sort of iPod if I ever want to listen to music outside of home since you can't convert Itune stuff to a format that will play on something other than iTune on your computer and an iPod unless I am missing something somewhere. Blarg. Spring Equinox is tomorrow. It is also full moon. I will be a frollicing pagan. mim

The wind is incredibly bothersome here too - it has disturbed our sleep all night hurtling around the house and river appears to be running backwards!!!!

Wind can be a scary thing. Not sure what is going to blow away. On Thursday, I went to the bluffs overlooking the Strait and you could hear blasts of wind as they were channeled from West to East. Pretty awesome and a moment to cherish.

Think that I have a friend who studied in Trieste (the Italian windy city) and she said that it is not uncommon during wintertime to have bora winds blowing (from the northeast) at about 60 miles per hour with occasional gusts to 90 miles per hour. On the positive side, it purifies the air and restores a clear sky, but when it blows, roof tiles are unseated, it may even upturn cars, ships strengthen their moorings to prevent being pushed out at sea, people that dare to brave the streets must cling to ropes and railings installed in the more exposed locations.

Guess I'll stick to my Pacific Northwest blasts. :roll: And remind me never to vacation in Trieste.

Trieste is a nice town with nice seaside resorts nearby, you just have to avoid winter there.

:shock Frances! That sounds terrifying!

It is terrifying. Actually, I'm happy I don't live in Trieste and I would never visit it during wintertime.

I looked up Trieste and it looks beautiful. When I looked at the population 208,000, not huge by any means, but over twice the population of the two counties making up the North Olympic Peninsula. It just struck me as funny as the newspaper yesterday reported that the additional 928 people we gained in population this year pushed us over the 100,000 mark. Believe it or not, people are concerned about over crowding.

:shock Wow Gaff! That's like a quarter of the population of the entire city of Chicago! :happy But I live in a far northern suburb near the border of Wisconsin - my township is possibly only about 10,000.

Take a look at a map and you'll see that the population is spread over a wide area from Port Townsend to Forks, somewhere in the region of 120 miles. Many areas are still pretty isolated.