Dolly vs. Alvin the Chipmunk

Each morning around 8:00, a chipmunk crawls out of the wood pile, yawns, stretches and wags his little tail at the picture window where Dolly sits on guard . . . and Dolly goes nuts.  She whimpers, she cries, she barks and begs to go outside.  When I let her out, Dolly races around the house spraying landscape rock in her wake determined to catch Alvin the chipmunk.  Alvin quickly burrows back into the wood pile and I swear I can hear him chuckling.  Dolly will run from one side of the wood to the other in absolute determination to catch the chipmunk.  You would think she would grow tired of missing the chipmunk, but she is determined and patient.  She will sit and stare and wait for some sign of life.  Alvin, on the other hand, is no dummy.  He curls up and takes a nap, knowing that eventually Dolly will go away.  And each day, I scoop the landscape rock back into place and shake my head.  Who is in charge here?

I'm ready to come in now.

The Great Dust Bowl of 2010

The historic Dust Bowl of the 1930’s was created after years of drought in the plains. Tons of topsoil were blown off barren fields and carried in storm clouds for hundreds of miles. Technically, the driest region of the Plains – southeastern Colorado, southwest Kansas and the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas – became known as the Dust Bowl, and many dust storms started there. But the entire region, and eventually the entire country, was affected. One dust storm arrived in Washington, D.C. all the way from the Great Plains and spread a dusty gloom over the nation’s capitol and blotted out the sun.


By 1934, it was estimated that 100 million acres of farmland had lost all or most of the topsoil to the winds that were clocked at 60 mph. By April 1935, there had been weeks of dust storms.

Last week, after weeks of dry weather, record crop harvesting, and warmer than normal weather, violent thunderstorms, and near-hurricane force winds swept through a large portion of the mid-west, thanks to the strongest storm ever recorded in the Midwest. The mega-storm reached peak resulting in the lowest barometric pressure readings ever recorded in the continental United States, except for from hurricanes and nor'easters affecting the Atlantic seaboard.

And we live on a hill . . . .

It would be hard to describe two days of 60 MPH winds and the amount of debris that hit our house and windows. Fortunately, most of the leaves had fallen already as I watched 50 foot trees sway over our house. The wind was so strong that the water in the toilet was swaying.

I remember Gene asking our realtor if Iowa got much wind, and his reply, “No, not really.” I thought about calling him and asking if he would like to come out for coffee. Of course, the coffee in the pot would have been swaying . . .