Senior Moments

Would you like to have some acorns?  We have plenty!  There are so many acorns falling from the trees around the house that it is difficult to walk in some parts of the yard.  They’re falling so fast that we can’t keep up.  Yesterday afternoon I picked up two bags of acorns from our big flower bed and two hours later Betsy picked up another bag full!

I would expect that normally Betsy would be upset with so many acorns to clean up, but she has been surprisingly calm about the whole thing.  As a matter of fact, the more acorns we get. the happier Betsy gets.  What’s going on?!?

If you know Betsy at all you know how fascinated she is with weather.  She checks weather forecasts daily (sometimes several times a day).  Betsy has bemoaned our drought over the past two years and our lack of snow over the last two winters.  But what do acorns have to do with weather?

I found the answer in an article in our local paper written by a lady who uses folklore to predict weather.  According to her research into weather signs,  “a heavy mast crop (acorns, hickory nuts, chestnuts, walnuts, etc.) equaled a hard winter.”

Now I’m not sure what is meant by a hard winter, but if hard winter means lots of snow I now understand why Betsy is so happy about all those acorns!!!

Hurricane Gustav coming ashore. September 1, 2008.

Betsy has a new man in her life!

I didn’t realize, until after we were married, what a ‘weather’ person Betsy is.  She is absolutely fascinated by weather — all kinds of weather.  She has several weather widgets on her computer desktop.  I can’t count the number of weather sites she has bookmarked in her internet browser.  But I do know that the Weather Channel is her favorite television channel!

I must admit that I found Betsy’s fascination with weather to be slightly amusing.  Huricanes, blizzards, rainstorms and floods all get her attention.  Of course, since she used to live in New Orleans, anything effecting that city really gets her attention.  She was delighted to find that DirecTV was broadcasting a local New Orleans station with hurricane coverage nationwide.  She watched that quite a bit Sunday evening.

Still, I didn’t think too much about Gustav until very early yesterday morning.  About 4 o’clock I heard a noise in the living room and woke up to find my bride watching New Orleans television coverage of Gustav!!!

Gustav will still cause a lot of rain in Louisiana and Texas, but I for one am glad the main infatuation is over.  The next hurricane is Hanna, so that doesn’t worry me so much.  But they’ve just announced that hurricane Ike is on the way.  I wonder how much sleep I’ll get when he gets here?