It’s Friday, and the week slinks to an end with chilly weather in Chicago. And there must be a drought in Poland, for Hili remarks on the cherry trees:
Hili: This doesn’t bode well.
A: What doesn’t bode well?
Hili: Leaves falling from trees in August.
In Polish:
Hili: To nie wróży dobrze?
Ja: Co nie wróży dobrze?
Hili: Liście spadające z drzew w sierpniu.
And nearby, tabby Leon faces the Intelligent Cat’s Dilemma:
Leon: I have a serious problem: to read or to sleep?
Drought-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/9548808/Sunken-treasure-reappears-after-350-years-thanks-to-Polish-drought.html
All these things are interconnected –
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/aug/27/european-extreme-weather-belt-linked-to-worst-drought-since-2003
And a strong El Nino –
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/current-el-nino-could-be-strongest-on-record/?WT.mc_id=SA_WR_20150819
Me again –
This new report on water stress just came out – may be of interest to the thirsty among you:
http://www.wri.org/blog/2015/08/ranking-world%E2%80%99s-most-water-stressed-countries-2040
We got a really furious thunderstorm here yesterday…looked like a scene from the inside of an hurricane. I expect there’ll be some areas that have some damage — downed trees and the like — but nothing like that on my block, fortunately.
b&
It has barely broken 80 all week. Cool nights. Can frost on the pumpkin be far off?
Teams of engineers leap to the problem of providing earphones for cats, so they can absorb (lightly) audiobooks in their sleep.
I was doing my weekly food shopping this morning, and at my usual greengrocer (Sigona’s in Redwood City, for those who know the Bay Area), the fruit display (the part of the store you see as you walk up to it, whatever they think is best at the moment) was apples. Apples, in August? – and not out of cool storage or from New Zealand either. I commented to one of the staff, and he said almost everything has been early this summer because of heat and drought. The local paper reports that vineyards are picking their grapes early and fast this year, too – but I’m not sure what that will do to the 2015 vintage.
Leaves have been falling from the trees around here for at least two weeks.
Life at high latitude.