Weed or Flower - It's Spring 2006!

Photo: Jerome, Illinois - Dandelion - Spring Has Arrived - 2006

For several weeks I have been holding back my enthusiasm over the coming of Spring. As anyone who lives in this Central Illinois community knows there have been several (at least four officially) tornados to visit the area since early March. The tornados, and a late blizzard left me a bit weather worried, and I have been left with the feeling that Spring was more of a enemy than a welcome friend.

Finally, it appears that Spirng is here to stay, and despite my lingering fear that Mother Nature has a final zinger to launch at Jerome, and surrounding communities, I'm officially in the celebration mode.

My wife insisted this weekend that I go out, and mow the lawn. This would be the first time for 2006, and the grass looked fine to me, but that's a long standing debate between my spouse, and me - and I won't go there in this post.

Going out, and mowing the grass sounds like an innocent request, but the tornado which struck Jerome left hundreds of little projectiles in the lawn. Including sticks, sycamore balls (and I don't even know where the closest sycamore tree is), and small pieces of roofing tiles from other people's homes, and garages.

As I ran the mower I was reminded of the sound which this debris made as it hit the house at one hundred, and twenty miles per hour - cast there by the swirling tornado. Quite a frightening melody.

Despite my spouses claim that I was only delaying the inevitable I grabbed my camera to snap some photos of various flowering plants just before I mowed them suckers down.

I present some of those photos here as a reminder of the beauty of Spring 2006 which I found just outside my door on a beautiful blue sky day - and get this - it was a Saturday!