HAPPY NEW WEEK and HAPPY NEW MONTH!
Can you believe it will be September this coming week?!!! I hope everyone has a safe and serene week. I keep trying to get back here to catch up with everyone, but I'm not having much luck. When I arrived back from Indianapolis, I had a long To-Do List of critical tasks. I'm slowly working through it. I'll try to stop in on Monday and do some replies. Lindy: Have a good time in Wales. The 17-year cicadas are long gone, but now our regular August annual cicadas are screaming at the top of their little lungs in the trees. One day when I was dog-sitting, I looked down in horror to see that the smallest dog had vomited up a HUGE pile of cicada parts onto the carpet! She'd been feasting on the bugs outdoors. Oh...it was disgusting!!! Would you think that this innocent little doggy could create such an unholy mess?!!!
Diane- thanks for new week, Doggie look so innocent! And tackling to do list to sound of cicadas - good luck! AQ - don't know how you fed them so many meals and snacks at such short notice! Glad computer advice was so useful - but sad at final demise of the once faithful mouse! Harelady - obviously the go-to person in your family! you will ned a holiday after all that! Sunny Kate - enjoy the family visit.
Page turned itself but somehow managed to include what I wrote, But I can't cope with going back - so excuse lack of answers!
I have been trying to put my foot down over stress here - so fed up with added stress from church and OH trying to deny he is stressed - I really never so much wanted it all to end!
Annette and all: THIS LINK has very good live streaming 24-hour news coverage of Hurricane Ida on the Gulf Coast. Landfall is just beginning and will be deadly and catastrophic. Sustained winds are now 150 mph, higher than Katrina. It's a chilling coincidence that today is the16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall in southeast Louisiana on August 29, 2005. Ida is the strongest storm since the 1850s! My heart hurts for the Gulf Coast.
OG: Our posts crossed. I'm so very sorry that you and EE are facing such escalating stress. Definitely put your foot down and set firm boundaries. Sending you strength and peace, my friend. I wish I could help.
Diane: Thanks for that. On this Earthcam live stream of Bourbon Street in New Orleans you can hear the rain and wind. I'm assuming it'll get a lot worse.... Meanwhile, two people are taking selfies..
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OG: Geez Can you have a quiet word with someone at the church about the situation? Sounds like it's not a healthy situation for your or EE.
Our herring gulls are red listed birds. Think about that the next time you hear some flaming idiot calling for a cull of them.
Clare: Yup. Today, large portions of New Orleans actually sit below sea level, while much of the rest is only slightly above sea level. New Orleans was originally settled on the Mississippi River's natural levees (high ground). But in the 1960s, the government expanded the size of the city by building flood walls and human-made levees. Then, they began pumping ground water from the local swamps and marshlands to create more dry land for expansion. Because of the low elevation, New Orleans now depends on a complex system of drainage pumps, levees, flood walls and gates, etc.
The flood protection system doesn't always work, and the city has always been vulnerable to flooding. But the flood threat is especially dangerous now, because since the 80s scientists have been observing rapid, extensive, and ongoing erosion of the swamps and marshland around New Orleans. Some studies indicate that much of the city is simply sinking. As climate change is causing more frequent and more catastrophic weather events, the city is increasingly vulnerable to hurricane storm surges. The federal flood protection system failed or was overcome during Hurricane Katrina, and 80% of the city was flooded.1,500 people were recorded to have died, with many more unaccounted for.