Annual Whine 2010

It's time for me to rev up my bitching and moaning about Missouri weather.  I whine about the wretched heat in the summer, but the winters here are worse.  I detest the frigid temps.  A lot.  AND there is no fricking snow.  I mean, come on, if it's going to bother being cold then bring on the snow.  Geez!

It's not like I live in the frozen tundras of North Dakota - this shit is expected there.  And may I tip my hat to my ND followers!  I got a call on Thanksgiving from a family member congratulating me on my soon-to-be Grandma status.   I asked if my mom had called.  Nope, it turns out the receptionist (or secretary or what?  Sorry if I screwed up the job title, I know that's important because sometimes that is all we get) reads my blog and broke the news!  I think that's awesome.  So did the family member! (Hey, awesome friend of the family member tell my family member I said HI.  Maybe that person should read for themself?)

But anyways.  North Dakota can keep their frigid temps.  Like build a wall to block those stupid Alberta Clippers from freezing us out.  THERE is a perfect purpose for North Dakota.  I'm not trying to slam North Dakota, but I do like to pick on them an awful lot.  The people are awesome, by the way.

Okay, the bottom line is that it's cold here, and I have no snow, and it's cold and I'm grumpy about it. 

And it's North Dakota's fault.

Wild Grapes

Did you know Missouri has a fabulous wine district?  German and French pioneers settled here because it was similar to their homeland and the first thing they popped in the ground were grapes.  Okay, maybe it didn't happen exactly like that, but close.  I'm sure they weren't too surprised to discover grapes already growing here.  I would encourage you to check out one of the many wineries that populate the Missouri River Valley that cuts straight across the state.

Just blocks from my home is a bramble of trees, weeds, and all sorts of green stuff including wild grapes.  It is where I found the mating butterflies last week and many of my other nature shots.  The surprising thing about these grapes is how itty bitty small they are.  Standard blueberries are larger.  No, I didn't eat any of them, most didn't look quite ripe.  I'm also curious about the little dots covering them and everything else.  It's some sort of fungus, I'm sure.

If You Don't Like The Weather...

they say around here, then just stick around for an hour and it's bound to change.

Yesterday we drove across the state from St. Louis to Kansas City.  I promised to take pictures even though I don't find it the most scenic views that the state has to offer.  The clouds were big and fluffy, the ones where you can see poodles, dragons and a row of bunnies.

As we drove, I said that the clouds were gathering, someone was going to get a storm

Do you see the giant fish in the sky?  I said it looked like a piranha, but here it looks all innocent and goldfishy

I pointed out the wall of rain somebody was getting

And then the rain we got

MONSOON

After a few minutes of barely able to see the road it started to clear up

And then we were back to blue skies and birds chirping

Aaaaand a long traffic jam waiting for THREE different accidents to pull to the side of the road (we speculate the last one we came upon was the first one to happen and the other two were a result of the traffic stopping)