Bats In My Belfry

We had one of the best storm systems I’ve seen anywhere here yesterday. It was a real doozy. Enormous energy, terrifically high winds, hail, driving rain, the whole bit. Having lived in “Tornado Alley” in the States and seeing some of those storms (including the “super cell” types), I rate this one right up there in intensity. In fact, I was surprised that no tornados were reported. Then again, it was like a great, big honking tornado. BIG.

It had been quite hot and muggy for two days prior to the storm (with much whinging and moaning around here. Even The Dawg hates weather where the humidity and temperature are about equal…in this case 90° and 90% humidity). It’s even worse here because we live in a “townhouse” which has windows only on two sides which do not catch any breeze in the summer. It can be terribly stifling. And, of course, nothing like air conditioning. So, the approach of a cold front was bound to cause a big reaction. And boy did we get it.

Was awoken shortly after sunrise yesterday by very loud, prolonged thunder (as well as 4 cats all trying to sit on my head). I thought, oh yaaay! The heat is about to break and rolled over thinking happily that when I got up it would be a bit cooler. Uhm, no. It was 90° by 10:30 a.m.

Watching the radar, I could see a massive (and I mean half the size of France) blob of bright red (as in “OH SHIT!”) coming for us. Now, where we live there is this odd “bubble” that sometime protects us from extremes (snow, rain but oddly never, ever heat) and oft times these storm fronts skitter just north or just south of us. Not this time.

Skies grew grey, then very dark grey and then finally that shade of green that I learned to associate with “duck, it’s gonna get nasty”. And then it hit. Hard. High winds (105 mph), hail, rain of the sort that rendered visibility to nil and massive lightning & thunder. It was spectacular. Nature can really kick ass. So, I grabbed my camera and ventured out the front door. Didn’t dare go any further for all the lightning and that pesky hail which hurts (wasn’t too huge, about the size of  M&Ms).

This was taken around 4 in the afternoon. Notice how dark it is.

And the following shows the hail…

Here’s a close-up of the hail:

Temperatures plummeted nearly 40 degrees within literally minutes. I had to laugh…I was sweltering and cranky because it was so hot and then I was freezing. That might have had something to do with getting soaked through just by opening front door to take pictures.

Happily, in this area, I have heard of no deaths or injuries. Heggelinstasse “creek” came way out of its banks (detritus on the opposite side of the road from the waterway), gravel from the side roads must have been washed onto main road, some flooding in town and thre creek was still quite high during last walk of the day (2 a.m.). I don’t know when it finally stopped raining, certainly not before 4 a.m. when I keeled over. From what little I could see last night, the crops took a pounding but I don’t know if they are ruined or will spring back. Last big storm we had like this really tore up the corn but it didn’t cause any lasting problems aside from the lower (only ones above ground at the time) leaves having some rather large holes in them. Will see more when I do evening walk with The Dawg. More pictures if there is anything worth taking pictures of.

Now we are meant to have nearly a week of nice, cool temperatures with low humidity (sixties during daytime, down to upper 40s at night). This is bliss and means one less week of nasty summer weather to be lived though.

Edit: Local newspaper says that, sadly, about 70% of this years’ agriculture crop is gone. The vineyards took a terrible pounding, corn looks to be gone, fruit trees were damaged. So frustrating for farmers to see their whole year’s income ruined in an hour. Sad.

When I arrived in Germany one of the big things I noticed was that eggs in the markets are kept and sold at room temperature (we won’t go into the utter shock I experienced upon first seeing bright orange yolks…that really threw me at first). Now, my American mind instantly said: Death by salmonella or the like. Then I decided, well…what the hell, let’s see what happens. So I bought and ate eggs from all the markets we shop at. I have to admit that I still stick ‘em in the ‘fridge when I get them home but after six years? I have not croaked. Or gotten even a mild tummy ache. Nothin’. And I eat eggs fairly often.

Now this puzzles me. In the States we are warned big time to always keep eggs (and egg products) refrigerated else we will become terribly ill. I wondered why folks here (and by “here” I mean Southern Germany, I have no idea what occurs outside this region with regard to egg storage) aren’t keeling over left and right from dread diseases contracted via “improper egg storage”.

Was it the turnover rate? Was it differing conditions in keeping the chickens? Was it some sort of immunity built up by people eating room-temperature eggs starting early in life? Was it…magic? I’m still not sure but recently I read a comment on a site posted by a French person about how they kept eggs in their cupboard and didn’t suffer any ill effects. This was immediately called into discussion by some American posters. One reply intrigued me and I am going to try to find out the actual science involved here. It basically said that once an egg has been refrigerated the protein makeup of the egg changes and it must henceforth be refrigerated. However, if an egg has never been refrigerated it can be kept for an extended time at room temperature (cool, dark place).

Hmmm. I’m not sure the local Edeka (especially in the summer) can be considered “cool & dark” (air conditioning is not very common here although the past few years has seen an increase in use in stores). Still…I’m not dead. No one I know here has even become ill from eating eggs.

I had always assumed that folk eating eggs in the past didn’t have issues because they went out and rummaged an egg or three out from underneath the broodies and consumed them very shortly thereafter. Now, I’m not so sure anymore. In this area, eggs are ONLY sold at room temperature (in either the standard egg cartons, neatly labeled with when the eggs were laid, where they were laid and expiration date) or loose in a basket (with coded stamps on each individual egg) or the likes with cartons so you may pick and choose your own.

No deaths.

I’m still curious but I haven’t had any issues myself.

Edit: Found this URL which seems to explain it.

I am doing it. I didn’t know I was doing it. First taught myself to knit back in ‘66. Think I knit a couple of scarves and then decided I was going to have a decade or so of craziness and quit knitting. Then I took up crochet back in the late 70s through the 80s. Didn’t do much again ’til 1990 when I started crocheting again (wanted afghans for the CO winters) and charity drives. Then, to avoid going completely batty after moving to Germany, I took up knitting again almost 3 years ago but really only the last 2 with a vengeance. First year of that was desultory, mainly doing the ol’ “Grandma’s dishcloth” thing. I then decided that I truly wanted to learn to knit. Been quite a journey and the end is nowhere near in sight.

But I do have SOCKS!!! And they fit and everything.

Lever knitting…well, it seems that is how I knit. I did give Continental a go but, despite being a crocheter, it Continental struck me as being horribly awkward. Watched my MIL knit a bit (she showed me how she was taught) and my head almost exploded. It seemed to me that there was a whole lot of jiggering about to accomplish the “right” and “left” stiches (knit and purl respectively, at least that’s what I think it is but given my capacity to completely misunderstand all things German, I could be off. Still “recht” or “links” is pretty clear). She was equally mystified by my method. Near as I can tell, she’s doing some sort of version of Continental knitting which she learned from her mother. I have never seen pictures or videos of that particular method, so I have no idea quite what to call it.

Didn’t occur to me until recently (due to watching instructional knitting videos on Knitting Help and YouTube that I was not knitting in the method I thought I was (English/American). Apparently I do a version of knitting called “Lever Knitting” as best illustrated via this link to HeartStrings FiberArts.  I did wonder how folks could knit with the exaggerated “throw” that I saw in various videos. Seemed to me like it would slow one down quite a bit and wear one’s wrists out in short order. My right hand never lets go and the yarn is moved via my right index finger. Economy in motion (okay, lazy). It is somewhat similar to The YarnHarlot’s method but, of course, I am nowhere near as graceful or fast (ye gods that woman is blindingly fast) and she moves her yarn with her middle right finger. And is faster. Way faster. But I’m still pretty quick.

And it’s comfortable. I’m kind of tickled that I managed to teach myself this method. I just ended up doing what seemed to be the least motion intensive (again, lazy) and the “standard” English/American “throw” struck me as waaaaay overkill.

And I knit socks. Yup. I do.

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