Stormy Weather

Well, the north winds finally have arrived. About 1:30 this morning I was awakened by the whistling and howling of the storm. Out my bedroom window the trees were cavorting & dancing with each other. A screen door was banging and the porch rockers were moving in rhythm with the gusts. I walked downstairs and unhooked one side of my porch swing and let it rest on the floor. I turned the rockers over. I even took my flashlight and checked to see if tree limbs were brushing against my car. On the way back inside I hooked the screen door, then crawled back into bed.

This morning I called a neighbor. His home weather station had recorded gusts of only 40 mph (not the 60 mph predicted), but the ten-minute averages were 20-30 mph for several hours.

It's still blowing out there, with gusts of about 20 - 25 mph. The rain is over. School children dressed in pink jackets, bright red coats, and yellow hooded sweatshirts are walking down Howard Street on a mini-field trip. The sun is bright and the sky is "Carolina blue" with an occasional cotton ball cloud passing by. Weather like this makes you feel alive.

This month's Ocracoke Newsletter tells how to make a traditional wooden whistle from a myrtle branch. You can read the newsletter here.