LOOK WHAT HAPPENED TODAY!

Look who got a make over! Jeepers is no longer a Sport UTE! (GET IT?) The names and the animal inside are the same, but the citizenship is different. So long Utah, Hello MASS! I think it looks funny without the orange/blue plates, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. Until then, it is kind of exciting!

My ride today...on an almost perfect day.

Is he saying the President of the US is a big ape?

Stephen Hess, a political analyst with The Brookings Institution, said "the United States is still an eight hundred pound gorilla around the world, and they want to see who's gonna be in the gorilla suit."


HMMM...is there more to this statement than meets the eye?

A different day, a different way...

I got home from school today and went a different way for my run today. I took my camera along (yes, I ran with a camera) so that you all can see more of my area. At some point you'll probably have a pretty good idea of the 'hood (I still have to go another way to show you all the farming around me). But this was a nice little run that takes us across the street (State route 116) to a bit MORE rural area. Oh well, I guess it shows you HOW rural the area is. This is a great time of year...sure, it is a bit humid/muggy, but with all the storms it is so green. I actually love it with gray skies and the green everywhere!

















I didn't think about this until I got home, so the view isn't EXACT, but this is the comparison of a typical view of New England in the summer...one in the sun and one in the clouds. Both are pretty, but I vote for the dark/stormy version! It brings out the green.







I don't know if I've shared this before, but these signs are everywhere (this street I'm on is a one and a half lane road). Some signs aren't this nice though. I think some of them have been up for decades.

A pretty, wet forest in the middle of my run.

YUMMM! What's for dinner? Fungus? Yes, but it is fresh from the forest floor...it is natural and organic! Really yummy! :)












This is the picture that started it all (I actually wanted to get this picture and I didn't want to take my camera home before I went for my run, so I just ran with my camera. Silly, I know.) This tree was a victim from the storm last week, but it was uprooted. The tree doctors came a few days ago and chopped it up and seem to have pushed the stump back almost upright (weird). But I thought the stump was pretty, and that is what started the whole photo show ;)!

The big wind...

I can hear it now...Lex, stop it, all you ever do is talk about the weather. Well, this one was "big" enough I may be done. A big snow or a deep freeze or a hurricane might change that, but the odd weather news will not be big enough now. The last two days nice storm cells have come through. Well, my neighbors might not think of these things as NICE. The first storm on Friday knocked a few trees down and there was a lot of nature's debris on the roads during my ride. And some of the corn in the fields was bent down. THEN Saturday evening came...it was as calm as could be until a storm cell with a lot of water and a HUGE gust of wind came through. Honestly, it only took a few minutes and one big blow (like the big bad wolf). Trees fell down all over the place, on houses, in the roads, and on power lines. Some trees in the heart of Sunderland were 100s of years old. We didn't have power for almost 7 hours and some western Massachusetts residents were slated to get power back Sunday afternoon. One of the major roads in the area was blocked off because of a tree so my little street became a major thoroughfare. When I noticed the damage out the window, I decided to go around and see if people in my neighborhood needed any help. They didn't (mostly because those who did have trees on their homes or porches weren't home). But I did clean up the streets as I walked...the quiet street I live on that became a HIGHWAY was very cluttered and people were just driving around the branches, clogging up things even more. Many of the crops are bend or broken...I'm interested to see how this affects the local farmers. They have already been depleted from an earlier storm from a few months ago when the plants were young. Finally, and possibly the most exciting, NOAA sent a weather team here to see if this was just a micro burst or a small tornado. I'm pretty sure it was just a micro burst, but to think they sent a team, that is pretty cool! :) Well, I hope all your days are full of sun or rain, but no wicked weather! Oh and BTW, it was 75 and FOGGY when I went to church today...YUCK! :)

If corn has ears, does that mean it can hear?

So this is a picture of the field from a few months ago with asparagus in it (remember the 3ft tall stalk?) Yep, the corn is coming in. Just a few weeks ago there wasn't anything in this field...just dirt. Now, the ears are coming in and we'll have fresh corn on the street soon. Or well, on the street corner so that we can buy it!

california here I come...or, well, there I was...

I went home last week, which was nice, despite the fact that the fires and the heat made it look like Wall-e's world come to life and we were told just about every day to stay inside FOR OUR HEALTH! One day, mom and I went to the beach; that was a very nice day. Thought I'd share some pics...
These are some videos and pictures of the "weather"..notice the limited shadows and the darkness...these are all mid-day or late morning, when the shadows should have been really evident. Even the squirrel heeded the warning and found shade.

Ok, better pics now...the pacific ocean! I live 2 hours from the atlantic, but I went to the pacific yesterday! Kinda cool. I wanted to go to the Atlantic when I got off the plane (I was only an hour from it) but I just wanted to go home. But I could have been at both coasts in about a 24 hour period...