Wind and Weather

I closed the front door, stepped out into the windy dusk. Behind me the house smelled of pan-grilled salmon overlaid fortunately, with the dark spiciness of molasses cookies cooling on the counter.

The heavy evening air held the reek of wild onion, that ubiquitous invader making itself known whenever the grass is mowed.

There is a hint of sweetness from the lilacs coming into bloom. 

[Lilac: the quintessential scent of my native New England in May, harbinger of April in Kentucky.]

The wind has blown in great gusts all day.

I went with Jim in the pickup truck this morning on a mission to look at something he'd seen on marketplace. Our route took us off the main highway into farming country. Tree branches flushed with the new green of emerging leaves swayed with each buffet of wind. Flowering redbuds tucked against hedgerows, wore their twisted and brittle branches in vivid defiance of the grey sky and swiftly scudding clouds.

Rounding  curves in the road the wind broad-sided the truck. A convoy of crows rose from a pasture, tacked into the gale, aimed for a straggle of trees behind a derelict and leaning barn.

Back at home the cats were restless. those with indoor/outdoor privileges couldn't decide where best to be, dashing out whenever the door was opened, sitting with flattened ears and ruffled fur waiting for readmittance. 

Thimble-the-kitten hovered while I mixed cookie dough, twined about my feet 'talking' to the salmon fillets as I placed them in the pan.

Determined to walk before dark I headed up the flank of the big meadow, trudged south along the eastern boundary line, turned westward bracing as the force of the wind blew my hair across my face. 

 Willis-the-cat joined me where the lane curves into our drive, plodded gamely behind as I strode through the gathering dusk. He paused with me to marvel at a colony of  redbuds, rosy in the twilight.

No sound of sleepy birds settling for the night, no barking of a distant dog, no sound of vehicles up on the road.

Nothing but the soughing of the wind.

Jim has checked the doplar map several times during the day and again this evening. I read the weather forecast cringing inwardly at the possibilities. 

The worst of the projected storms often bypasses us, but somewhere, perhaps not too far away, this night may bring damage and difficulties.

It will not be, I suspect, a night of restful sleep.