Microburst

Last night a storm snuck up on me. The weather folks are classifying it a "microburst", which is is a downdraft that produces straight line winds in a localized area. The localized area was my yard. The closest air field reported 75mph winds. Can you see my truck? Amazingly, the only damage to the vehicles is a dent in the size of the truck, which I think adds character. We are going to have to have a tree guy come out to remove at least one of the trees. Maybe I'll replace it with a red maple. It sure seems like we are losing a lot of trees. We're also losing all of our pine trees to beatles. We spent the evening cutting up and hauling off chucks of tree. Oh... and I got distracted this morning and took some pictures of dewy flowers.

Zoo day

We had a nice trip to Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo today. It's one of the best zoos in the country, but you have to go to Omaha to see it. Typicaly Omaha weather today... it's about 125 degrees and 80% humidity. The Madagascar exhibit is new this year. Lots and lots of lemurs... who wouldn't love that? They also have the largest indoor desert. It's under a glass geodesic dome that looks amazing at night. Under the desert is a nocturnal display, which is my favoite part of the zoo. Also of note, the rainforest, aquarium, and gorilla valley. These exhibits are all INSIDE, where there is air conditioning.

Incidentally, chicken eggs should hatch in about 20 days. I recommend removing the eggs after day 23. Apparently the rooster overseeing the flock we got our eggs from is less attentive than he should be. We hatched 5 chicks. One partially hatched then didn't make it. The other six have been sitting in the incubator.... until today. We came home from the zoo to a horrible smell... Apparently if you cook chicken eggs at 100 degrees for 26 days they might just explode. And it's not pretty. And the smell is indescribable. Also, when you remove the remainder of the eggs... do so carefully. They may explode the moment you touch them. This is not good... not good at all.