Thursday, 11:05 am: Another misty and humid morning here in the Saint John Valley. We were hit hard with rain last night after we went to bed. We received .62 inch of rain along with thunder and lightning. It was noisy enough that our sleep was interrupted, so we just watched it pour from behind the safety of our bedroom window. Thor was rattling his chains upstairs; he also put on a pretty cool light show. There’s no need to water our garden today.

My wife [Ruth] put in her calls to Germany today. Thursday is “telephone the family day” each week. They share stories and update one another with family and local news. She enjoys the stories of long-deceased relatives. My long-deceased relatives are, well, umm, long-deceased. Need I say more?

Yesterday we had two robins fighting over a worm they found in our yard. It was like watching a cartoon; each one pulling on an end of this worm, soon to be lunch. Nature can be entertaining, unfortunately not for the worm. And today our barn swallows, who took up their annual residence in our birdhouse, are almost ready to depart. Their young are fully-fledged and we expect them to fly away at any time, perhaps even today. The mother sits on top of the birdhouse while the young make very brief excursions outside. We can’t tell if it’s one or two young birds inside the birdhouse. Luckily they know for sure.

Current values from our wireless Davis Vantage-Pro weather station:

Temperature: 62.6° [F.]

Barometer: 29.660 & steady

Humidity: 88%

Wind: Calm

Visibility: ca. 3 miles under low cloud base

Skies: 100% low overcast

Precipitation: None

Precipitation yesterday .62 inch rain

Since midnight:

Low temperature: 54.5° [F.] at 12:01 am

High wind: 17 mph at 1:45 am