Scribble Picnic - STORM

I think it might be a tad bit odd to bring a STORM to a picnic, but that's what we've been asked to do.  Yesterday we had quite a storm here.  When the temperature drops from 89º to 69º or less you know that cold front is coming through and bringing the thunder with it.  Luckily I was indoors during the heat of the day and got home before the skies opened up.   Yes, a good storm complete with wind, sideways rain, thunder and lightning.  Thankfully, the lights only flickered once and didn't go off.  Compared to conditions a little further northeast of here, we dodged the worst of it.  

Anyway, my STORM comes in another form this week.  My office mate has a couple of horses and one of them (on the left in the picture) is named STORM.  The other is Baxter.  This watercolor was inspired by a photo that someone took of her horses last fall that she posted on Facebook.  

When Hurricane Harvey hit Houston last September, our teachers, along with our student leadership group, organized a Walk-a-Thon.  Our Stony Brook Huskies raised over $12,000 for Northline Elementary School in Houston.   Our students and staff walked laps around our playground calculated to be the distance between our school and the school in Texas.  Storm and Baxter came that day and were ridden by my office partner and her husband in the center of it all.  Our principal wore a back pack filled with coins collected from lunchroom change during the two weeks prior to the walk.  It was over 50lbs. of coins.  Several days after the event the students of Stony Brook and the students of Northline Elementary met via a skyped assembly.  It was a great feeling to be able to help them replenish things that were lost in the storm.  

What's been a bit odd here is the intensity of the "greenness".  Rachel came up from Delaware on Sunday to take me to lunch for Mother's Day and remarked how everything looked so unusually green.  We've been having a lot of gray overcast days lately and I think the lighting has something to do with it.  Right now, looking into part of the back yard that's now missing my favorite oak, it's mostly ombre green.  The daffodils are done, and the redbuds have lost their magenta buds.  The peonies are not ready yet, but just out of the picture on both sides there are a few white dogwoods adding a little lightness to the greenscape.  Mother's Day weekend and after are when the annuals go in.  HWNSNBP will be busy with that - under my direction of course.

Well, enough rambling on.  Time to get over to the picnic to see what other STORMS are brewing!  You can join me by clicking here.  And make note that we have a couple of weeks off.  Our next picnic isn't until 6/6.