Blowing wind for five days and the first thing I notice this morning is that the outdoor thermometer is not banging against the kitchen window. Awake at 4AM due to the quiet, but it’s too early yet to head out for a run which I’ve missed all week. I run in snow, rain and temperatures below zero, but I hate running in the wind because there is always one direction where I’m pitted against the gale. I hate the way I feel like George Jetson on the space age treadmill and my breath being sucked right out of my lungs before I can even breathe! The trees are stiff with having braced themselves against a steady 40 mile an hour, and the 70 mile an hour gusts. Some of the finer branches have a permanent bent toward the east.

The definition of wind cracks me up:”the perceptible natural movement of the air, especially in the form of a current of air blowing from a particular direction.” Perceptible? Ya, I’d say it was definitely perceptible: observable, recognizable, palpable. Mm-hmm. Apparently there is an old elvin saying,  “Who can tell the mind of the Wind? Who can catch it and hold in their hand? Who can tell where the Wind has been blowing? And who among the wise can foretell where it will go?” Of the four elements, wind wins. It moves the earth as I can attest to driving through the brown cloud of dirt; it spreads fire like last year to the east of us when neighbors were devastated by fire lashed about in the wind; it also moves water (white caps in the stock tank) and as it has in the last five days, steals it from the earth and everything trying to grow. 

I admire the strength of it and love the coolness of it when it settles down to a breeze on a hot summer day.