After a brilliant 4th of July day yesterday, the night brought on big storms.  This is pretty typical for Michigan, and was needed badly, as this area of the country is suffering from unusually high temperatures and drought, as is much of the rest of the country.

Family members have noted that 90% of the Michigan crops will not be harvested this year–cherries, apples, and possibly corn.  A late freeze devastated the crops. I’m not sure if and how this will affect produce prices for you (can’t imagine it will have the immediate and significant negative change that we see when oil situations are brought up in the news though).  I know that in Colorado, I ran into bee keepers who told me they have lost 50 to 60% of their bee populations this past winter–too many HOAs requiring the kind of green lawns that are brought to you by the chemicals that kill nature.

I don’t know that these anomalies are global warming at work.  All I do know is that I can do small things to help.  I try to recycle when I can.  Michigan has that opportunity too.  I try to use my car for regular and reasonable trips.  Here, we’re bundling our errands to use less gas too.  At home, we only use air conditioning when we have to.  We’ve put in on a mere once or twice in the last three years.  Here, at my sister’s, she usually doesn’t put it on either.  We will use it for this week, though, with all the extra people at her house, and the winds off the lake not being reliable.

Back to the storm.  It blew through at about four-thirty this morning with high winds and thunder.  I don’t usually wake up for these acts of mother nature, but the sound I heard was furious.  Luckily, I remembered that my window is in a sort of wind-tunnel between Sheila’s house and her neighbor’s, so the over-all storm wasn’t as bad as it sounded.

Still, when we arose this morning, it was to a house without electricity.  No lights, no computer connections to the internet, no air conditioning.  No problem.  We went to breakfast out and didn’t look too carefully at each other.  But I’m glad there is generally more electricity and that a storm knocks things out for only a little while. Today.

What will electrical supply and demand cause in the future.  Hoping for no more storms on the horizon.