Ashes going yellow

It rained yesterday, hard for a while. Today dawned cloudy and stayed that way through noon. Eventually the sun broke through but then the clouds won out, returning with a vengeance. When I got home the best available information, at Mikey J's, indicated that the clouds which were likely to produce precipitation had moved on out.

But it was dark.

I rode out to the north and circled around Lake Owasso at a distance of about a half mile from the lake. After turning on Rice Street I came upon TURKEYS. Unlike the Michigan birds who seem quite shy, these gobblers were just standing along Rice Street, looking to me as though they were cleaning up some acorns under an oak tree or something similar, they were definitely relaxed. I wanted to photograph these brash birds but it was just plain too dark. I passed on the photo and hoped that Mikey J was correct in predicting that there should soon be clearing from west to east. I was hopeful that there would be better light when I got home and that there would be enough like that I could convince the ash tree in front of my house to pose to illustrate the sudden change in color that has overcome the local ash trees. The ash trees are the first of the healthy trees to go and they are now rushing towards yellow.It is quite a stunning change from as recently as Saturday when the greens were mostly still green.

In football news, Nantes prevailed over Libourne in front of a crowd of 2,936. A team that plays in a 50,000 seat stadium needs to be playing in a league higher than the league in which teams draw crowds of less than 3k. The account on the FC Nantes website indicates that it was probably a quite exciting event for that smattering of French people in attendance. Nantes dominated the first half and led 2-0 at the break. But they played without passion in the second half and eventually Libourne nearly made them pay. Libourne scored in the 88th minute to draw within one and when they scored again in injury time it seemed as though they had miraculously rescued a point. But in the exuberance of the moment the Libournese pressed forward trying to score the winner. In what the Nantes site admits is the single foray by Nantes into the Libourne zone during extra time the Zimbabwe international and early season sensation Harlington Shereni scored just before the final whistle to rescue Nantes from embarassment. Nantes returns to the top of the table, now 2 points ahead of Le Havre. Next up is Monaco at Nantes on Thursday in the next round of the League Cup. Monday Nantes returns to Ligue 2 action in a key road game at 3rd place Grenoble.

Allez Nantes!