This afternoon about 4:15, as I approached the entrance ramp to I-10 off US49 in Gulfport to drive over to D’iberville on a Christmas gift delivery from my church (Northside Presbyterian in Chattanooga) out of Gulfport I looked towards the setting Sun. The sky was magnificent this evening, a lot of high clouds and an Alaska Express blowing down and just brushing us.
There low in the sky were two sun dogs, The southernmost one was unusual. It spanned an arc of about twenty-thirty degrees partly encircling the Sun.
Sun dogs are bright faux-suns displaced left or right, and perpendicularly above or below the sun. There can be as many as four or as few as one, in extreme cases they turn into ring around the sun much like the halo often observed around he moon. Even though they occur everywhere since they rely only upon the confluence of a few physical factors such as a relatively clear sky with enough with high clouds containing ice crystals between the viewer and the Sun, I'm always fascinated by sun dogs. I'll leave it to my brother, the atmospheric scientist to explain them in detail, or google the web.
I believe the appearance of sundogs is auspicious in some of the southwest Indian lore, (Hopi, Navajo, Pueblo or Zuni) . My brother, the atmospheric scientist in the family spent timeout west and told me about sundogs. I’ll forego the whole explanation about ice crystals, their orientation and the like.
In these few days before Christmas, some auspicious events would be welcome because, you see, I’ve been working alone on a house in Gulfport. We do not have any volunteers until January 10, and I have no work site manager at the moment.
It’s Mr. Percy’s house. The good news is last Friday morning the city gave us a go on the rough-in inspection and we can install insulation and drywall now. I planned to get the insulation over there by noon and start installing. Unfortunately the guy responsible for the trailers left me a derelict. It took the better part of two hours for me to repair temporarily a shade tree mechanic’s job on its wiring so brake and tail lights worked. (Yes, I could chew nails.) I loaded up the derelict with insulation and delivered it to the house. With this puny trailer it took two trips and I had to unload it all by myself.
I have some interest in getting the insulation installed and the drywall up. Mr. Percy’s dear wife is about worn out staying with her son and wants to get into the house soon. She told me the last time I saw here over at the house that she was going to go to Chattanooga with me and stay at my house until hers was done. When I hear her say “Mr. Henry…” I look for her holding a suitcase.
I feel badly about it but I’m ready for a break today and head to Chattanooga. It hurts me to leave Mr. Percy, his wife and son to do all the work with the insulation themselves, but my plan to try to get the drywall to the house tomorrow is compromised by that little crippled 8 foot trailer. I may end up doing multiple runs using my truck next week, if Mr. Percy has someone there to help unload it. I’ll get the drywall jack over there so they can tackle the ceilings. Maybe by the time I return Sunday after Christmas they will be ready for the drywall and I’ll be ready to work on it with them.
Tuesday morning I plan to be on the road again. Maybe I’ll get to a Christmas story before the day comes. Regardless, Merry Christmas to all!
No comments:
Post a Comment