Windy is when the tumbleweeds roll across the road quickly in front of the car.
Fuckin’ windy is when they become airborne as they depart the drainage ditch to the right and fly across the air in front of the WINDSHIELD as they head off to the other side.
:eek:
Western Kansas. Quite lovely at 81 mph.
Really very lovely.
Actually, fucking windy on the prairies is when your car changes lanes on its own because the gust you were holding it against suddenly let off. 
No, fucking windy on the prairie is when the flock of tumbleweeds blowing across the highway gets flattened by an airborne semitrailer.
Yeah, that counts. 
You should time your visit for when they are burning off the stubble fields (if that is done in Kansas. If not, come to Saskatchewan). Windshield high flaming tumbleweeds are a sight to see. Lorne Elliot has been quite eloquent on the matter.
Actually, fucking windy is when you’re trying to keep your car in the lane, and the road gets blown out from under you.
It was blowing so hard that two of them wound up inside the car.
Okay I admit I pulled over and picked them up. With my New York plates I felt like quite the tourist !
I watched my mother in law to light the prairie grass on fire in her front yard.
:eek:
Eek indeed! Our prairie city was threatened by grass fires spread by high winds twice in the last few years. In the last, we were advised by radio and TV that we may need to evacuate; and so I got ready to go the evacuation centre if the word came: I had the cats in their carriers, my personal papers and documents packed, and a few family photos and mementos loaded in the little bit of luggage I managed to put together. I was ready to leave, and though I didn’t want to, I prepared myself to return to a smoking heap of rubble.
Thankfully, the word never came–firefighters managed to contain the fire before it got into the city. But that’s the danger with prairies, winds, and grass fires. I’d suggest that you advise your mother-in-law not to do that again.
A soundtrack for the thread, digitally composed, played and mastered by my better half: http://www.macjams.com/song/52873
It’s a twister! It’s a twister! Auntie Em! Auntie Em!
Actually, Baum lived for a long time in South Dakota, and use his experiences there as the background for the Kansas scenes.
We get tumbleweeds in Eastern WA too. (And wind. Too much wind.)
We’re thinking of getting much of our 2 acres of lawn replaced with a prairie restoration. We can choose to have the company come out and do the burning (every other year, I think), and I’d damn well have them do it. I’ve seen enough grass fires to know I ain’t messing with that.
Must add info here. First of all, she’s about a 7th generation Nebraskan. Moved to Topeka 20 years ago. She knows her prairie. Second of all, they live in the city of Topeka with your typically spaced suburban homes. Bit of lawn all around each. Some neighbors have a few …uh… clumps? of the grass.
I was pretty freaked the one year we visited and she burned it back. She said it was the thing to do in town, ( and the garden hose was sitting on hand ) and I didn’t ask what one does out on the open prairie with tons of the stuff around- not to mention billions of hunks of other very dry fuel. She’s got more common sense in her toenail than I have in my entire body. No worries that she’s doing something irresponsible- and I do believe that open grassland fires are horrific. These little conflagrations aren’t in danger of becoming one. For one thing, in town those wide open winds don’t really get going.
Where I used to live, people like to burn all of their branches and grass cuttings and whatnots. Got outlawed- population density and whatnot.
Yeah, that’s bad, too.
Too bad you weren’t coming through Topeka. We could have had a Dopefest!
I meant no disrespect to your mother. I didn’t even have her in mind when I wrote my post. I just know that I should never be in charge of burning my lawn :D. I always assume other people are competent where I am not.
We still burn our brush and fallen trees, etc—in the spring in our field, where there is nothing within burning distance except loam.
