THE WEISS CHRONICLES

Spring Shows Up and Looks Nice

It was a tough winter for the Cherry Blossom trees (see previous post).

The warm days in February got them near blooming and then the snow and cold in March killed a lot of the blossoms before they could complete the bloom.

However, a lot of the trees were unaffected or only minimally affected.

These two pictures (top by Marc Andre, bottom by Narvin Sarma both posted on the capitalweathergang website) were both taken yesterday at the tidal basin.

Both have the Jefferson Monument in the background.

posted by Martin Weiss # 9:59 PM

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

A two foot snow in three inchs

It started snowing after dark yesterday but by about midnight, the snow changed to sleet and then to freezing rain.

This morning we had about three inches of snow.

I started shoveling the sidewalk about 10am. The weight of the three inches of snow felt like it was two feet deep.

On the bright side, I got two nice images of hyacinths in the snow.

As the saying goes, you can never be too rich or too good looking or have too many hyacinths.

Finally, the third image is from the capitalweathergang. I remember that when I was about 10 years old, something like this snow on cherry blossoms trees occurred and there were pictures like that.

posted by Martin Weiss # 10:53 AM

Monday, March 13, 2017

How big should walnut pieces be in a Baked Apple

The pastry department is still trying out recipes for Passover where I work guarding kashrut.

I was asked to taste the Baked Apples (still warm from the oven).

The cook, halved the apples, removed the cores and stuffed the depression with a walnut and peach jelly filling, Then she made a walnut, maple syrup, cinnamon and almond flour sauce (a company in Monsey, NY makes kosher for passover almond flour at 20% the price of kosher for passover almond paste), The sauce was poured over the baked apple.

It was delicious and I told her. She wasn't satisfied with the compliment. "Is there anything I could do to make it better?" she asked.

"Well," I said, " the walnuts pieces in the sauce are bigger than the walnut pieces in the stuffing and while they both taste good, it is something of an tasting expectancy surprise and I would have rather had them be the same size."

"I knew that recipe was wrong" said the pastry chef who then made some more with similar sized walnut pieces.

Another tough day at the office.

posted by Martin Weiss # 10:22 PM

Tuesday, March 07, 2017

Cold Snap and the Vegetation Consequences

The warm February (many days in the 60s) followed by the extreme cold we had the weekend previously (lows in the 20s and teens) have had an effect on the the flowering trees.

The first image shows three cherry blossom trees at the Tidal Basin. They are obviously at far different blooming stages.

The second image shows a northern magnolia (also called a saucer magnolia) tree on consecutive days.

Personally, I am not a big fan of either tree. The cherry blossoms are beautiful to look at but the tree roots, which come above ground create a maintenance problem.

The saucer magnolias are also nice to look at and the roots are not a problem. However, when the petals get brown and fall off they make a mess because the petals get mushy and discolor the sidewalk or whatever cars they fall on.

That's why I have crape myrtles planted where many of my neighbors have one of these two types of trees.

The images are from capitalweathergang.

posted by Martin Weiss # 11:42 AM

Friday, March 03, 2017

Flowers and Snow and the table

After an abnormally warm February, we have abnormally advanced maturity of vegetation in our yard.

In the early a.m. today, it snowed a bit and I took both the first two images before 7am.

Both are hyacinths in early stage of blooming with snow around them and on some of the petals.

Both images are from our yard.

I looked at the usual places where interesting weather images are sent (e.g., capitalweathergang) but I didn't see that any one else had posted something. It may be that we were among the few sites that had even this small amount of snow (we are at 400' or so which is relatively high for the Washington area where most of the region is below 200').

Since we had hyacinths, I ended up using them for the sabbath table. This is what the third image shows.

posted by Martin Weiss # 4:41 PM