Prairie Home Phenology

Last night we went to see the Prairie Home Companion live radio broadcast, which has pretty much become an annual Ravinia father's day weekend tradition (although my father couldn't come -- we missed him!) Garrison Keillor is really an excellent phenologist, although of course that's not what he would say is the point of his show, or even that segment. What is the point? Not sure... but it is seasonal a lot of the time. Human phenology. But he begins each week in Lake Wobegon with a really nice summary of the weather, what's blooming in MN -- a little phenology report. The only thing is, he describes it way better than I ever could. Some cases in point:

• I would have said it was sweltering hot, what with the humidity coupled with the high temps. He said is was (I have to paraphrase here) one of those days when you're a little bit too aware of your underwear, and you wish you could make it looser.
• He described the cottonwood seeds (which I noted in 1/2 a boring sentence) as making it so the whole world seemed as though it were in a giant snowglobe, being shaken up by God. But of course god wouldn't play with a snow globe, a 6-year-old would. A 6-year-old with ADD, and what will happen when he drops the thing in search of new entertainment?... see, the guy's just brilliant, really.
• I also quite liked his line about watching the lightning storm while eating strawberries from a bowl (see? even seasonal fruit) and he said that some people liked it so much the went inside to catch the reruns on the Weather Channel.

Something to aspire to, I guess...