You know those small, gentle "whirlwinds"?

[Lyric]

The ones that occasionally happen out of the blue, and you can only see them because they're picking up pieces of straw, or leaves, or other very light things?

We just had one in our front yard that lasted for about 2 minutes. We have two cottonwood trees on our street that are shedding their "fluff" quite heavily, so our yard is covered with it. This little whirlwind was picking up cottonwood fluff and gently pulling it up in spirals, then letting it float back down. Everything else around it was perfectly still--no other fluff in the air, just that solitary spiral twirling around in the front yard.

It was beautiful, and touching in some strange way. I sent OktoberKid running out to go stand inside of it until it faded away.

:hi:

[Dogtown]

1. "Dust Devils"

I don't know the derivation.

[BlueJazz]

2. "Dust Devils" on Mars. Scroll down about 3/4 way on this link and...

...you'll see one on Mars. :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_devil

[Shell Beau]

3. Some people around here call them willy wallys or

wally woos or something weird like that. I call them mini tornadoes.

[Taverner]

5. Kinda like Australia - they call them willy willys there

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

4. It seemed like two minutes to YOU

Oktoberkid, on the other hand, may have experienced being whisked away, past stars and galaxies, and been subjected to studies and tests by curious aliens. Does O.k. remember any of that? Any soreness?

NEVER walk into a dust devil!

:rofl: