Big, Dark Cloud Coming in from Lake Michigan

 

Sky After Rainy Day

 

Spring in Black and White

 

 

 

Weather Report: Spring’s Winter

No-name creek re-freezing along its edges --

As I pulled on winter boots and coat and scarf and chook and mittens this morning, the temperature was 23ºF, with a “feels like” report of 9ºF. What is nowadays referred to “feels like” used to be called “wind chill” not all that long ago, but when I was a kid, it wasn’t called anything at all. We just had temperature, no matter how hard the wind was blowing and how much colder it felt than what the thermometer showed. 

Crows calling in the northeast at 9 a.m. sounded like ducks, their voices muted and distorted by the wind, that wind in the tall pines sounding like waves out on Lake Michigan. If woodpeckers were at work this morning, their hammerings were drowned out entirely. And yet, although the forecast had called for nothing but clouds today, large swathes of blue sky showed as the sun rose. A welcome sight!

Glimpses of blue sky and morning sun!

 

How the Day Began

 

     Sailors, take warning! 

Another rainy day is in the works.

       

Cloud Street

 

Sunday Clouds and Sailboats

 

Sunset Cruise, Blue Sky Road

 

Looking the opposite way

The image above was taken of what to me always seem like the sand dunes of the prehistoric lake -- or, as I call them, "the duney bits" -- along the highway and accessible from Blue Sky Road. Low evening sun made the dunes look warm, and I liked Dos Cabezas framed by the grass-tufted hills. 

Looking toward the late day's sun, I saw the silhouette of a bird perched high against the bright sky, and it was then I felt once again my equipment limitations. Without a good telephoto lens, there is no way to capture the shot I really wanted. 

But it was a lovely evening and good to be out where I could appreciate the show put on by the desert sky. The quiet directions were as enchanting as the spectacular ones to my eye. Though there was no denying that the spectacular was spectacular.

Friday Night Views

 

Was it smoke from distant fires? I began seeing it in Tucson on Thursday, drifting behind the mountains to the north, and the gauzy scarf was still trailing in the sky on Friday evening, visible from Dos Cabezas Pioneer Cemetery.

Morning Moon, 10/23/2021

 

Some September Skies

 

Sunset with New Moon

 

February 15, 2021

Cloudy Day Drive, Round Trip From Sun to Rain

 

Not a Sunrise, Not a Sunset

 

Sunrise can come on sometimes like a brutal onslaught, so harsh is its glare, impossible to ignore. Sunsets, more peaceful, are often vivid and phantasmagoric, stopping us in our tracks. But just as journalists all rush to one focal spot, ignoring everything else happening at the same time, we may notice only the light and color in the morning east and evening west, forgetting to look at the subtler glory in other directions. This was the sky to the south in Dos Cabezas on January 13, 2021, at sunset.

Mountain Morning, or, Between Rainy Night and Rainy Day

 

Light at the Bight Breaks Through

 

I Can't Stop with this Tree

 

Smoke From California Fires Reaches Skies Over Lake Michigan

 

Without a Camera

Sometimes I "take" pictures without a camera, not having it in hand, even not wanting the burden of carrying it. “Look at this,” I tell myself. “Remember this.” And so --

Along Eagle highway: brightly painted hay wagons at one of my favorite farms, neatly lined up in the sun after freshly cut and baled hay was put away in the barn.

Same road: broad alternating strips of shade and light where rising sun casts first light through a cherry orchard onto the grassy roadside. 

A quiet back road, walking: among stands of late summer goldenrod, a single stalk of June primrose, with its lighter, clearer yellow, blooms out of season.

This morning, early: a glowing full moon, luminous in the southwest, setting over the orchard, lighting the sky (clear after a night of rain) brighter than false dawn in the east.

24 Hours in Dos Cabezas