SkyWatch Friday: An Apollo Picnic Under Mercurial Skies :-)

I find it nearly impossible to believe that we're on the brink of October's final weekend! Not only because of the month's speedy passage, but also because of its unseasonably balmy weather, more summery than autumnal.

Last Saturday's softly serene sunrise was both lovely and illustrative of our mild and gentle weather lately...

Knowing all too well that despite its delayed arrival wintery weather is inevitable, BW and I have been taking advantage of the beautiful days with bike rides and lots of outings with the dogs, while my friend Pam and I have been logging many miles on long walks, laughingly referring to ourselves as "Lewis and Clark" because of our explorations and adventures (and occasional need for a guide, given our shared lack of any sense of direction!) :-) The three of us even threw together a fun picnic on Tuesday. That morning, Pam and I walked the three miles to Sheridan's quilt shop, then hoofed it another 3/4 mile or so to the library to take another gander at this year's annual Fiber Arts Show entries (yep, post coming) and meet up with BW, who arrived in our car with the picnic supplies. 

It won't surprise those of you who know me well when I tell you that our picnic venue was the cemetery. :-) Not the main municipal cemetery, but the adjacent Bellevue Cemetery, home to a rather mysterious collection of columns from the 1930s. They used to support a wooden pergola which has long since succumbed to the elements that are also taking their toll on the columns. A local historic pamphlet that Pam bought at the library identified the structure-that's-no-longer-a-structure as the romantically pagan "Sun Temple." Despite the fact that our sunny day was morphing into an overcast one, it still made a great spot for a picnic lunch.

But before eating, Pam and BW decided to burn a few extra calories by helping to prop up this lone little puffer cloud… 

Pam gave it a gentle push with her finger so BW could hold it like a serving tray! 

We set up our picnic in the center of the "temple," so were encircled by the columns as we dined on our yummy feast of tempeh salad sandwiches, hummus, carrots, apples, bananas and hibiscus tea. All we were missing were a lyre, our togas, and Apollo...

Oh, wait! Look who showed up! And ate most of the hummus! 

(okay, maybe that was me. LOL)...

After lunch we headed next door to the large municipal cemetery and visited several of the more scenic and interesting sections and historic graves there. At one point, Pam looked up and saw this dragon in the tree above us!...

Though it remained a balmy 77ºF, the weather grew increasingly cloudy and blustery, until the skies to our north looked like this at 6pm...

Though teasing us with the promise of some much-needed rain, it turned out the clouds were just for show (and cemetery ambience). The night remained dry, and the next day was another sunny one. In fact, the lack of clouds has made for fairly boring sunrises this week, at least until yesterday when more nocturnal clouds made for an appropriately pumpkin-colored and picturesque dawn before clearing out later that morning...

For more picturesque skies by day & by night, beneath sunshine & clouds, 

and both autumnal & vernal from both sides of the equator, please visit...

SkyWatch Friday: Summer Sets, Autumn Dawns

Seems it was summer just yesterday! Or at least just last weekend….

But all good things must come to an end, and so the sun has set on another summer season. Literally. I took this series of sunset photos over the course of 15 minutes from the all-but-deserted Sheridan visitors center/rest area off I-90 last Friday evening. We'd gone there to use the free RV dump station after a weeklong camping trip in northern Montana (future post!), only to be thwarted by a new - and premature, IMO - "Dump Station Closed for the Season" sign and a winterized, waterless hose. Oh well, at least I'd thought to bring my camera since the views of the Big Horn Mountains from the visitors center seldom disappoint!

Going...

going...

gone.

But even more spectacularly than it set on the final weekday of summer, the sun rose on the first day of autumn. What an enthusiastic greeting for the new season! I took these straight-out-of-the-camera photos just 7 minutes apart. Amazing how much the sky can change in such a brief time...

06:45

06:47

06:52

That sunrise will be hard to top, but I'll give it my best from now till the winter solstice. :-) Meanwhile...

And happy spring to all you Southern Hemisphereans! :-)

SkyWatch Friday: "Harvest Moonday" Hike, Early Snow

It's been a week of many seasons - Monday and Tuesday were definitely summer, with highs of 90ºF. Most nights and early mornings recently have had the chill of Autumn to them, and Wednesday was a chilly, rainy, Fallish day. Wednesday night and Thursday we were under a Winter Storm Warning and it snowed several inches (14" in our neighboring, higher elevation town of Story and up to 18" in parts of the Big Horns). Though we didn't get nearly that much (about 4" at our house), by early this morning our temp had dropped to 19ºF.

But let's begin with the summery weather and Harvest Moon of Monday, before the flowers, trees and shrubs were dealt such a cruel blow that also likely annihilated our chances for fall foliage.

Monday morning, before it got too hot, we loaded up the dogs and took them walking on a new extension of the wonderful Sheridan Pathways system (on the attached map, it's the red and black path near the bottom right, running between the yellow and purple signal light symbols). This part of the path leaves very busy Brundage Avenue and as it heads toward Sheridan College it takes you into a different world… one of trees and marshes and birdsong and tranquility. And shade - which was our chief objective on such a warm, sunny morning!

Here are BW, Willow and Josie crossing one of two handsome footbridges that cross the marshy stream meandering through this area...

Once over the footbridge (you can just see it in the bottom right of this next photo) and out of the trees and into the meadows, you get to enjoy this beautiful view of the soon-to-be-snowcapped Big Horn Mountains (if you know where to look, you can even see the road that led to our old house on its way over the mountains!)…

Look at that clear blue cloudless sky!

Oops, I spoke too soon. Startin' to cloud up. :-)

And you thought I was joking about it clouding up, didn't you? ;-)

Here's Willow enjoying a rest in the shade back at the trailhead after our walk. Notice her leg draped elegantly over my foot, her way of keeping me from wandering off! :-) …

She was intently watching BW deploy our wonderful PetLoader, which Tess demonstrates...

That night, of course, unveiled the full Harvest Moon, seen here rising over the dry hills to our east...

Rarely satisfied with how my moon closeups turn out, I decided to have some fun and make this one a little funkadelic….

And now for a too-soon taste of things to come, the wintery scene from our patio yesterday…

We covered our front flowerbed Wednesday night, but could do nothing for our large rose bush except pluck this last beautiful, fragrant bloom and bring it inside to enjoy for a while. The bergamot on the right had already broken off when I went out at 5:30am to knock the snow off the trees and shrubs, so I brought it in, too. I think the rose looks sad, and doubt the reassurance that our temps will return to the 80's early next week offers much consolation…

Wishing you a week of lovely skies! 

We'll be spending it in Big Sky Country (Montana) with our dogs and camper! 

SkyWatch Friday: Glad to be a morning person!

September already? Busy days lately, many that began with equally busy skies enlivened by charismatic clouds. I hope you enjoy these early morning overhead offerings!

A couple of sunrises from last week...

(I call this one "Battlestar Gallactica Cloud!")

The still unsettled (but still lovely) early morning skies over our campsite following a night of wild thunderstorms and rain...

Just when I thought it was turning into a sunny day, the clouds said, "Not so fast, sister!"...

And finally these photos, taken about 2½ minutes apart, of the breathtaking sunrise that greeted us on Labor Day and got September off to a beautiful start…

I definitely live in a place where it's great to be a morning person. :-)

Happy weekend and happy SkyWatching!

SkyWatch Friday: All the Sky's a Stage...

It was an interesting week for skies here, from bright blue and cloudless to dark and thundery to smoky haze that completely obscured the mountains. A lot of sky theater!

But the highlights ("skylights?") of the week were two incredible sunsets. 

This first one was last Friday evening. We'd spent the day in Montana and got home not long before a big thunderstorm rolled in. The storm clouds turned the sky black and menacing just as the sun set, and this one small opening in the clouds - like a slightly lifted theater curtain - gave us a captivating glimpse of this molten sky...

It didn't last long before the clouds obscured it and the rain and lightning took the stage! I was sure grateful to be home to capture it...

On Monday night we had the most unusual sunset we've ever seen - it looked like a giant laser or stage light. Amazing and otherworldly, there really are no words adequate to describe it so I'll let the photos speak for themselves. Except for reducing the file size, I haven't touched them - I wanted you to see just what we saw!...

Wow. 

Changing skies, scenes, and moods completely, here's a beautifully painted teepee set up this week at the corner of Coffeen Avenue (the busiest street in Wyoming, we're told - and we believe it!) and Main Street for the tourists to enjoy. I snapped this while sitting at a red light (Luckily I was the passenger and had my camera with me, though I don't remember why!) I got a SkyWatch twofer with this one: the beautiful summer sky above and the one painted on the teepee! :-)

More skies of all kinds await you at...

SkyWatch Friday: Peaceful Skies...

When not being assaulted by bottle rockets or bedazzled by brocades and chrysanthemums, our skies were putting on a beautiful (and much quieter) July 4th holiday weekend display of their own...

It seems a cloud-bird lost a tail feather ~

now drifting, lonesome and lazy, across the tranquil sky…

"… So let us welcome peaceful evening in."

~William Cowper

May the skies above you be peaceful as well. Enjoy your weekend!

P.S. For those of you who enjoy such things, my next post will be Part 1 of 2 of the 2014 Karz Club "Rod Run" annual hot rod/classic cars show, which took place in Sheridan last Saturday. Hope you'll cruise on by! 

SkyWatch Friday: Dawn's Early Light to Twilight's Last Gleaming

Happy SkyWatch Friday to my fellow SkyWatchers around the world, and Happy 4th of July to my fellow Americans! 

Lots going on in today's post, so I'd best get busy…

It was not a good week here for sky photography due to a thick haze from wildfires in Alberta, Canada. But it started to clear by yesterday, when I took all of these photos ~ beginning at sunrise when I walked barefoot to the end of our street to finally photograph the Western Meadowlark (Wyoming's State Bird) who sits atop the corner streetlight every day, singing his sweet little heart out. I thought he looked especially lovely bathed in the "dawn's early light"...

I've always loved the Meadowlark's melodious songs and calls, and so was happy to catch a snippet while he alternately preened and sang (his version of singing in the shower?) :-)...

(Don't know what the annoying clicking from my camera is all about!)

I was also able to capture this still photo of him in full-throated song...

...but noticed that he was no longer bathed in the pretty golden sunlight. So I turned around to see what had befallen the rising sun and discovered it had been obscured by an ill-timed cloud. Still, it was a pretty sight, so I snapped it...

… and only after viewing it on my camera did I notice the silhouettes of the deer on the right! Since I had my telephoto lens attached, I was able to get a few nice closeups of this doe and her suitors (the one on the right, whom I also hadn't seen till I downloaded this photo, is clearly not a morning person!)...

After mowing and weeding, BW and I took a break in the shade of our front porch and enjoyed the view of this interesting cloud, who appeared to be responding to complaints about the increasing cloudiness with, "Talk to the hand." :-)

At the end of our busy day - and our first hot one (92ºF) in nearly a week - we enjoyed an evening bike ride, and then a final respite on our front porch to watch the sun go down…

BW sporting his "go to hell hat" beneath our festive star-spangled string of lights!

And what a sunset it was!! All of the following sunset photos are "SOOC" - straight out of my camera, which had captured the breathtaking magnificence of the "twilight's last gleaming" so perfectly that the very thought of trying to improve them through editing seemed both futile and arrogant…

Even after the sun had set, the show - and photo ops - had still not ended. By the very last of the day's light, a herd of at least nine mule deer paraded past in front of the school across the street, providing a delightfully perfect close to a day that had begun with a beautiful sky and beautiful deer... and because what is Independence Day without a parade? :-)

Click on the photos to enlarge, and please pardon their poor quality. I was surprised my camera was able to capture the deer as well as it did, given my distance from them and the lack of light! Though some of them had lagged behind to peek in the classroom windows and front doors (not kidding) and so didn't make it into the frame, the ones who did are more visible in this photo...

Again, I wish a very safe and 

to those who are celebrating it…

And please also enjoy a mindful holiday celebration...