Posts Tagged ‘blue sky’
Precarious Footing
Yesterday afternoon, we received a wonderful surprise in the form of sunlight and a visible blue sky after days of being socked in by a persistent fog.
The view when we headed down to feed the horses was spectacular!
Too bad it didn’t last. Not long after darkness fell, my phone pinged with a weather service warning of dense fog again. With the large dose of moisture lingering after yesterday’s rain and the airborne water vapor coating surfaces as the temperature hovered around the freezing point, Cyndie found the driveway dangerously slippery when she snuck out to retrieve the feed buckets.
This morning, it is even worse.
The asphalt of the driveway was too slippery to navigate on foot, so we backtracked and cut through the side doors of the garage to get to the backyard for a route to the barn.
The horses were coping but didn’t look too pleased with the conditions either. The poor pigeons were having quite a time of it when they tried landing on the metal roof and couldn’t keep from sliding.
It will be a good day to stay indoors, where I can finish my next jigsaw puzzle and watch the Vikings/Packers matchup with a glowing fire in the fireplace.
That blue sky yesterday afternoon now feels like it was just a mirage.
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Two Skies
So, if I didn’t want to use a cliche that perfectly conveys my meaning, do I just choose a different series of words? My, there can be such a big change in conditions from one day to the next. [see “what a difference a day makes”]
On Saturday morning, I checked my weather app before stepping out the door to see what we would be walking into. It indicated a 12mph wind, but looking outside, I could see there was none. The air was still.
However, when we got to the barn, our local conditions caught up with the data being reported on the app. The wind picked up with gusto.
As the day wore on, the sky became filled with a remarkable depiction of the waves blowing the air, shaping the clouds in the upper atmosphere.
Yesterday couldn’t have been more different. Even though there was nothing up there to focus on, I felt drawn to snap a photo of how it looked when I lifted my eyes to the sky.
It doesn’t look like the kind of sky that matches a holiday gift season that advertisers are trying to persuade all of us is in full swing. It’s a never-ending beef of mine. I saw Christmas gift-giving prompts before Halloween.
Seems like we should probably be seeing Valentine’s ads pretty soon based on that timing. Get ready to buy chocolates, flowers, and jewelry soon!
The skies won’t look too friendly this afternoon based on the forecast. Cyndie aired out the horse blankets yesterday in preparation for chilly precipitation due to arrive. Wearing blankets is not one of the horse’s favorite things so we try not to put them on sooner than necessary.
At the same time, we’d like to get them on before the mares get soaking wet. It becomes a challenge of timing it just right to keep all of us happy.
Unlike the timing of certain holiday advertisers…
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Making Do
This is not the first time I have been “making do,” in my quest to survive all that life tosses in front of me. I used the same post title six years ago when Cyndie and I traveled with Mike and Barb to visit Cyndie’s parents in Florida at a similar time of year.
This time, I am managing things alone at home while Cyndie is visiting the Sunshine State. I am squeaking by on whatever meager rations she left behind. For example, how about toast out of her homemade cranberry walnut bread with my favorite crunchy peanut butter?
Gives me just enough strength to walk Asher to his heart’s delight and keep the horses from total neglect. They are making do with the snowless conditions and warm sunshine of late.
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There is no snow left in the fields as clear skies and record-high temperatures continue to be our norm.
I can poke fun at my comforts by overstating the truth but the relative luxury I am graced with does not come without a dose of guilt in the face of those dealing with war, poverty, famine, and climate catastrophes and truly suffering to get by.
I do not take my good fortune for granted, so I share the wonder of it all with hopes it might balance the harsh realities others are experiencing and whisk them away for a moment to a better place that does still exist in other places of the world.
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Daylight Moon
In an all-blue sky the other morning, the faint apparition of the crescent moon stood out as the only disruption.
Late yesterday, I walked the driveway to more accurately measure how much length remains of unfinished asphalt edges. My last estimate of 80 yards was wishful thinking. If we do 40 yards a day, we should have it finished in 3 days of work. That effort will have to wait until next week. Cyndie and I are going to the lake this weekend and taking Delilah with us.
I had always planned to work on finishing the driveway slowly and methodically, so this is not a problem. However, there is no denying that we are both getting eager for the day when we rake the last portion of gravel over the final exposed edge of asphalt out of the roughly 600 yards that needed attention.
It’s a good thing that we love having a long driveway. If we didn’t, all this work would seem to be much more effort than it’s worth.
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Never Imagined
I never imagined that in my lifetime the United States would become a laughingstock of the world. It’s rather embarrassing to witness our once-powerful democracy devolve into such a mockery of itself. We are probably the last ones to finally see the hypocrisies being laid bare with the blatant disrespect for last November’s election. The rest of the world has seen through our holier-than-thou attitude for a long time.
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Try as I might to preserve the sanctity of my mental space, I failed miserably last night at preventing the invasion of the outrageous gobbledygook related to an hour-long phone call of bullying malfeasance that was recorded for all the world to hear. Sad. So sad.
I sure wish there were swift consequences for such blatant abuse of power.
Thank goodness I have Cyndie and our chickens to brighten things up for me. In a perfectly timed intervention that adjusted my attitude splendidly, Cyndie shared this tidbit:
She decided to offer our chickens the aging remains of an unfinished apple pie from Christmas. She set the foil pie pan in the coop on Sunday night when she closed the coop. Yesterday morning, when she opened things up for the day, Cyndie said there wasn’t a single trace of apple, crust, or the oatmeal crumble topping anywhere in sight. Just a perfectly clean pie pan.
I guess it’s safe to say our chickens like apple pie.
They do not automatically eat everything we set out for them. Some kitchen scraps get entirely ignored. We get a little extra entertainment value out of the times we appear to have offered something that catches their fancy.
That little story lightened my outlook nicely. Like a sunny winter day after an overnight fog.
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Cloudless Sky
Yesterday was one of the great ones when it comes to sunny summer days. The neighboring cattle are definitely being grass-fed and made for excellent subjects as I paused to capture some shots of that cloudless sky.
Apparently, some of the grass looked greener on the other side of that fence.
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Same Night
I am so lucky that Cyndie offers me pictures she took and allows me to post them here. She created some wonderful art out of two very different sky views on Wednesday night. I’m jealous. Her percentages for photographic success are much higher than mine lately.
It was a beautiful evening, but she has taken it to the next level with this combination. They look like paintings.
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We are so blessed to have access to such incredible views every night.
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Not Blue
The sky looked completely different yesterday, after the outstanding blue we enjoyed Friday. In the classic weather paradox of the north, even though it was cloudier, the temperature was warmer than the day before. The brain-freeze didn’t happen on Delilah’s and my morning walk around the property yesterday.
The elements provided a complement to the grayness in the form of white-flocked tree branches. The water vapor in the warmer air was crystalizing on one side of all the trees creating a temporary delicacy of landscape scenery.
It’s beautiful days like this that make the beautiful blue-sky days that much more spectacular! I’m grateful that I get to enjoy them both.
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Brain Freeze
Yesterday was a very inviting glorious blue-sky sunny day for a walk. There were just two primary hazards to trekking our trails to walk the dog. The first was slippery footing on the packed and polished snow tracks we were precariously perambulating. [Sorry, couldn’t help myself.] The footing is really risky on the inclines, especially going downhill. The repeating cycles of melting and refreezing we have endured this winter have turned the oft traveled packed paths into uneven glass-like surfaces.
One alternative is to walk just off to the side of the glossy path, but that becomes its own adventure of struggling to soft-shoe your way on top of the occasionally stable crust, faltering frequently as a boot collapses 6-to-10 inches into the loose old snow below.
Once on the flat of our paths out of the woods, the second hazard became the greater of the two challenges. The old snowpack covering our land no longer holds much air. It’s like one giant iceberg that radiates cold that would make a walk-in freezer jealous. The face-freezing chill was made even more emphatic by the warm sunshine from above offering an opposing reference sensation. The relatively warm air was dramatically losing the battle for dominance.
With the slightest hint of a breeze moving that radiating cold-cold-cold from the massive surface surrounding us and pushing away the comparatively weaker not-as-cold air in the warm sunshine, we both noticed the increasing sensation of a brain freeze.
“Ice cream headache!” Cyndie exclaimed.
Yes, it was that kind of cold.
The thermometers were displaying the mid-to-upper 20s(F), but our brains were registering something much more Arctic.
Happy Leap Day, 2020!
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Relative Something 