Posts Tagged ‘sunset’
Exponentially Homey
When I arrived home from work yesterday and stepped in the door, I was met by a very happy dog and the smell of deliciousness baking in the kitchen. Cyndie was making good use of leftover sweet potatoes to create delectable taste bud treats.
It was almost time to feed the horses, so I was offered a chance to pay the herd a visit and allow Cyndie to remain focused on her artistry. I was glad to have the opportunity, because I was rewarded with a bountiful spread of things to test when I returned.
I rated her efforts a smashing success.
My visit to the barn was also rewarding for me. Each of our four horses gave me a good few minutes of personal attention, after I had cleaned up around them and served up their feed.
The setting sun was putting on quite a show for us at the time.
I felt extraordinarily lucky to have all this waiting to greet me at home after work.
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Capturing Images
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Three recent views from Wintervale that reflect what I get to gaze upon when wandering around our place.
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Beautiful Days
There is something rather heartbreaking about receiving the gift of summer-like warmth on a November day, and then not feeling well enough to take advantage of it. My body is wrestling with some common cold symptoms, sapping me of most of my energy to do anything physically productive after work.
Within an hour of arriving home, the daylight is fading fast, leaving a rather small window of time to tend to outdoor projects.
With my body feeling achy and my eyes stinging, I was more interested in curling up on the couch, than going outside to take advantage of the beautiful day. I did, however, step out to capture an image of sun’s last moments on our horizon.
I could hear the buzzing hum of our neighbor’s mower, which poked at my already sensitive moping over wishing I had the gumption to be out doing similar such chores around our house.
Looks like I should have one last chance this afternoon, and then our temperatures plunge back to the realities of November. At least chilly weather won’t make me feel as bad about convalescing under a blanket in the living room.
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Sky Show
Cyndie and Delilah were down in the paddock with the horses last night and the sun was getting close to our horizon. I finished what I was doing and headed out to find them. It didn’t surprise me to find the sky taking on a strange hue, because the night before, our sunset was quite a sight through the plume of smoke passing over us from Canadian forest fires. I figured it was happening again.
Then I saw a streak of lightning in the distance. There was a bit of a straight-line rain”bow” appearing on the far side of some rain clouds stretched to the ground by the precipitation in the distance. We stood among the horses and watched nature’s grandeur for a good half-hour.
I did my best to capture a panoramic view with my phone. In truth, you really had to be there to experience how impressive it was, but this will give you a rough idea. Imagine the rest if you can.
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Dramatic Sunset
Last Saturday afternoon we actually saw the sun for about ten minutes. The clouds high in the sky dissipated for a short time and revealed a jet contrail that aligned with the glowing orb perfectly. The dew point temperature in the mid-to-upper 40s (F) during this warm spell has been creating some very thick fog. The dark smudges in the foreground of the image are remnants of the day’s fog that was just beginning to open up at about the same time the evening fog was just getting re-started.
We’ve only had a view of the sun for literally minutes out of what seems like too many weeks. I captured this image with an iPhone. The moisture in the air was filtering the sun so that I could make out the circle with my bare eyes, but the iPhone camera recorded more of a flash around the orb. I like the drama it creates.
Yesterday we did receive some rain, but nothing too substantial. It was more drizzle than rain in our location. We were hoping the horses would stand out in it to wash off the mud they had been packing on their coats, but the two geldings spent too much time grazing from the new box under the overhang.
We brought them inside the barn for the night, to give them a chance to dry out in preparation for a return to temps below freezing. The melt is done for a while and we are welcoming the return of frozen ground in the paddocks. It makes it difficult for cleaning up manure, but much nicer for the horses and humans to walk around.
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Where To?
As I strolled up the driveway yesterday afternoon, the eagle statue caught my eye and it occurred to me that I should consider moving it for the winter. We have placed it in a spectacular spot at the top of the driveway, but during the snow season that spot is right where plowing pushes the snow.
More than once last year, I accidentally hit the poor guy with the blade.
In pondering another location for the statue, I had difficulty coming up with someplace that didn’t also involve snow being dumped. There’s not a good place where it would still have its deserved prominence, yet be out of the way of clearing snow.
I suppose I could find a spot for him somewhere down by the labyrinth, but I’m a little afraid that if I did that, we’d never get around to moving it back up the hill again after the snow is gone, to this great perch by the driveway.
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Accepting Darkness
At our latitude, the steady transition from the extra daylight hours of summer, to the lengthened hours of darkness in winter, really begins to have an impact during the month after the autumnal equinox. That doesn’t take anything away from the initial anxiety that strikes when the trend begins to become apparent in the latter part of the summer. They are just different stages of the same phenomenon.
We tend to whine and moan when we notice the sun setting earlier and earlier, but day-to-day, the change is negligible. Early in the season, the impact on evening activity is minimal. Then all of a sudden, there comes a point when it seems like it is dark as night outside, and preparations for dinner haven’t even been started.
That happened to me yesterday, and I noticed a sensation of acceptance wash over me. Long hours of darkness are the way it is going to be for the next 5-months. Deal with it.
Somehow, I seem to find a way. Similar to how I now find myself automatically picking out a long-sleeved shirt every morning and accept it as routine, long hours of darkness becomes just the way it is for a while. It becomes normal.
Normal is definitely a relative perspective.
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Movie Night
What better way to end the crazy day we had navigating around flooding disasters getting to Luverne than by accepting their invitation to use the party room at the drive-in theater to watch the latest remake of “Godzilla?” A handful of us took them up on the offer. Yeah.
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Winter Sunset
They’re all good, the sunsets, but on a crisp winter evening when you have a chance to be outside at the precise moment it drops below the horizon, it feels like it’s the best one ever seen. It was particularly nice having the tall grass soak up the low sunlight as it bent over in the wind. Fierce as this winter has been thus far, we haven’t gone completely without a few occasional precious days.
A pleasant day amid a rash of harsh weather becomes all the more precious.
It’s funny how our perspective changes when the reference point is shifted. Compared to the dramatic extremes of polar vortex winds and temperatures, a day in the 20s(F) without a lot of wind becomes a remarkably nice day.
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Cold Images
I am thrilled to present a photo that Cyndie sent me, taken with her iPhone yesterday morning on her way up to the house from the barn, after feeding the horses:
That sun dog hung around for a long time after sunrise for us. On her way down to the barn, despite an excruciating headache from a sinus infection, she called me and told me to get my camera and take pictures of the sunrise. I was skeptical that I would be able to get a workable shot looking directly at the sun with my little pocket camera, but I gave it a try. This is my version from about a half-hour earlier than hers:
Just the night before, I had been trying to capture how the setting sun was illuminating all the icy branches of the trees. None of my attempts were able to match what I could see with my eyes, but I did end up with a sunset shot that I like a lot.
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While reviewing the sun dog shots from the morning, I realized I had captured the sun setting on our horizon the very evening before. I think they make a nice pair.
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Relative Something 