Rain has turned to snow in the next phase of this California storm cycle, but it was only expected down to 6000’. Surprise! Mother nature settled on 4000’ instead, so I was out early to do a little shoveling, knock snow off new plantings, and grab a few photos.

Our sunset gradients, gray to pink to blue.

The knobbly Tungsten Hills in late afternoon.

@amerpie Abundance overcomes hoarding.

@roelio indeed. More coming, what with the big storms hitting California.

Fresh snow on the Gables in Pine Creek Canyon.

White Whites. Fresh snow on the White Mountains.

Scattered clouds bring scattered light. You just have to wait for them to move into position.

Rabbit bush blooming yellow in Round Valley.

My favorite kind of sky, varied clouds generated by unknown but certainly chaotic winds.

I’ve been fascinated recently by closeups of cumulonimbus puffs.

La Nina has been providing clouds like mad.

@roelio Very nice.

@jemostrom It’s a bit ripe in there, but he seems to like that.

Comfort technique of the day: tip over laundry basket, crawl inside, take nap.

Fall in the city.

Cumulonimbus closeup, with personality.

Pine Creek Canyon and the Gables, with adorning clouds.

A tree stands alone in the high desert, brilliant despite the looming darkness behind.

@jemostrom Turbulent geology brings turbulent clouds and light.

@bethanyh @ericmwalk Thank you. I’m always drawn to the blue ones.

Layers of rain form a background to a local community.

Two windows, two shadows.

Curtain of rain in black and white.

Curtain of rain over Bishop Creek.

The varied landscape produces varied skies.

Another view of the same storm, with cloud cover thinning over Pine Creek Canyon, letting light through.

As the storm moves from west to east (right to left), and down the ridge, it thins out, letting light through.

Halloween agave.

Time for your solo, little hill.

Jacob Collier at the Walt Disney Concert Hall after performing God Only Knows in honor of Brian Wilson, accompanied by his mom, Susie Collier, on violin.

Puffballs over the high mountain crest.

Mount Whitney looms over the Alabama Hills.

Soft palette clouds.

A nearly full moon, setting over Wheeler Crest.

Owens Valley lava field, with Rabbit Brush in bloom.

Rabbit Brush blooming in the Owens Valley.

Storm coming down Bishop Creek to the Owens Valley.

@fabioteixeira Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Heart of grey.

@tinyroofnail Yikes. Perhaps you should seek help.

@skoobz Ah, yes, I agree.

A storm over the White Mountains meets clear weather coming up the Owens Valley.

A gap in the storm lets light through.

An anvil cloud that looks like…a cobra?

Comet Lemmon.

Cloudscape in black and white.

The negotiation between wet and dry.

Storm versus granite.

One homeowner with a small yard decided to make a small railway for the amusement of passers-by. The skulls are a bonus for Halloween. Bungalow. Heaven, Pasadena.

Halloween spirit showing up in Bungalow Heaven, Pasadena.

@gregmoore @Miraz And that’s the closeup. Sometimes the sky is so full I want a spherical lens.

@numericcitizen Thanks, I’m partial to that view myself. sometimes it looks like a Renaissance painting out there.

The layered storm, again, rain floating over the hot air of the desert valley.

A band of cumulonimbus clouds over Pine Creek.

@jeremycherfas Definitely a thing, though indeed not fully understood. My neighbor had Lyme disease and ended up with this condition. It took forever to diagnose, but adhering to foods low in histamines lets her live normally. Anything aged or fermented will set her back, e.g., fresh beef can be fine, aged beef is not.

This place brings new meaning to the phrase “sun shower”.

Having grown up on the east coast, where the land is flat and cloud banks smother whole states in grey, I’m always tickled to see localized rain storms from the side.

The parade of cumulonimbus continues.

@tinyroofnail I have seen those images before, but I didn’t immediately tumble to their identity. Looks like a good book.

@tinyroofnail Lovely photos on that cover. And the title…excellent, but I expect it gave some editor fits.

@tinyroofnail I would, but I think the attachment failed.

@tinyroofnail Once again, you really couldn’t choose a passage more suited to Maine…

That white fluff looked large in the last photo, but here is the whole eastern sky.

@tinyroofnail “At last, my arm is complete again!” – Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Grilled cheese noir.

The parade of white fluff over the White mountains continues, dropping the first snow of the season yesterday.

It’s not just the clouds here that are so interesting, it’s that there are almost always gaps in the coverage to let light in an provide contrast.

On top of the crest, the geometry of the peaks often tears a rift in the storm clouds, letting in light and photo opps.

@numericcitizen I suspect it’s: dark grey represents your usage each day this week, light grey your average usage for that day of the week. Since you have hit the average usage by 5PM, they are saying you will be over average for the day. I’m not sure I would find that to be very useful information.

@tinyroofnail Lovely. New England graveyards have a real beauty to them.

@Miraz Well, I haven’t been there, because it’s in the middle of a mile high wall. I know of only one local climbing couple who spent the day up on those spires or similar ones nearby. To do so they started with a 3-mile hike across the valley floor… But that ridge is part of the John Muir Wilderness and there are mountain goats, bear, and mule deer that roam above and below it, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they have trails nearby. Ravens, Turkey Vultures, Golden Eagles and the like have no difficulty operating in such spaces, and I’d expect there are other birds as well. Wherever there is soil I would expect Great Basin Sage and Bitterbrush, the latter being rich in oils and I’m told is the sole source of lipids for the mule deer, so it grows wherever they go. The trees are probably Lodgepole Pine.

There are lots of big fluffy clouds to the east as fall moisture comes in from the changing fronts off the coast.

Blue sky flees the oncoming storm.

My favorite part of the Eastern Sierra escarpment near me.

@markstoneman Yes. I have a Tamron 16-300mm DX lens and some really big views.

Clouds flowing down the face of Wheeler Crest.

Wheeler Crest with a shroud above the thermocline.

@tinyroofnail From one of the panelists on a WaitWait Don’t Tell Me episode: if the world was flat, then all the cats would be at the edge pushing things off.

I wish I had been there to see the incident that brought about the creation of this sign.

@jarrod I pay them for their service already. When they try to extract more, I will probably turn them off and go cold turkey until an alternative arises.

Peekaboo! Mt Tom sits at the border of the Sierra Nevada and the Great Basin and Range, where the temperature change is so dramatic, that sometimes clouds form around it from top to bottom.

@FichtelDom I want an ecosystem where I control the UI entirely. All the businesses are abusing their power.

Rain clouds to the east, over the White Mountains.

@rscottjones @hall @t3mujin Thank you. An example of less is more.

Mt Tom dressed head to toe.

Rain from the south pretty much extinguished the Garnet Fire and filled our mountains with clouds.

Storm in Pine Creek.

@wiggitywhitney Ah, the dreaded Datura. Fun to look at, but don’t smoke it.

Sometimes the scale of clouds will come into sharp relief when I compare them to other elements in a photograph. The mountains in the background rise up to 10000’ off the valley floor, which is at roughly 4000’. That means that strip of mountain that we can see is over a mile high.

@tinyroofnail Wonderful. I forwarded that to family.

@danielpunkass I did the same on Paramount+ last month, but I’ve been avoiding Disney for years.

@Miraz I don’t know that one. Lovely.

Cloud on cloud, creeping into the wind.

Just big clouds over the ridge in the afternoon.

The Owens River canyon lit by late afternoon sun, running towards the Owens Valley.

The Tungsten Hills n smoke and shadow are always a delight.

Wheeler Crest enhanced by smoke and light.

Smoke flowing down from the peaks brings “atmosphere” to the valley.

Grey on grey is oddly cheering for me.

Total cloud cover doesn’t have to be boring.

The fire is basically out now, but the queue of photos hasn’t yet drained. The one nice part of smoke coming over the mountains is the visual effects.

In small doses, the smoke can be quite spectacular.

The smoke has mostly cleared, but the memories linger on. The Eastern Sierra foothills, with visibility decreasing with altitude.

@weegee.bsky.social Nobody remembers Shannon’s Deal, it seems. I remember it fondly but I’ve never been able to find it again.

The smoke from the Garnet Fire is starting to clear, but this is what the view has looked like for much of the week.

@markstoneman I remember the photos from that event. Being east of the Sierra forests, I’ve seen a number of dark events. Currently, my PurpleAir sensor was running above 300 AQI for several days, still above 150. Hoping for a change of wind direction this evening for some relief.

@markstoneman Yes, but I also built a Corsi Rosethal box out of K&N MERV 13 filters. That’s a mouthful, but basically it keeps the air indoors in great shape.

Sunday’s smoke cap from another perspective. We are now just encased in grey.

Sunday the Garnet Fire jumped to a new area with plenty of dead trees and no burn history. We noticed, though we are fifty miles away.

@Miraz Yeah, too bad the smoke is so tiresome. We’re directly downwind and that doesn’t look to change for a while.

The Sierra Wave, with smoke from the Garnet Fire.

Wildfire moonrise.

A classic vehicle.

@maique Thank you. Glad you weren’t on that trolley.

A puffball hiding in the sky.

Same canyon as yesterday’s post, but now full of smoke from the Garnet Fire.

Pine Creek Canyon looking splendid today.

“Victor Victoria” is still a fabulous film. Lesley Ann Warren’s performance is exceptional.

Black to grey to blue and white to black again..

@markstoneman No, near Bishop, CA, bordering Nevada.

Curling rain over the White Mountains.

I just saw a Roadrunner jump from my front deck railing to my roof. I’m very confused.

@mikenz Ansel Adams didn’t call it the “Range of Light” for nothing!

A rainstorm descends on the eastern side of the valley in the late afternoon, dividing the view into contrasting horizontal bands.

@tinyroofnail beautiful, and distinctively northeastern, I think.

@Miraz Stunnng.

Intermittent shadows on the Buttermilks are always fun.

Tungsten Hills, which slope to the east and are quite knobbly, always look good in late afternoon light.

Wheeler Crest in summer.

A typical late summer afternoon in Round Valley.

Cumulonimbus that hasn’t been torn, appearing so different than in my two previous posts. So friendly and fluffy.

Here’s a closeup of the spikes. They definitely look wind-drawn to me. And there’s a surprise bit of rainbow.

We’ve had some interesting clouds, unusual in August. I’ve been seeing this spiking cumulonimbus recently, and I’m speculating that this is caused by rising winds tearing the normally smooth clouds. Something to follow up on, for me.

@dwalbert That’s beautiful.

@jean I always see dogs in those forms.

@Miraz I’ve known people with koi ponds who would not be happy about that…

Firebird in the cirrus.

More clouds with character.

@restlesslens Oooh, I like that.

The muted tones of a summer sunset.

@numericcitizen Lovely!

I think a generation at Amazon must have retired, because they used to avoid aggravating features designed to get in your face, but the cracks have started to seep with annoyances: they advertise their own shows on Prime Video; they don’t let the credits run, you have to leap for the remote to prevent autoplay; and now my Kindle version of All Systems Red (Murderbot Diaries 1) has changed the cover art from the original to Apple TV’s cover. I haven’t bought anything from Amazon for half a year, and I’m only watching videos until my Prime subscription runs out. Twenty five years of being a geek’s dream shopping, and the marketing shits have finally taken over.

Sometimes the clouds lose all color, but still have internal light, often emerging through some ill-defined swirl.

@JimRain Thank you. Looking at this again, I think I should have titled it “Cloud Noir”.

Big puffball. Looks like an old sailing ship to me.

@bradleyandroos It’s a good word, “crepuscular”, so I used it again today.

When there are partially cloudy skies to the west in the afternoon, look east and see the land change.

From spring, when the snow was fading, but storms were topping it up, on the Pine Creek mountains.

More crepuscular light, a wider view of the previous shot.

We’ve had some good storms this spring, resulting in some marvelous crepuscular light.

Bands of force. So often, the weather and land appear in well-defined striations.

@todd Ah, too bad. Nero Wolfe was a favorite of mine growing up. The banter between the unusual characters was the thing. Some people tried to write more after Rex Stout died, but they didn’t have his spark by a long shot.

@dwalbert No, but the right one is cruel and the left one is spineless.

@cliffordbeshers I think these are Dickens characters.

Clouds having a conversation.

The Tungsten Hills are formidably dry.

Stack of pancakes for a Sunday.

Little straw-bale and lime house under the Sierra escarpment.

@tinyroofnail I just noted the micro-shadows on that paper…

Tipping point.

@tinyroofnail Beautiful and on point for someone who works with magnificent views beckoning. Email is just me at gmail.

Rain on the Coyote Hills.

@Miraz Robert Reich posted a chart recently showing the increase in wealth of the top 1%. Virtually no growth shown i the lower 50% over the last decades. I’ve been considering that the de facto US policy that the results of government research are free for all to use needs to be codified and tagged with conditions of guaranteed tax rates and distribution of that wealth.

@gregmoore I actually always think of the film noir technique where they would use flaps on a light to create a band of light across the actors face: www.reddit.com/r/cinemat…

@tinyroofnail Jack is absolutely right.

Pine Creek Canyon always looks great when a big storm advances from the west.

The Trump administration has removed Article 1 section 9 and Article 1 section 10 from the website hosting the full text of the Constitution. They left the text in place on the link to just Article 1. I suspect this has two purposes: * distract from the Eppstein scandal and use up opposition resources; * push the boundaries of Presidential power.

@tinyroofnail In a less poetic way, the interplay of light and shadow on complicated natural 3D shapes is a fundamental stimulus of our visual system. I have a friend who asserts that physical books are more satisfying to read because the whole visual system has something to latch onto, tiny shadows and textures that just aren’t there on most displays. A logical corollary is that big, natural visual displays stimulate large sections of the brain.

Still rolling through the spring photos. This is the range above Bishop Creek, fresh with spring snow. We didn’t get a deep snow pack this year, but we did get consistent rain throughout the spring, which really felt good.

@Miraz You have to say that like you’re in a western: There’s drama in them thar hills!

Black Mountain in alternating shadow and light.

@todd Ex Officio seems to have expanded then contracted. There’s been a dearth of travel clothing in tall sizes since, though I’m now discovering that Land’s End has some.

Spotlight on the power line.

@todd Wow, where do you get such a shirt?

The escarpment of the Eastern Sierra, shrouded in cloud layers.

Cargo pants as landscape.

The Sierra Wave was out in full regalia.

The Tungsten Hills, looking quite dry and knobbly in the late summer afternoon.

Not a tornado, but I wonder if it’s related. It sure looks like one in the thumbnail of this image.

@jabel @ayjay @Miraz Thank you. It is suddenly, and a tiny bit surprisingly, good to be back.

@JohnBrady Thank you. That is, in fact, the rule I have for my own benefit and it what has kept me from getting ground down over the years. I post because I am inspired to, not to get anything back nor meet any obligation. So, when the inspiration left, I stopped posting.

Just over three months ago, I stopped posting photos. I fell behind a few days, then a week, and then I realized that the joy had left the process. I’m not entirely sure why. Computers had gotten reconfigured and I was editing on a small screen, which was tedious. Politics was flooding the basement of my mind. Some software ideas expanded in my head and took up some creativity processing centers. And all the images seemed the same. I’d been posting daily images for roughly two decades, and suddenly the spark was gone. I also wasn’t taking many photos. If the clouds put on a show, I’d grab a shot, but that was about it. That’s about all I know, really. So I waited. I went to a wedding and took some photos, which breathed some life back into my process. Summer clouds rolled in, which are always a relief from the searing blue, bone-dry skies of summer. The full moon rose between the mountains and a cloud layer. And yesterday I went to my favorite coffee shop and saw the light reflecting off a wooden table top, a painted brick wall, with silhouettes cutting out designs from the big picture window, and I pulled out my phone to work the angles. It seems balance has been restored and the spark has returned.

Coffee shop shine.

@amerpie There are some good ones in there I’ve never seen.

@mattdoyle.bsky.social I remember you emphasizing in the past that the USA should be crushing CONCACAF teams, not eking out 1-0 wins. We should be beating T&T like this, but we haven’t been. What does this group have that the European-based players don’t?

@TheTrip A Philadelphia roll usually has cream cheese in it, doesn’t it? I don’t see any…

How to ruin a country.

Elon Musk’s evil persists.

@Miraz I stayed at an AirBNB of someone whose grandfather started a business hunting those after WWI, shipping venison to Europe. Could that still be going on?

@troykitch I enjoyed this. My grandfather built a house in those mountains that we sold just a few years ago. Fond memories.

@jemostrom Perfect.

I need an AI to kill all the popups suggesting I enable AI. I’m starting to look for services that will promise never to interrupt me to advertise new features.

@t3mujin Beautifully framed!

@val This makes me so sad, and yet gives me a little bit of hope.

@tinyroofnail To be fair, Little Blue Truck is better than any book about anarchism.

The high peaks above Bishop Creek, sharp as razors.

Band of mountains, wedge of light.

Pine Creek canyon looking bright with late spring snow.

Cottonwood trees have great silhouettes.

In the low-lying areas, where the cold flows down from the high Sierra, the green tint of spring comes slowly.

Mt Tom, shrouded in clouds, looks much smaller than it actually is. Clear skies will reveal its true majesty.

@Annie Very nice. I love the light/dark green, and I’ve taken the birds-eye of those yellow treads many times and always enjoy them.

Haze can mean fire, but I’m not sure what caused this. It’s nice to have the photographic affect without the danger.

Another pastel sunset.

Despite the lack of greenery in Pleasant Valley, the cows find something to graze on.

Cottonwood in Pleasant Valley, still not awake to spring like its siblings elsewhere. Cold air flows directly down this river valley from the high Sierra, so I think the plants green later here.

@Miraz Thank you. Sorry the posts are so bursty.

Oil has come to a fork in the road.

Sage to snow in just a few miles.

Soft sunset lighting up the Sierra Wave.

Round Valley, waiting for spring.

Mt Tom on a ice spring day.

I visited the big Cottonwood down by the pond, but the pond was dry.

Mt Tom, lost in the mist.

@bnmnetp @fgtech So…where’s Nebraska?

@bnmnetp Ah, thank you.

I can’t even imagine how you’d get this sorting bug.

@jean Absolutely. I never did like rules.

Often this land presents as layered, horizontal zones of vegetation, geology, snow, clouds, and sky.

This was really quite the cloud banok ver the Whites. I took a lot of photos and found it hard to narrow down the list.

Round Valley pasture under a low ceiling. The cows were lowing, too. I’ll see myself out.

Another view of this fine set of spring clouds over the White Mountains.

From above the Tungsten Hills, looking over the Owens Valley to the White Mountains.

An Owens Valley road leads to the White Mountains, where spring rains hover.

A lone cottonwood tree waits for spring.

@jemostrom My problem is that I care if the photos aren’t perfect. And they never are, given the challenging circumstances.

Round Valley in late winter, early spring.

@Christopher Very nice moment.

Just because there are clouds passing by, doesn’t mean you can’t see what is going on.

Sometimes the high desert is so bright, it pales. But when a storm comes through, it’s all shadows and howling.

Storms here often end to the east, when the desert pushes back, letting in a band of light.

I love the geometry of granite.

@jemostrom This is why I refuse any requests for photographing events. Way too stressful.

Another blood moon photo, perhaps slightly sharper. There were passing clouds that fuzzed up some images.

Last week’s lunar eclipse, the so-called “blood moon”.

@Miraz They really are. I always love to see them.

@jthingelstad Very nice!

A brave cloud has decided that the distinction between fog and clouds is artificial, and has decided to bridge the gap.

Mt Tom, 4:20PM. Or so I imagined.

@mattdoyle.bsky.social Can someone tell the Galaxy?

@cliffordbeshers.bsky.social #birds

A Great Blue Heron hunting in our creek.

Mt Tom, lit by the full moon.

Wheeler Crest was looking like a snowglobe when the winds came up after fresh snow fell.

Soft over sharp, pink over black and white.

@gregmoore It’s a 4WD trail to a campground, I think.

@gregmoore did you see the hidden road photo? I finally found it.

@gregmoore thank you, you are welcome, and it is for me too

@tinyroofnail Thanks. Have to stop on the highway to get that one.

@maique Thank you.

The hidden road on the lonely mountain, only visible under certain conditions.

Hillsides always layer better with snow on them.

The ridge on Mt Tom that forms the side of Elderberry Canyon.

@jean Lovely!

Some days, you can see the waves in the mountains.

@amerpie Cracker-jack tech team, right there.

A view of the White Mountains, through the gap in the volcanic bluff on the valley floor, 10,000’ below.

Welcome rain, pooling on the granite counter top I put outside. Every little bit helps here.

Mt Tom from the valley floor, which is also covered in snow, which only happens once a year or so.

@gregmoore Oh,I have a photo, in camera still, of a road at the bottom of that mountain that only becomes visible in the right conditions. I think of Bilbo and the dwarves and the hidden door every time i see it.

A closeup of Elderberry Canyon, a place I never expect to visit in person, though I see it regularly.

@ablerism I’ve been using a Nikon DSLR for years and love them. At some point, I will switch to the Z line. For wandering around the wilderness, I use a Tamron 16-300 zoom lens, because it goes from mountain-scapes to bird closeups in a heart beat. I have a Google Pixel pro phone with 5x zoom, and I use it when I have to, but I do not enjoy the experience much. One of the great things about the Nikon dSLRs is that they turn on instantly and use very little power, so they are almost always ready when you need them. I do not know for sure if the Z line is as good in this regard, but I would expect Nikon to have worked hard at it.

@Miraz I saw it driving by, pulled a U-turn. So, yes.

@Miraz Yes, although Western Bluebirds have rufous breasts.

@cliffordbeshers.bsky.social Bishop, CA

@cliffordbeshers.bsky.social #birds

A Mountain Bluebird sits on a barbed wire fence. They are busy creatures, and careful, and do not pose for long.

@Miraz I don’t understand those cuts, except perhaps Musk thinks his supercomputer farm and satellites can grab the business.

@roelio Lovely

Storm clouds brewing. I’m betting the white one will overcome the darkness.

@amerpie The Cult of the Blue Suit.

Pastel puffballs.

@gregmoore Thank you. Those photos take a little more attention and often don’t get taken when I’m busy.

I’m enjoying unexpected light more than ever these days.

@JohnPhilpin Such a great poster.

@gregmoore I’m interested to see what the rest of this decade brings in terms of de-centralized, modular software services.

A Coopers Hawk oversees Pleasant Valley, its head feathers ruffled by the wind. #birds

@cliffordbeshers.bsky.social #birds

@Miraz They are always fun.

@gregmoore It could be, but oddly, I like the photos better when the wings are blurred. The hover is so perfect that the head comes out clear.

@gregmoore OooohhH!

Mt Tom and Pine Creek Canyon always remind me of Carahadras when the snow comes down.

I recently relocated my barbecue to be very near one of my hummingbird feeders. There have been some air traffic control issues.

@mattdoyle.bsky.social Some days, I really hate the salary cap.

Snow melting on a slope.

Snow on the volcanic bubble.

That peak is thinking something wispy from its view above the clouds.

Melting snow on a roof in the Eastern Sierra.

@gregmoore I like these, very much.

@gregmoore landscape as body. very nice.

Light in Round Valley, falling on fresh snow.

Fog bank formed on a thermocline, under a departing snowstorm.

@gregmoore I’ve really enjoyed his channel.

@maique Thank you, I love the muted colors in that view.

After all the snow photos, it’s nice to have some Sierra Wave to admire.

Fresh snow on Round Valley and the Tungsten Hills.

@tinyroofnail I saw a dragon as I took it but decided not to change the orientation. A friend saw the dragon.

Elderberry Canyon, Mt. Tom.

@combatdavey The U.S. has an autoimmune disease.

@roelio Lovely.

@tinyroofnail The dragon?

The shark’s teeth in fresh snow.

Abstract: snow, on tar, on asphalt.

@gtconway.bsky.social I expect he especially hates the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

I’m watching Dr Who, Season 2, “The Impossible Planet,” and it seems like current events.

@JohnPhilpin I’ve been reading this, things I suspected made clear, wondering how to leverage it.

@jvl.bsky.social I’m cancelling my Visa cards just because there are rumors of them working with Musk, and I’m saying so during my phone calls.

@tinyroofnail love to see a bluebird, always

Dawn on Mt Tom after fresh snow.

@the thank you. This blog suffices for me. I don’t often go back in review. The process is therapeutic for me, but I do not appreciate them until I’ve forgotten them and look at them with fresh eyes. I have hypothesized the same critical skills which have made my photographs better, have also made me unable to appreciate them as much in the moment.

@cliffordbeshers.bsky.social #birds

@BestofTimes I like it, very moody.

California Quail are always walking around the neighborhood, so common they can go unnoticed. Fresh snow records their travels in striking detail.

Round Valley after snow, the high desert below the Eastern Sierra.

@amerpie Great photo and story.

It’s good to keep an eye on the bedrock as the storm rages.

After a snowstorm, the sun warms the valley, sending warm air upward against the cold flow from above. The normally invisible tumble of air becomes visible through the formation and disappearance of clouds. Warmth from below always wins in the end, resulting in clear skies.

@Miraz they are funny little things

@the thank you, but I have to credit the landscape for that.

@amerpie I have always said, the web needs the equivalent of f = ma.

@chrislhayes.bsky.social He wants beachfront property, Putin wants a warm-water port.

Shark’s teeth on Wheeler Crest looking pearly white.

@borowitzreport.bsky.social Yup. Always looking for a real estate deal. That’s all he really cares about.

California Quail walking in the fresh snow. #birds

@jtr I was given it over a year ago. I’m finally making progress and picking up speed. I have watched the TV series, and it took a while for the book to overcome that.

@JohnPhilpin More than.

We had a great snowstorm last weekend. I’m just now getting the big batch of photos uploaded and processed. Clouds playing peekaboo with Wheeler Crest.

A hawk surveys the desert scrub from the highest point available. I expect he was hungry, as the snowstorm had just ended. #birds

@gregmoore Well, it’s a tracking telescope controlled by an app over wifi. So, super long for scenery, not very big for astrophotography, which is what it was designed for. But I can put it outside, watch for birds, then capture an image using my ipad to control it. That is a Sharp-shinned hawk in a tall pine on the other side of the street, probably close to 150’ away, and the camera was set at 2x. The 4x picture focused on the pine needles and so the hawk was blurry. Next time. I’m waiting to see what I can do with the Great Horned Owls.

@amerpie Meanwhile, Musk is in the treasury, preparing to extort people by withholding federal payments.

Using the new telescope as a birdwatching tool.

@tyoh.bsky.social Musk is just like Trump, ruthless at shaking people down. Not brilliant, just gifted at being an asshole. So disappointing.

First real photo taken with Seestar S50 I got for my birthday. I’ve got a lot to learn, but the tech in this scope is a big boost.

After the storm receded to the ridgeline, the sun came out and the valley lit up.

It snowed today, which brought much needed water to the land, and much needed beauty to my lens.

@numericcitizen I googled them, but no luck. Lost in the mist.

A sunflower in winter.

@jemostrom That would do it.

@jemostrom Well, I don’t know when he told you that, but Jane Street Capital is an ML shop and is responsible for much of the high-speed trading in the world. Chalmers is definitely an FP hub.

@numericcitizen I remember ads in PC magazines from the early 80s, a man sitting at a terminal, hair, tie, clothes all seemingly blowing backward in a strong wind, with the caption ‘…flying through CICS!’ Over 40 years later, I still don’t know what CICS is, really, but I remember those ads.

@jemostrom Lisp is incredibly flexible and the meta-programming is powerful, but larger projects just turned into soup. ML was a step up, but I’ve never regretted taking the long road with Haskell. Some day, I hope to recover the meta programming by moving to something like Idris or Agda. These do require a big investment in time, though.

Morning shadows.

@maique.eu Did you leave m.b.? Over this kerfuffle?

@maique.eu Okay?

I find myself listening to “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” by Taylor Swift, and finding it very timely.

@hollyhoneychurch Terrific colors.

Another fuzzy cottonwood tree in winter, a close-up this time. They are litterbugs, too, dropping limbs at their feet seemingly constantly. Never drive or ark underneath them in a windstorm.

@adders Ah, I’d been waiting for this. I’ve had the domain name stubbed out on my local network for a couple of years now.

Cottonwood trees are really brittle. I think some of these have fallen over, but when I pass by, I always think they don’t know which way is up.

@pattonoswalt.bsky.social “Abcess” is such a perfect description. Thank you.

@Miraz If I could get all my old friends to move here, I’d quit in a heartbeat. Some have moved to bluesky, but I really hope we get a non-federated social media that people don’t feel they need a computer science degree to use.

@Miraz Thank you, so kind. I love the textures too.

Cottonwoods can be fuzzy in winter.

@jaheppler @jthingelstad Thanks, I wanted something peaceful for today.

As the full moon set near dawn over Wheeler Crest, I reflected on the sense of peace that has blessed my life so far, and pondered the changing of the guard.

Pretty dry this winter, so not many clouds. This was a rare pink sunset.

“I know that locally-sourced hay is all the rage, but I was really craving some Scottish oats.”

@Seadave I have done that for years, and I would if traveling for sightseeing, but for visiting family…I shed a lot of weight and enjoyed that.

I left my dSLR at home when I traveled at Christmas, relying only on my Google Pixel Pro 9. I was happy with the image quality and the capabilities, but operating the phone as a camera was not great, especially outdoors. I think I need a grip. I’d love to hear any recommendations.

Aspiration. Two cottonwoods, naked of leaves in winter, lean into the angle of the mountain.

@tinyroofnail I wish that more considered it so.

I love a parade…of clouds, past Mt. Tom.

@Miraz indeed. My expert says this is a sharp-shinned hawk, which looks very similar to the Coopers, but the sharp eye is one of the distinguishing features.

My apologies for the recent lack of daily photos, there were some technical difficulties. I’m home again and there is a Coopers Hawk policing the neighborhood. #birds

@maique She’s a witch!

@amerpie I should have said, it was a math professor. He knew how to use cut and paste, so he just reduced his problem to one he had the power to solve.

@amerpie A friend of mine, long ago in college, working in the computer center, got a request for a file of upper- and lowercase k’s. He went and gave the guy a new keyboard instead.

@tinyroofnail I had a pair of army surplus wool pants long ago which were terrific for being out in deep snow. Alas, they grew more decrepit as my waistline grew and we had to part ways. I’ve always wanted a good replacement, but they are hard to find, let alone in my size.

@tinyroofnail Still no lobster, but I noted wool socks in the Grampa photo.

@adders So lovely.

Elephant hide.

@tinyroofnail Terrific.

Change of direction.

@tyoh.bsky.social I’ve thought so as well.

Twenty-mule Team Canyon, Death Valley National Park.

@ReaderJohn @joshuapsteele @tinyroofnail Correct, of course. It doesn’t make a very good puzzle because we sometimes spend so much time looking at them. I took this about an hour and 15 minutes into a nearly 2 hour wait in Las Vegas….

@khurtwilliams Lovely shot and story.

Time for a visual puzzle, I think. #VisualPuzzle

An opera house near Death Valley. I wonder what the acoustics of adobe are like?

Tree silhouettes like this immediately remind me of the imagery in Samurai Jack. There are so many trees with strong outlines in that animation.

@cliffordbeshers Facebook removed this post. What a joke.

Moose and squirrel. Without the moose.

Children’s park in winter.

@davidmarsden Thanks, they are a favorite of mine as well.

Spooky tree. I’m playing with the night mode on my new camera phone.

Here’s one of the great things about where I live. Excerpted from a weather emergency alert: WHAT…South to southwest winds of 20 to 30 mph with gusts up to 50 mph. Gusts of 60 to 65 mph for wind prone areas. Ridges gusting over 100 mph. Severity: Moderate

@tinyroofnail Yup. It’s those two elbows that show all the personality.

Winter trees are some of my favorite subjects.

@pberry I love a good silhouette photo.

@jsonbecker Ooh, that sounds like a challenge…

Spreading Ashes

What to make of the process of spreading ashes? We chose a few spots meaningful to our parents, but they were public and we didn’t want to spread large quantities. So my brother decanted their ashes from urns to Mason jars. When we met at his car, Mom was resting on the windshield and he’d forgotten Papa in the kitchen. After the fact, it occurred to me this could have been depressing, but the reality is, we were chuckling. We’d already honored them both properly with memorial services attended by friends and family. Honestly, I think Mom would have been amused to be measured into a Mason jar. We spoke some more words, sang a hymn, and mused on the nature of life. Then my brother threw away the jars. “Single use,” he said.

Big cat, little cat. Fluff ball, sleek fur. Heat producer, heat consumer. Finnegan, Mortimer, ringing in the New Year.

It rained all night and much of the day, which is a luxury for a desert dweller. I watched the leaves and the raindrops on the glass of the Florida room for hours.

Prairie winter.

I think it’s a good day for a visual puzzle. #VisualPuzzle

Thou shall not pass!

The gift of a new plushie to shred.

Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park. Merry Christmas.

Folds in the earth, Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park.

UX people have decided that popping up hints at random times is a helpful thing. Or perhaps a profitable thing. The more I experience it, the more I consider it a justifiable cause for retribution.

Just a pine tree in the last weak glow of blue sky. Except that there’s a Great Horned Owl hooting in the very top.

I took this before dawn, in my pajamas, forgetting that I’d been shooting stars the night before, and the focus and exposure were set to manual. I figured I’d need to caption this with Henri Cartier-Bresson’s quote, “Sharpness is a bourgeois concept.” Amazingly, the photo turned out fine.

Lesser Goldfinches on the snag. #birds

A roadrunner came through my backyard. No sign of a coyote. #birds

The soft light of evening bounced off clouds makes the mountains look deceptively soft.

It never fails. I see a sky like this, I hear Ghostbusters. In this case, Bill Murray yelling, “Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats, living together!”

I love it when the clouds make a spotlight, in this case, on the foothills of the White Mountains.

Of all the wildlife we have here in the eastern Sierra, the sky slugs are the strangest.

A Ruby-Crowned Kinglet stopped by. #birds

I learned from a geologist that granite erodes into triangular shapes when it has uneven bases that move differently (producing shear forces.) This triangle in Wheeler Crest, at the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada, stands out a mile when the snow falls.

The geometry of Wheeler Crest is complex. Different conditions reveal different patterns, depths, and colors. Fresh snow highlights the diverse forms of eroding granite.

Weather coming over the ridge at Swall Meadows.

Time for a #VisualPuzzle.

Fog snaking around the valley.

Fog and snow settled on the valley floor.

My tab usage may have gotten a bit out of control during recent research.

Snow on the Horton Creek drainage highlights its ruggedness.

White Mountain getting a makeover.

A cow with a view.

Satire is doomed.

Grouse Mountain, wearing a feather boa, looking dark and mysterious.

Wheeler Crest, all dressed up for winter.

Fresh snow on Mt Tom will bring the skiers in droves.

Clouds flowing down from the Sierra, looking to me like white horses. Perhaps this is what Frodo saw during the flight to the ford to Rivendell.

California Quail doing their daily commute along the rock walls. #birds

A Bewick’s Wren dropped by my deck. They don’t stand still for long, so this was the best shot I could get. #birds

Winter sunset over Bridgeport Reservoir.

Thankful for the clouds and sunsets, which are forever entertaining.

Light on the gables with fresh snow.

Dawn, November, when the clouds start to gather early in the east.

Loomings. It might be time to read Moby Dick again.

Late fall in Round Valley.

A Belted Kingfisher was hanging around the artesian well in the Owens Valley. #birds

A closer view of the smoke of late season fires flowing from the high sierra down to Owens Valley.

Smoke from fires in the high sierra, drifting down to the Owens Valley. This was nearly two weeks ago and the weather turned cold soon after, so this fire is mostly done, but a new one has cropped up. There is no end to fire season.

Time for a #VisualPuzzle.

Crooked.

Light on the meadow, touches of brilliance in the darkness.

Sierra profiles. From North Lake, looking west.

Boulders, still too large to blend in with their new modestly-sized neighbors, yearning to return to the heights from which they have fallen.

A tiny waterfall in the outflow from North Lake.

North Lake, from the eastern shore.

Time for a #VisualPuzzle. If you find this too easy, consider it a Rorshach test instead.

North Lake, where people had spent time skittering chunks of ice across the newly frozen surface.

“All right! Yes! I’m guilty! But that valley deserved it!”

I’ve been listening to Klangphonics the morning while I work and am very happy with it. I’ve seen their shorts, dubbed “techno without computers,” but they hadn’t released an album yet. I revisited them while trading music this weekend with my friend Joe. One topic was that I like EDM/Techno/Trance..until they repeat. Synth sounds with none of the variations of physical instruments quickly leave me bored, usually within a few bars. But Klangphonics seem to follow more in the footsteps of Thievery Corporation or Boards of Canada, which have an organic component that satisfies my ear.

Blue light in Pine Creek Canyon after fresh snow.

Light on the volcanic tablelands and the White Mountains.

Leaving the Wells Meadow, returning to the sagebrush.

Now I breathe flames each time I talk My cannons all firin’ at your yacht They say, “Move on”, but you know, I won’t And women like hunting witches, too Doing your dirtiest work for you It’s obvious that wanting me dead Has really brought you two together – mad woman, folklore, Taylor Swift.

A broken tree, still standing, sort of.

Hiking through the cottonwood trees in Wells Meadow.

This little guy is going to be laughing at me all day.

Time for a #VisualPuzzle.

Peter Sagal reposted an essay he wrote in 2020 about the preamble to the Constitution. Perhaps not surprisingly, he begins with the wisdom of a rabbi.

A clear mountain stream in autumn, a few hundred yards from the spring.

Standing at the side of Mayfield Canyon, looking down to Wells Meadow, Round Valley and beyond. If you think the camera isn’t level, look at the mountains in the distance in the top left. The land is just that dramatically sloped.

An extraordinary endorsement by Harrison Ford, in two videos, one here and another here. Simply and elegantly stated. And, of course, impeccably produced.

A glade of Locust trees in Wells Meadow.

We took a hike to Wells Meadow to see the fall colors, which aren’t really prominent in the sagebrush.

Recently, our Great Horned Owls have been visiting every night. Usually, they sit in the trees and hoot, and are nearly impossible to see, but this one decided to sit on my neighbor’s roof when there was just enough light to get this grainy shot. Ear tufts for the ages. #birds

To wrap up my series on the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, here’s a photo I take every time I visit. This lone tree with this huge view has been a witness to a broad expanse for thousands of years, and continues to stand, even in death.

A ground squirrel makes his home at the foot of a dead Bristlecone pine, its strength providing shelter perhaps hundreds of years after its demise. And where there are squirrels, there are hawks. The open landscape must make for a battle as epic as the roadrunner and the coyote. #birds

The Bristlecone pine likes an alkaline environment at a high altitude. Here, you can see trees of many ages growing on the white dolomite, with little competition from other plants. A closeup of the “soil” favored by the Bristlecone pine.

Well, look what the NY Times did. I’ve been favoring WaPo, but the lack of endorsement hurt. October surprises from the east coast newspapers.

White Mountain Road through the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, on the way back from the Patriarch grove, winding through broad valleys, then climbing through narrow gaps on the peaks. @maique I haven’t forgotten the #beautifulRoads challenge.

Time for a visual puzzle. I found these tracks in the snow in the Patriarch Grove, above 11,000’ in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest. Can you figure out what made the tracks? #visualpuzzle

Patriarch Grove, Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, 11,000’ elevation. The temperature was below freezing, the winds were wicked strong (note the jacket). but there was fresh snow with nobody’s footprints but the ones we left behind us.

Where there is dolomite, there are Bristlecone pines. The rest is sagebrush. Or nothing.

A section of the mountain top in Bristlecone National Forest with broken red quartzite, where neither sagebrush nor Bristlecone pine can live.

The trunks of Bristlecone pines are so tortured by their environment that they look sculpted. I don’t know to whom this face belongs, but I don’t want to meet them in a dark alley.

Bristlecone pines can be thousands of years old, but their lives are not easy. They live in alkaline rock, on the tops of high mountains, where even sagebrush can’t survive. The harsh conditions are evidenced in their sculptured trunks.

Yesterday, the power was out all day, so my brother Neil and I played hooky at the Bristlecone National Forest. The power was off because the winds were fierce where I live. They were fiercer at 10,000’ and above, with temps below freezing.

Lodgepole pines, no visible green growth, but still standing tall.

Flakes in the surface of a granite dome.

Half Dome, from Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park.

Lodgepole pines, dead and alive, framed by the exposed roots of a fallen Sequoia tree. Tuolumne Grove, Yosemite National Park.

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS over Mammoth Mountain, Mammoth Lakes, California.

Fallen Sequoia tree, my brother Neil for scale. Tuolumne Grove, Yosemite National Park.

Teaching Diego to play chess. He is eager to play, but does not keep to the same rules. #caturday

Girls at play on the granite grid of Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park.

Wood and stone, sun-bleached bones.

I done voted.

Sometimes I ask myself, “How did I get here?”

We found some Dark-eyed Juncos during a visit to the Sequoia trees in Tuolumne Grove, Yosemite National Park. #birds

This morning, reading the news, I kind of feel like this tree. Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park.

The moon had quite the cathedral of clouds at dusk that evening.

Exhausted from giving himself a bath, Greybear snoozes in the sun. #caturday

A soft sky at sunset, accompanying calm fall weather.

The statements in this video by Oliva Troye, who worked for Mike Pence in the White House, are the most effective arguments against Trump that I’ve heard to date.

A storm fades after dropping fresh snow on Mt Tom.

Time for a blurry #VisualPuzzle.

“Walking” the dogs along the canal.

I got my sample ballot in the mail yesterday. I’ve never been more excited to vote.

A storm brews above Pleasant Valley.

A large storm coming from the north covers the White Mountains, leading with a curtain of rain.

My niece just sent this from the Azores: Ponta de Ferraria!! Thermal baths in the ocean!! Thanks so much for the recommendation, it was just amazing Thanks to @maique who posted the original recommendation.

Greybear, grooming in the sunlight. #caturday

Fading light as we left McGee Creek.

Hiking McGee Creek with Neil. The rabbit brush was in full bloom.

A juvenile Sage Thrasher in McGee Creek. #birds

Berries in McGee Creek Canyon.

Today’s top losers.

A particularly nice cumulonimbus over the White Mountains.

It’s good to have a goal.

One of these quaking aspen is not like the others.

Aspen on a high ridge above McGee Creek, lit by the afternoon sun.

I’m still standing.

Time for a visual puzzle, an easy one, I hope. #VisualPuzzle

Moonrise last week over a hillside of desert scrub.

Because of micro.blog, I have a low bluesky membership number, 26K out of 10M. Not important, but fun.

Phalanx. That’s the word that comes to mind. A ragged phalanx of pine trees. Now I have to look up “phalanx”.

Sunset over the Eastern Sierra.

Sunset over Wheeler Crest.

The muted tones of a late summer sunset.

Scallions or herons?

Time for another visual puzzle. #VisualPuzzle

Finally: “I have a concept of a plan.”

Overheard in the pharmacy: Obamacare saved my life. Literally, saved my life.

I try my best to attribute a greater meaning to stop signs, not just a safety directive, but as a lifestyle choice. Stop, get out of the car, use the camera.

Sun and cloud working their mojo over Wheeler Crest.

Look what we have achieved.

More puffy skies over dry hills. Summer waning, fall moisture beginning to appear.

Casa Diablo, from Millpond.

The White Mountains, doubled by cumulonimbus.

After the hike, near Sherwin Summit, enjoying the glow.

I’m temporarily enamored of these shots from the bottom of the canyon, since I mostly shoot in large valleys that are tens of square miles. The closeness almost gives a fish-eye lens effect.

Hiking the trail in the canyon, puffy whites in the sky, felt like an inverted popcorn bowl.

Sasquatch among the quaking aspen. Either that, or my brother, Neil, wearing a great thrift store t-shirt.

Greybear, half asleep. Extended #caturday.

Diego does not respect #caturday.

Natural spotlight on Wheeler Crest.

Grouse Mountain and the Buttermilks on the downslope from the Sierra Nevada. The camera is level, I swear.

A mix of cumulonimbus and lenticular clouds, I think, rising off the tail end of the Sierra Nevada.

Highway 395 in the morning. #beautifulRoads

Pine Creek Canyon looking dark and foreboding.

Sticky bits in the new editor

When editing html in the new editor, if I edit the attributes in a node, it sometimes inserts a tag closure. I assume this is to keep things balanced, but if I close the tag myself, it can be a little tricky to get rid of it. I’m not sure I can describe a better behavior, but personally I’d like it to let me be until the preview.

Mt. Tom looking spiffy in a feather boa, courtesy of surprisingly fall-like conditions in late August.

Greybear, blurred. #caturday

More of that storm over the White Mountains.

Virga over the White Mountains.

Summer clouds over the White Mountains always catch my eye.

Ominous overcast. ​

A Western Kingbird dropped by, although I allow that I may be wrong and it is actually a Say’s Phoebe in plumage I dont normally see. #birds ​

Can anyone recommend a fanless mini pc that has known linux support? I’ve been using a laptop with external monitor, but it just isn’t quite cutting it anymore.

Tonight’s moon rise over the White Mountains.

A break in the worst of the heat has left us with soft summer evenings, where the air is warm and gentle and the skies seem to match.

Coyote Hills and the Buttermilks in late afternoon.

A very thoughtful, hopeful, inspiring post, from Simon Rosenberg.

Climbing up from the arroyo, these clouds looked extra poofy.

Layered views are common around here, because the topography is so dramatic, wild juxtaposition of different geology, biome, and weather can be found all over.

Clouds over Bishop Creek and the Buttermilks make for shadows worth the wait.

Big pink anvil.

Little house in the big valley.

Not a bad postal route to have, I think.

We have two big rock formations here, volcanic and granite. The foreground consists of Bishop tuff, a pink welded ash formed in a super-caldera explosion. The glacially-cut granite of the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada fills the background.

Vox clamantis in deserto.

Last of the “god ray” series, at least for now.

I find myself thinking of the phrase “warped, frustrated old man” a lot lately.

I feel like the conservatives on the Supreme Court just got squeezed by karma.

More “god rays” further down the valley where the ranchers pastures have really stayed green this year.

Wheeler Crest adorned with “god rays”. @miraz The broader view.

With partly cloudy skies comes an increase in visible rays of sunlight. There have been a bunch the past few weeks, and I think it will be a theme for upcoming photos.

In photography, diversity is a valued asset. My favorite cloudscapes vary widely in form, reflectance, and lighting. The winds above the crest often pull homogeneous formations apart, increasing the variety of all three.

Sobek, the Ancient Egyptian god of crocodiles, made an appearance in our skies recently.

Summer evening clouds can be the bane of focusing, both in cameras and in humans. I always try to include a frame where I set the focus on something inherently sharp, like the pines.

This scene appears several times a year, when the sun is setting far to the north, with mostly clear skies, but some haze above the ridge line. The glacially-carved peaks have flat spots, and so we get these segmented rays, startlingly clean compared to the ragged mountain top.

This has been a good year for rain. Intermittent, of course, but frequent and voluminous enough to have green covering the water channels in the valleys. We could use a little more to damp down fires, though.

What do you get when cross a snail with a kangaroo?

Soft, summer evening.

A cloud formation rising from Wheeler Crest, where cold air over the Sierra meets the dry, hot air of the desert.

Blue, blue windows, behind the clouds.

Shadows cast from clouds and Wheeler Crest onto the rolling bubbles of the Volcanic Tablelands make for interesting geometries.

Sometimes there are only fragments of a rainbow, and it always feels like a ghost struggling to appear and communicate.

The nice thing about a spring and summer with a reasonable amount of rain is that we get good clouds as well.

It’s gonna be a bright, bright, sunshine-y day.

Triangular granite sub-peaks on Wheeler Crest.

People complain that Presidential election campaigns in the U.S are too long, something I agree with. I suspect it correlates with the shift in population from rural to urban passing the balancing point. Well, this cycle we get to test drive a shorter version.

A California Quail commuting at dusk. #birds

Contrasting geometries, lacewing on window screen.

Rain falling on the Buttermilks, rocky hills so named because they had enough water to support a dairy, a welcome relief to stage coach passengers thirsty from crossing the great basin and range.

Big pastel.

Summer dawns often seem minimalist. They presage a hot day, but in the moment, they are cool on the skin, the eyes, and the mind.

A praying mantis decided to watch me through the window.

When the sky is thinking about generating a thunderstorm, but it just doesn’t have the energy to follow through.

Greybear’s toe beans, for #caturday.

Puffballs over Long Valley.

Clouds over the White Mountains, from Little Round Valley. The whole thing sort of screams western, doesn’t it?

I feel like these clouds are spelling out a message in a language I can’t read.

Lines and rectangles on the slant. I guess this could be a #VisualPuzzle.

Opposing granite.

Watching Jacob Collier’s logic breakdown of Bridge Over Troubled Water, and found this tidbit: We had to go to E-flat Major for that, as sometimes you do, but E-flat Major is a fine place to be, so no problemo.

More firework photos. The first gap in the trees was blocked by a tree. A pretty one, but we needed to move on. There was a crosswind from the north that provided nice blurring effects. I thought this one looked squid-like. Not sure why, now.

We found a spot outside town to watch the fireworks, a gap in the trees on a dirt road, facing west. The first fireworks started when you could still see the mountains, which made a good background. Chewy outside, crunchy inside.

A stack of clouds over Mt Tom, from light to dark, increasing moisture along the way.

LADWP Water and Power installation lit up on the tablelands.

Cloud sandwich.

Rain over Mt Tom and Pine Creek Canyon. Once again, the dramatic changes in the landscape induce fragmentation in the weather, lettting light peek through so we can see what’s happening.

We don’t just have micro-climates on the ground, we have disjoint, layered weather patterns all through the sky.

Looming storm with the tiniest bit of blue sky peeking through.

Bi-polar sky.

On the far side of the valley, roughly twenty miles from the lightning strike, rain falls on the White Mountains. So it goes in the rain shadow.

Where the lightning struck. You can see the smoke plume bend with the wind along the face. During the hour I watched the fire, the plume changed direction often, as sign of the turbulence up there that is often invisible.

A lightning strike on Wheeler Crest became the Eye of Sauron.

Last night we had clear skies and perfect lighting for the SpaceX launch out of Vandenberg AFB (8:47PM PDT). The three bright lines inside the plume are the pair of ejected fairings and the first stage. Just over a minute after the rocket appeared from behind the mountain.

A worm from Dune? Jabba the Hutt? A sleeping sheep-dog? No, just a big, oddly-shaped cloud, a specialty of this region.

Half an onion after a day on the counter in low humidity.

Sometimes our cloudscapes seem to come straight out of video games. I don’t know where this portal goes, but if I could fly I would have found out.

Looking north at the storm, a study in pink and blue.

The southern edge of the storm.

Storm clouds bouncing along the ground.

I really needed a fish-eye lens for this storm. It was wider and taller than my 16mm (DX).

The same storm as yesterday’s post, just a few minutes later. Note the patch of blue. The winds are so strong coming over the ridge, that holes in the clouds keep appearing. That lets the sunset peek through, providing the great lighting.

Just imagine how the world would change if we had a gene therapy that changed the sound of human snoring to be just like this big cat purring.

A wider view of the great storm slug. @gregmoore

I’ve mentioned before that, although I post daily, photographs actually come in bursts. Well, last night, just before sundown, a terrific squall came over the ridge and I get a week’s worth. The wind was strong, the cloud-scapes terrific, and some rain even reached the ground.

The Owens River Gorge.

A new #VisualPuzzle with a twist.

Rain in the valley.

Mt Tom with a poofy hat.

Striated cloud cover over Long Valley, looking north towards Glass Mountain.

A closeup of Greybear snoozing, for #caturday.

A bluff in Pleasant Valley, made of volcanic tuff, frames a rainstorm on the White Mountains.

A smoldering sunset off the shoulder of Wheeler Crest.

I think this may be my favorite #VisualPuzzle ever.

A Coopers Hawk in the dead pine. The autofocus didn’t get this quite right. It’s probably time to upgrade. #birds

Rain sliding down the face of Wheeler Crest.

Rainbow’s end.

A walk in a local arroyo.

All kinds of grey.

Cedar Waxwings on the snag. #birds

It’s #VisualPuzzle day (well, evening). Last week’s was solved in one guess, so I tried to make this one extra hard. Then I decided to post two photos to make it feasible, but I suspect it will just be confusing.

The mountains paint pictures with snow. I always see a tree in this spot during the spring thaw.

The geometry of power.

A storm over Bishop and Horton Creek drainages, viewed from below the Tungsten Hills.

Diego the Dark Lord of Destruction does not approve of #caturday, and vows he will wreak vengeance on its followers. Also, he is miffed that I am laughing because he looks like the bat signal.

Yesterday’s moon rises near sunset, dulled by smoke.

A combination of horizontal cloud layers and slanted sunlight made a geometrical scene that caught my eye.

Here’s a very unusual #VisualPuzzle, not at all a fair challenge, so don’t stress out about guessing it. Still, I am curious what people will see in it.

Long before the sun sets, the high peaks to the west cast streaky shadows on the valley.

Rain falling towards the Volcanic Tablelands.

This winter didn’t have the record-breaking snowfall of last year, but the spring rains have been steady, topping off the big reservoirs. For me, the rain squalls make for wonderful, layered cloudscapes.

Last night’s sleep…

Another big sky day. If you enlarge and look closely, you can just see the smoke from a brush fire down by the river.

The great divide from wet to dry, cold to warm.

Rain over Wheeler Crest.

I’m listening… Owens Valley Radio Observatory, aka OVRO, aka Big Ears.

A fire started near the airport last year and ran south to this tree. I’m curious to see how long it will stand.

Improbable neighborhood social media post.

A bend in the Owens River where it meets highway 168.

When I saw that Battlestar Galactica was streaming on Amazon Prime, I figured someone thought the 20-year old series could reach a new generation of viewers. Then I started watching and realized the first minute lays out the main theme: humanity’s existence is threatened by the AI it created. So, perhaps someone figured it was relevant to current events.

I saw a Yellow-rumped Warbler in Mammoth Lakes last week. #birds

Part of the Sherwin range, from Mammoth Lakes.

Len Pennie on the subject of man or bear is well written, well performed, and the Scottish just puts it over the top.

I only see Len Pennie’s posts occasionally, but I always enjoy them. This one, where she answers the question “Where have you been?”, I find particularly relevant, because she posts every day, just like I do. It is hard to follow what everyone is saying, all the time, but the companies that have evolved to help us do that have become reliant on sugar, just like the food industry. But what really hit home was her description of why she posts every day: I’ll keep making content regardless of how many views I get, because I don’t do this for the views. I do it for the purest form of motivation that there is: spite. There’s more truth to that than I’d imagined at first. I don’t post out of spite, but I do post for myself. If you enjoy it, too, that’s great, but it’s not required. If it were, I’d be posting what you already think, not what I’m discovering.

If you get close enough to one of these localized storm, you can get a very “Wizard of Oz” vibe.

The rain shadow of the Eastern Sierra is pretty easy to understand from a shot like this. The clouds come over the high mountains from the west, arriving depleted of moisture. The curtains of rain become virga, never reaching the ground.

Small storm in a big valley.

A curtain of rain falls on high-desert scrub, though snowflakes fall on the photographer, so it might be a mix in the distance.

Today feels like time for reflection.

A Mule Deer browses in the desert sage.

Long Valley, spring flooding.

Long Valley storm.

At Hot Creek, I came up from the canyon to find a rain shower passing by.

Hot Creek, facing downstream. Also, there’s a character from Star Trek TOS in the upper right, the ringmaster that forms out of molten lava and clicks its claws at Kirk.

This is my favorite type of Wordle scenario, where negative results bring certainty. Wordle 1,045 3/6 🟨🟨⬛🟨⬛ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

From the department of mysterious conincidences: @jean, your recent post on Wim Wenders reminded me of the beginning of this Q&A video from Adam Savage, posted two days ago.

I stopped by Hot Creek last week and, for once, the light was reasonably balanced between canyon and sky.

We’ve had some spring showers moving through, big enough to see, but small enough that they don’t blanket the landscsape. That’s a boon to photographers.

Phở humor.

Owens Valley Radio Observatory, an extension of the California Institute of Technology, affectionately known as “Big Ears”.

This little pond is artificial, an excavated widening of the creek, a place for firetrucks to drink deeply, but the ducks like it too. Spring is showing on the left, while winter still dominates the heights.

Returning to our regularly scheduled program, we bring you the Gables, thinking so furiously they are giving off clouds, above Pine Creek.

My brother, Neil, holding the attention of the water glasses.

My nephew, Clem, channeling John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.

I nearly passed over this photo of Ed and Nessa because I thought it was out of focus. But the light was low, so this is motion blur, and another looked made me think this shows what it’s like to wrangle a toddler.

My niece, Caroline, glaring when she notices me using the long lens at the reception dinner.

At the reception dinner for my father’s memorial service, I spent some time sitting in a corner with a long lens, capturing faces surreptitiously. This is Davia, Ed and Alena’s daughter.

Balance of power between a 30 pound Maine Coon and a tiny tabby.

My BnB came with a guard goose on the roof.

After a long day of travel, it’s good to sit down to grilled shrimp with friends.

Ed and Nessa again.

My nephew Ed and his younger daughter Nessa.

Finnegan is a beach ball with fur.

Before and after. Winter to spring.

I got distracted and messed up the diamond ring shot for this eclipse. I kind of like the result, though.

Corona of the total solar eclipse, April 8, 2024, Olney, Illinois.

Easter flowers are still around.

A wee visual puzzle.

Wasting away in Waterville? Doesn’t quite have the same vibe. There’s just a photograph at the bottom of the glass.

Sometimes I like to stop and watch the electrons flow by.

Last light, looking north.

Lenticular clouds above Coyote flats.

Everything blue but the moon.

A gang of Cedar Waxwings has been hanging around, beating up old ladies and taking their berries. #birds

@jean says: @cliffordbeshers You have the best clouds. Really? I hadn’t noticed. /me steps outside with a camera. You know, I think you might be right.

Arcs.

Am outraged that the NY Times puzzle editors did not make an exception for #caturday.

Turkey Vultures are migrating through. I’m always amazed how visible they are in the vastness.

I don’t know if it is the same doe, but I remember one sitting by herself in this field last year. I think they enjoy the view.

Well, hello there, little lady! Whatcha doin’ in these parts? Buzz off, mister, she’s with us!

I’m a sucker for a lone cottonwood tree in winter.

Sea mammals made of clouds has been a theme this year, so I was happy to add a sky narwhal to my collection.

I think that was my favorite #USMNT game ever.

Oh. Hi! See ya.

No cats for caturday, so I chose this mare instead. She looked so peaceful, grazing in the afternoon sun, that I stopped to take her portrait. But clearly she knows that visitors mean fresh treats, and who can blame her, given the state of her pasture, not yet renewed by spring.

In winter, the Coyote Willow has lovely muted colors, and room to see through.

The tail end of the Sierra Nevada, against the beginning of the Great Basin and Range.

In the spring, the arc of negotiation is pretty constantly bickering.

Am I blue? Looking from Pine Creek Canyon east to the White Mountains, where clouds have gathered. Usually the clouds are here and it is clear over there, but just wait a few minutes an it will be different.

A granite rock face in Pine Creek Canyon. Some day, I hope to take a geology class, because it sure would be nice to understand what is written here.

We have had plenty of snow, but mostly at higher altitudes, so the road up Pine Creek Canyon was surprisingly clear. Well, there were rocks on the road, of course, because mountains fall down steadily, but nothing major. That means it is time to visit some other canyons.

The arc of negotiation, where east meets west. warm meets cold, dry meets wet, and there is room to see it happen.

Four and twenty blackbirds, hanging out with the cows, enjoying the view. I know that’s not exactly how that nursery rhyme goes, but I reserve the right to go where my mind and camera wander.

Little tractor in the big valley. It reminds me of the story of the park service buying Bryce Canyon from a Mormon rancher named Ebenezer Bryce. Everyone marveled at how beautiful the canyon was, but the rancher who sold it reportedly opined, “It’s a helluva place to lose a cow.”

Spotlight on the White Mountains.

Where hairdos go to die.

Unlike sky dragons, sky manatees graze on pink clouds, and indicate calm conditions for air traffic. There is a rumor about that one tried to mate with a dirigible, but no passengers suffered anything more than bad dreams.

Mt Magee, I think, between Crowley Lake and Mammoth Lakes. According to a geologist I saw speak, when granite mountains rest on plate boundaries, where one plate lifts and the other drops, the granite erodes in triangular shapes. It’s like a warning sign that screams, “Fault!”

White Mountain framed by a notch of Bishop tuff.

If you look closely, you can see a sleeping spaniel.

I thought I saw a Blue Whale in the sky the other day, but it was just a big lenticular cloud over the mountains.

Wheeler Crest after fresh snow. That rock face is approximately five miles wide and more than a mile high.

Watching Cole Brauer approach the finish line in the dark is pretty cool, but it’s been more exciting to follow a global race by checking in on the tracking map, to be honest.

Contrasting clouds.

Some people at Google have decided they need popups everywhere to notify me of new features, exciting things near me, etc. Those people need to be identified and traded to Microsoft.

More chaos over the White Mountains. Note the little gray cloud rising up like a seahorse from the weeds. I’ve never seen a cloud like that before.

Contrasting mountains.

Yesterday’s post explained that the landscape is larger than the weather, which leaves gaps for light and sight lines. Today’s photo shows a common example, localized rain that barely reaches the ground. I never knew the term virga until I moved here.

Anywhere you might live, there is earth and sky, but in the eastern Sierra Nevada, both are exceptional. An important feature is that the spaces are so large, weather effects rarely fill the space, so there is room and light available to see them at work.

Whenever this cloud forms over Black Mountain, I hear Jack Benny saying, “I’m thinking, I’m thinking!”

Gotta keep an eye out for sky dragons, they are murder on air traffic.

The snow line, where the cold storm from above runs into warmer air from below. The clouds stop and the snow coverage diminishes the further down you look.

Mt Tom with snow, without direct sunlight, kind of takes on the appearance of a drawing, or a wood cut. Black and white pointillism, perhaps.

The Gables above Pine Creek Canyon.

There’s a lesson here, somewhere…

I called this one “Chaos over the White Mountains.” The camera is pointed east, the dark clouds are full of moisture, heading to the desert to do battle with the puffy cumulonimbus. The White Mountains in view run from 10K’ on the right to 14K’ on the left, yet they look small.

I think I would choose this as the photo for the first chapter of Moby Dick, “Loomings.”

A California Quail sits on a stump, calling for a mate. #birds When I first moved here, the World Cup was on. The quail call sounds like “Lukaku”, the name of the Belgian striker, which I took as a sign that Belgium would win. But the quail lied.

I always think this tree looks like an ent.

Bold move by Chicago.

These components should be easy to identify, but the curious shape is the real mystery of today’s #VisualPuzzle.

Mt Tom with a halo.

Black Mountain was all white for a day.

The little cloud that could.

Last light on Black Mountain.

Reaching back through the roll to the snowstorm a week ago, I’m finding some surprises. Mt. Tom always looks it’s best with snow to the roots.

When the iPhone 15 came out, I was seriously tempted by the camera, but recently the Nikon Z series has been catching my attention. This lens on a Z6 seems really exciting.

I always enjoy visiting the Owens River in Pleasant Valley when there is snow on the high peaks. That’s where your water comes from, I tell the river.

Snowstorms rarely obscure this landscape uniformly. Portions of mountain ranges come and go, surprisingly rapidly, which means I can stand in one spot for a while and take radically different photographs. Elements of the landscape get disconnected, bringing a spooky or adventurous feel.

When clouds get stretched.

After the storm.

Eyebrows.

This is Kara, the husky who lives next door. She loves to drive with her head out the window. If you drive through a snowstorm, she really wants her head out there. She doesn’t relent until you hit 65mph or so. #caturday

There’s a flock of Cedar Waxwings in the neighborhood. They are the cartoon bandits of the bird world, masked and outlandishly dressed, getting drunk on fermented berries and starting fights.

Fog in the valley, a rare effect around here, is always worth rising early to capture.

The high peaks are all white now after the big snowstorm. Even Grouse Mountain got a little snow this past weekend.

There’s a split personality about the landscape where I live. If I look west, you see John Muir and Ansel Adams. But if I look east, as in this photo, I see cowboy country, dusty and weathered.

Sky over Bishop Creek, fluffy and grey.

Tricorders are changing the world economy.

Twenty years ago I realized that smart phones are proto-tricorders, they just need improved sensors. The spark for this was the stupid little labels that get put on every fruit and vegetable, which seem a waste of labor, and are loathed by every gardener I know. If consumers can test for pesticides directly, or analyze DNA to determine species and variety, the labels would no longer be needed. The olive oil scandal would no longer be possible. As it stands, government regulation of quality still seems very necessary. Today, I read about an inexpensive, biodegradable sensor for pesticides. When sensor technology like this matures, I think it will bring a fundamental change to our society, replacing government regulation of food production with direct economic forces. Customers that detect pesticides, disease, unwanted ingredients, or falsely labelled items will simply walk away. Well, they might choose to ignore the warnings, but I suspect that will be mitigated by health tracking apps giving immediate negative feedback based on predicted negative long-term effects. Health apps are already available in abundance, though they have a long way to go to be truly effective, I think. The durability of a corporate brand will change as well. A good brand is credit for past good work. As consumers are increasingly able to directly evaluate the quality of current work, past results will matter less. Amazon has demonstrated that brands are not so important for products that are relatively simple and for which a warranty is more trouble than it is worth. They simply make up company names and sell gobs of goods that are so cheap, people are willing to take the risk. I looked up the phrase “Trust, but verify.” I knew that Ronald Reagan had used it. I didn’t know it was a Russian proverb, nor that he’d learned it from Suzanne Massie, a Russian history scholar. If some Russian folklore offers you some hard-edged wisdom, it’s best to pay attention. We’ve been doing a lot of trusting in our economy, but a lot of verification has been in government hands, because that’s been the only way to enforce testing. I look forward to more situations where consumers can verify directly and walk away if need be.

After some fresh snow, Wheeler Crest often has a line of fog across the front.

The same juvenile Cooper’s Hawk, looking a little goofy in his new plumage.

Same Coopers Hawk as yesterday, same tree, different pose.

From Philippe Delamare, the leader in the GSC, thoughts on experiencing time when on a long solo journey: However, time seems to be stretching a bit long but it’s always the same: no matter the length, the last weeks always seem the longest. This was to be expected… We therefore observe a distortion of time which, according to the law of General Relativity, is measured in chocolate bars and packets of consumed cakes (but I won’t go back on this, you know me). In the case of these past few days, space-time is very, very curved because chocolate disappears at the speed… OF LIGHT of course (pay a little attention to what you’re told at the back of the class!)

There’s a juvenile Coopers Hawk hanging around, watching from high places, picking off the slow pokes. Though I’m far too large to be its prey, when its glare comes my way, I always make sure I have an escape route.

Not accepted. I can’t figure out whether I should be offended or not.

Rub the peak of this mountain and a genie will grant you three wishes.

Band of morning glory.

This used to be the big highway until they put in the interstate. Now it’s a byway where you can get up early (or not) and walk the middle of the road in safety.

One of the most consistent cloud formations I see is what I call the “Arc of Negotiation”, where moist, cold air from the west meets hot dry air from the east. Some day soon, I will collect examples into a longer post.

Someone mentioned that the clouds in yesterday’s photo must have been quite the show. I couldn’t remember much about it, so I went back and found this wide shot from the same time and place. The lenticular clouds are in bottom middle, but the rest of the sky ain’t dull.

Big poofy clouds to the north, over the Pleasant Valley tuff bluff. I think this is cool air from Long Valley meeting warm air from the Owens Valley, but don’t quote me on that.

Another image in contre-jour, this time with a bird, though you have to look closely to see it. The White Mountains form the background.

I’m really enjoying the drama of the Global Solo Challenge. Currently, the big excitement is following Cole Brauer as she heads to Cape Horn with some gnarly storms around her. It’s like reality TV, but with far less production, far more transparency, and actual challenges.

Top of the mountain to ya’. I mean, morning. That’s Mt Tom, so that’s a Tom hat.

The rabbit brush, so brightly yellow in fall, has faded to match the rest of the winter landscape.

I pre-ordered a Canoo.

This photo should be an album cover, with the title “Cottonwood Contre-jour.”

Owens Valley sky dressed in pinkish, bluish, greyish clouds.

No cats for #caturday, so here are some California Mule Deer instead. Those two were moving at first, but it is easy to get them to pose, just whistle loudly and they stop and look. On the other side of the road. Same deer, just zoomed out to show Wheeler Crest.

Counting sheep.

Cloud ballet, brought to you by the Sierra Wave and the setting sun.

My feedback to any website that interrupts me to ask for feedback is: don’t interrupt me to ask stupid questions.

The northeast ridge of Mt Tom, descending to Pine Creek.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled program of Eastern Sierra lenticular clouds.

Stand in the middle, of the valley, of the road, frame your shot, and wait for the big rig coming at you to come out of the dust cloud. The distances are so great, it’s not really dangerous, but still hard not to flinch. Last photo from Death Valley National Park for a while.

Description of a 1988 Bronco for sale: 1988 5.8L V8 4WD Reason of selling has Misfire  Starts with Vice grip Sure enough, there’s a video with vice grips holding something on the top of the steering column. I opted not to buy, but I admit I was curious.

Panamint Valley, Death Valley National Park. Whenever I’m out shooting in places like Death Valley, I inevitably get several photos that would make good car commercials. The desert sunflowers were still blooming, three weeks after I visited in late December.

Death Valley National Park in winter is such a great place if you enjoy sparseness. There are very few people and cars, it’s not particularly cold, though it can be windy and dusty. Above all, there’s a sort of minimalism to the scenery that I enjoy.

Weeping angels are real.

I enjoy the subtle coloring and striations of dry basins. This is Death Valley National Park between Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells. Strong winds have lifted the alkali dust and obscured the mountains in the background. Other than the plants, it feels like another planet.

A pocket of white near Furnace Creek, Death Valley National Park.

Park Off Pavement. Between Borax Canyon and Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park.

I doubt I will live to see the benefit, but I expect the ongoing power revolution will make transmission lines obsolete, and landscape photographers won’t have to work so hard to find a clear composition. Pahrump, Nevada.

Dust storm, near Death Valley.

Saturday morning, in Urbana, we got an inch of snow, which provided visual relief from the constantly overcast skies.

You are being mean! I am dying here. Breakfast!

No, really, when is it? Breakfast! When?

When’s breakfast?

Mortimer’s drumstick. #caturday

Mono County Weather Alert Severity:SevereUrgency:ExpectedCertainty:LikelyHeadline:Winter Storm Warning issued January 4 at 1:07PM PST until January 7 at 10:00AM PST by NWS Reno NVDescription:* WHAT…Heavy snow. Snow accumulations 2 to 6 inches for eastern Sierra communities along Highway 395 with 8 to 16 inches above 7000 feet, including Mammoth Lakes. Winds gusting up to 50 mph in the lower elevations and 80 to 100 mph over Sierra Ridges. Wind prone locations along US-395 could see gusts up to 65 mph at times Saturday late morning and afternoon. WHERE…Mono County. WHEN…From 10 AM Saturday to 10 AM PST Sunday. IMPACTS…Travel could be very difficult to impossible due to whiteout conditions. Very strong winds could cause damage to trees and power lines. ADDITIONAL DETAILS…Lake effect snow may develop along the south side of Mono Lake on Sunday leading to localized higher snow totals. This could impact travel along Highway 395 and CA 120. Instruction:If you must travel, carry chains, keep an extra flashlight, food, and water in your vehicle in case of an emergency. Be prepared for long travel delays or adjust your travel plans to avoid periods of heavy snow and white out conditions. The latest road conditions can be found by checking with CalTrans. @hollyhoneychurch

My niece painted a mural on the wall of her childhood bedroom when she was a teenager. I’ve always loved it. She’s often too busy to paint these days, but I hope in the future she will return to art.

The orange animals are paying attention.

2024, appearing out of the murk.

How can you tell if you’ve exercised a dog enough? When the wag has moved from the tail to the tongue.

I needed a fresh supply of whiskers for the new year.

“The farmer and the cowman should be friends.” Happy New Year.

My inclination this year was to resist the straight and narrow. Roads are fastest, but destinations lie. A short walk off the road, thought it be in trackless desert, offers possibilities unique to you. Pause the drumbeat of efficiency. Let the wind and sand shift new patterns into your mind.

Questions from the very elderly.

My father, 95 and suffering from some dementia, asked: If the ruler of England converted to Catholicism and became Pope, what would happen to his/her spouse? His assembled offspring replied that we thought: such a conversion would be an unlikely choice for a modern British monarch, it is unlikely such a person would be chosen to be Pope, it is very unlikely that a woman would be chosen as Pope, any candidate for Pope would have to be unmarried, getting a divorce would also be disqualifying. He seemed satisfied with this answer and went back to sleep. But now I’m left wondering why he asked it in the first place.

Generally, March to June is when I’ve heard of big blooms in Death Valley, but here it is December, with the daytime temperatures about 68F (20C), and these flowers showed up in…droves? Bunches, perhaps.

Elsewhere in the park, there is no standing water, but the flowers blooming in December, while dust blows in the background, are evidence of the big rainfall last winter.

A stroll in the salty shallows of Badwater Basin.

Pretty little beast.

In many ways, watching the pilgrimage to Badwater was as interesting as the site itself. Death Valley National Park is enormous, but it also is a challenge to traverse and understand. A pool of water so far below sea level is a recognizable mark, something to check off a list.

Looking at my photos from Badwater, I realized that when I’m at a crowded location, I tend to include other photographers as models. They stand apart, always in front of something interesting, and they stay still for shots in low light.

A Christmas miracle, a man walks on Badwater Lake in Death Valley. The real miracle is the return of water to this basin after the record precipitation last year.

Looking down into Panamint Valley, a partially cloudy skies make all the difference in a photograph. I’ve taken this shot several times, but with flat, uniform light, and it has always resulted in a boring image.

This is the first in a series of posts from Death Valley. I went with a purpose, to see Badwater Basin with actual water in it. I nearly didn’t make it before sundown, because cloud cover made interesting lighting the entire drive, and I kept stopping for scenes like this.

A fold in the Inyo Mountains. Normally, it is hard to distinguish these sections of the mountainside, but the partial cloud cover provides the lighting that informs the depth.

Mortimer, hunting birds at the feeder, though they are unattainable for an indoor cat.

Mmmmm… Golden Retriever hambone.

This photo was inspired by #stickerspotter @maique.

The Inyo Mountains really look their best under partially cloudy skies.

Eastern Sierra Nevada, near Independence.

Clouds, shredded when they hit a change in the winds.

When sunrise sets a cloud on fire.

Ghost dolphins in the sky.

What I need is an AI bot that can tell me where I left my diamond file kit.

Storms are finite.

$148 Million. That has a really nice ring to it.

When the wind stretches cumulonimbus clouds here, the results often look like skulls, often rodent skulls. This one feels like a dragon skull.

Murderbot series picked up by Apple. I think the Murderbot books will be a real challenge to adapt to the screen.

Nature sure can paint.

Time for a different sort of #WhatsItWednesday, more of a #RorschachWednesday.

When I moved here, I drove cross-country with my niece. As the landscape changed, she’d identify each section as a different part of Middle Earth. Rolling hills in western Iowa were the Shire, a valley in northern Nevada with wild horses was Rohan, etc. Today, I give you the Misty Mountains.

I wish the skies here came with explanations.

I was mistaken, there was one more image of the big cottonwood fall foliage that I wanted to post. This one shows Wheeler Crest with clouds gathering, ready to pour down the face as soon as the rising warm air wanes.

Mt Tom, enshrouded in clouds, with bits of blue sky peeking through.

This is the last of the fall foliage series, another in the “just a hint of color” category. The Tungsten Hills form the mid-ground, with Mt. Tom behind.

The deciduous cottonwood makes a strong frame for the desert sagebrush.

Fall colors of poplars, reflected in the little pond by the big cottonwood tree. I discovered today that cottonwoods are in the poplar family. That was a surprise, but we have both around here, so I guess it makes sense.

A close-up of the leaves of the cottonwood tree. The geometry of the small shadows is surprising, and I expect I will revisit that next year.

I finished Murderbot 7. It started a bit slow, but more than made up for it. Thanks to all who recommended the series.

The big Cottonwood by the pond in the valley was on yellow alert.

After fnishing with Thanksgiving photos, I discovered a set I’d shot before I left town, celebrating the colors of late fall. Nathan Lane provides the best caption for this photo, I think. One does want a hint of color!

Last of the Thanksgiving photos, I really enjoyed photographing agave again. I live a bit out of their range, but I’m considering planting one anyway, just to be able to photograph one regularly. The first one looks unexpectedly like a dragon. Agave leaves grow in a central column, so tightly packed together, that each leaf leaves an impression on its neighbors. As they mature, they lean backwards, eventually ending up on the ground.

Another collection of photos from Thanksgiving in greater Pasadena. These feature the great light towards the end of the day, when clouds came and covered the mountains for a while. I love deciduous trees in winter. It’s like getting to see a schematic of life. Jacaranda trees are a favorite of L.A. landscapers. There are no purple flowers at this time of year, but I find the openness and geometry of their branches alluring. A bank of dark grey clouds covered half the sky in the afternoon. A bit of blue to go with the green and grey. In full daylight, these high tension power lines are pretty camouflaged, but they show up brightly in these conditions. The abundance of succulents in yards is something I miss from my days in San Diego. Conical evergeens, Cyprus trees, I think, make for good silhouettes. And, of course, you can’t swing a camera in greater Los Angeles without hitting palm trees. Later, the large bank of clouds moved on and remnants turned pink in the sunset.

Whenever I visit my friends in the greater Pasadena area, I walk around their garden, yard, and neighborhood, collecting vast quantities of photos of flora. Here are some I took this Thanksgiving. In the suburbs, I often get out the macro lens, because I don’t care for parked cars in my backgrounds. Back-lighting is great for studying leaves (Collard, in this case). Any sort of back-lit greenery fascinates me, really. These Spear Lilies tend to have a fan of leaves that are easy to line up. Wanted: Ivy. Dead or Alive. The Collards did well this year, as did the Mexican Sage (I think) in the background. An odd combination, but the geometries always catches my eye. The oranges looked so juicy, but were not ripe yet, so all I could do was drool and shoot. My friends have pepper trees, and it is always bemusing to see the peppercorns in their natural state, rather than in a jar. This pepper tree has magnificent bones. I photograph them every time I visit.

Time for #WhatsItWednesday. The photo’s a bit blurry, I’m afraid.

No pumpkin makes it to maturity without a few battle scars. And I can’t resist a shot that makes one look like a pig. All courtesy of winter clouds and light in greater Pasadena.

It was good to spend Thanksgiving with friends, especially since they are so adept at growing pumpkins. Alas, I think these are a bit undersized compared to previous years.

Sunday breakfast.

The Thanksgiving day loaf.

The transition from country to city can be frustrating. Me: Oooh, the moon is rising. Also me: No, streetlamp. Me: Oooh the moon is rising for sure. Also me: No. Streetlamp. Me: Ooooh… Also me: STREET. LAMP.

We ate an alien for dinner yesterday. And we were thankful for it.

Morning at the dining table, as yet not fully tidied after the previous night. We had an excellent meal, followed by some cribbage that went decidedly in my favor.

There is room to grow on the volcanic tablelands, but little soil and water to make it happen.

The Gables looking small, but bright. (Some photos look better when reduced in size. This one looks better enlarged, I think.)

A dead Pinyon stands guard over the Owens River Gorge. The White Mountains are just visible through a gap in the clouds.

We got a nice storm this week, so I headed out a road I’ve only explored a little, to get some new views. Nature responded by putting up a huge spotlight to…something. Alas, I couldn’t see the spot, so I don’t know what the message was, other than storms are beautiful, of course.

Tone zones, created by topography, light, and smoke. Last one from last week’s wooding trip. Taken from the south side of Mono Basin, looking west.

It wouldn’t be right to have a series from Mono Basin without an image of the lake itself.

Sunset in Mono Basin. The foreground is all volcanic rubble, the Sierra mountains in the distance are all glacial cuts. Smoke from a controlled burn adds to the atmosphere.

Late in the wooding season, the slanting sunlight conspires with dusty roads to paint strips in mid-air. At 7000’, these woods are already freezing overnight, so I pack a change of dry clothes, wool hat and mittens. Time to clean the chainsaw and get out the splitting maul.

A dog stays vigilant, protecting the world from chipmunks, while her boy plays with sticks.

This herd of wild horses was hanging around the entrance to the forest. I’m envious of their ability to forage off this land, even if it is cheat grass they are eating. I need six water bottles and three sandwiches just for a day’s outing.

Seen in the classified ads today: Vintage glass IKEA dining table.

Yesterday we squeezed in another wooding trip to the Inyo National Forest. A controlled burn near June Lake added atmospherics to the sunset viewed from Highway 120 in Mono Lake Basin.

A good loaf, the product of observing the dough rather than fixed timing..

I’m always cheered by clouds returning to the valley. The views improve, there’s the promise of rain or snow, and it just seems more fun.

As fall turns to winter, the poplar trees explode with gold, and the clouds return, bringing fresh scenery.

Every time I’m done with a teabag, I think, “Compost or wood stove?” Really, either works, but I can’t seem to stop asking the question.

Snow on the heights today above Pine Creek. Winter has arrived.

Where storms from the west meet the dry heat from the east, there is always drama along (what I call) the arc of negotiation.

Pine Creek Canyon at sunrise. Trying new viewpoints and compositions. Not convinced about this one.

Horton Creek can be hard to spot because its bed is just a shallow path in the alluvial rubble, and the Coyote Willow that grows along the banks is very short. Alas, the Cottonwood trees betray its secret.

A horse, perhaps a mule, grazes in the shade of Cottonwood trees.

I wasn’t the only one out for a sunrise walk. The man in the yellow hat hiked in with his dog, whom you can just see in the lower right. The three of us shared square miles of quiet. Except that the dog woofed at me, though he wagged his tail all the while.

I woke up before dawn last week, couldn’t sleep, so I went out to see how fall was progressing in the valley.

A #WhatsItWednesday so late it should be #WhatsItThursday.

Halloween breakfast.

Fall in Round Valley. The natural sundial formed by Wheeler Crest and haze says 4:30PM, roughly.

What’s the opposite of an early bloomer? Early fall turner? Anyway, this Cottonwood is prepping for winter faster than its neighbors, showing a lot of trunk.

NCC-1701 approaching the energy barrier at the edge of the galaxy.

From last night, a (nearly) full moon rises over the White Mountains.

It’s hard to sneak along a dusty road in the Owens Valley.

I had just posted for the day when that other website served up a memory, a photo from 8 years ago that should make a very nice #WhatsItWednesday.

Less of a #WhatsItWednesday, and more of a #WhatTheHeckIsThatDay.

The view from the top of Owens Valley, looking south. After a long drive through Nevada, this is where my spirits pick up: less than an hour left to drive, an increasingly familiar road, and late afternoon sun dressing up the landscape for my camera.

Nevada oasis.

Approaching the White Mountains, which mark the California border, from the east. You can just make out a bit of fresh snow at the top.

Driving home from the eclipse, I took some time to observe the great Nevada drive-by. Nevada landscapes are really quite dramatic, they just need good lighting, which is hard to come by when driving during the day. So for this shot, I went with the old “leading lines” trick.

My posts this week have been about Coaldale, Nevada, which has been a ghost town for thirty years. It is very small, perhaps ten buildings, all of which were abandoned when the EPA discovered the tanks at the gas station were leaking.

Some stucco survives, some is fallen from the ceiling, suspended by chicken wire. The shadows looks like a space battle to me, the graffiti, an alien.

This is less of a #WhatsItWednesday, more of a #TheDetailsAreCool.

The roof is gone, but the chicken wire that held it together remains, forming intricate geometries of light and shadow.

En route to Tonopah, I came upon a rest stop that was long since defunct. I stopped anyway and enjoyed myself, photographing the decay.

I decided to take a lightning trip out to Ely, Nevada, for the annular eclipse yesterday. I left Friday afternoon, returned Saturday, 27 hours total, with a very light sleep in Tonopah. I’m a little muddled about what day it is and where I am. But thanks to the loan of some sun filters from my neighbor, I was well prepared to take some photos, and Ely, though all the hotels were booked solid, was still basically empty, so logistics were easy. The optimal spot was about an hour north of Ely, on highway 93, but as I drove north, the valley was increasingly covered with clouds. Worried that the event would be obscured, I decided to stop short. I found a turnout with just a few cars there already, even thought the eclipse was well underway. Such is life in Nevada. I arrived after the eclipse started, so I took a hand-held test shot through the clouds. It turned out to be one of my favorites. The fully formed ring was amazing, but I also enjoyed the moments leading up to the coincidence. At one point, the sun really reminded me of Viking horns (which apparently aren’t historically accurate, alas). Even closer to the peak moment, the moon was tangent to the sun, which produced this earring effect. You may note the change in color between images. It varies throughout my film roll and I don’t have a good explanation yet. I’m glad I took the trip, both because of the immediate experience, and because I am now far better prepared for the full eclipse next spring.

The annular eclipse, touted as the “Western Ring of Fire.” The geometry is so perfect it doesn’t seem real. Photographed from just north of Ely, Nevada.

This morning’s stage.

Tucson to Tucumcari, Tehachapi to…

Don’t go. It’s Friday the 13th. I need someone to be with me. I mean it. Please don’t go. Don’t. Go.

Even the fruit of the cucumber plant has spines. Don’t fruit usually tempt critters to consume them, so that they distribute the seeds?

Cucumber leaves are pretty scary, close up.

We interrupt our series on the horrors of cucumber vines to bring you #WhatsItWednesday.

Some people are scared of spiders, but if I ever made a horror film, I’d use stop-motion footage of cucumber vines to freak people out.

Spider alert. Click on the image to see it. Orb weaver spiders are plentiful this year.

Oxford Languages definition of languid is missing an image: adjective: languid 1. (of a person, manner, or gesture) displaying or having a disinclination for physical exertion or effort; slow and relaxed. "the terrace was perfect for languid days in the Italian sun" My humble submission:

I’m enjoying a rare visit from Diego without his supermodel brother Greybear, who tends to hog the spotlight. When Diego moved into the prime sunlight this morning, I dropped everything and got out the good lens. Reviewing the photos, I note that he enjoys the heat, but disdains the light.

Round Valley in the late afternoon often makes a natural sundial. Whenever I see this, I start singing “Sunny Hours” by the Long Beach Dub Allstars, one of my favorite hip-hop songs. I only count the sunny hours, brightest hours of day. I never count the gloomy hours I let them slip away.

I had fun shooting these inner corn husk leaves. They are very moist and floppy when you shuck the corn, but quickly dry out and curl up. I saw what looked like a snail in the compost bin, plucked it out, and did a quick photo shoot on the dining room table.

In this #WhatsItWednesday, everybody was kung-fu fighting.

Sometimes, the travel schedule is too tight and there are too many photographs to take, so you have to shoot out the passenger window while driving.

Mt Tom and the four Gabled got a fresh coat of snow on Saturday.

Yesterday morning, I drove south to LA just as a big storm was covering the Sierra Nevada. There was fresh snow on the high peaks from Mt Tom all the way to Mt Whitney. Somewhere between Independence and Lone Pine, I stopped to take this photo. Snow in September has people very excited.

I don’t think these reeds are cattails, but they will have to do for #caturday.

Fade to grey. We’ve had haze in the Owens Valley, recently. I suspect there is a small fire somewhere to the south.

Tote that barge. Lift that bale.

Hey, #WhatsItWednesday, long time no see.

Mt Tom, under cloudy skies, has a few large snow fields left at the beginning of fall, but those clouds also brought a light dusting of fresh snow. The Farmer’s Almanac says to expect another wet winter.

Every shade of blue-grey.

A big cumulonimbus cloud formed in the late afternoon, but moved on to the east before bestowing any rain, I think.

Peekaboo.

Statler and Waldorf watch the sun set.

It looks like Mt Tom is erupting, but that is just one of our crazy clouds.

Beam me up, Scotty.

Long Valley has a big sky. To get a sense of how dynamic the winds and clouds can be here, consider that this was taken 18 minutes before yesterday’s photo.

Long Valley grasses near Lake Crowley. Long Valley is a caldera, the site of a supervolcano that erupted 730,000 years ago. It is both enormous and beautiful.

Long Valley often seems to have these high cirrus clouds of just the right thickness to photograph them backlit by the sun.

Releasing a rehabilitated Peregrine falcon.

#peregrine img.left { float: left; max-width: 40%; height: auto; padding-right: 2em; } #peregrine img.right { float: right; max-width: 40%; height: auto; padding-left: 2em; } #peregrine div { background-color: #DDD; max-width: 70em; } #peregrine div div { clear: both; background-color: #DDD; padding: 1em; width: auto; } #peregrine div p { padding: 2em; } Releasing a rehabilitated Peregrine falcon. Again, no cats on #caturday, but I hope you will find this an acceptable alternative. I have the good fortune to live next to Debbie, a professional birder. A month ago, she found a young Peregrine falcon with one claw caught in a hole in a fence post. She extracted the claw, wrapped the bird in a light jacket, and drove to a local wildlife rehabilitation center while holding it on her lap and keeping her dogs from getting too curious. Yesterday, the bird was deemed ready for release. The toe that had been caught had suffered permanent damage, but the falcon could catch food and hang on to hardware cloth, so they figured it could survive on its own. Debbie and her husband Mike invited me along, knowing I would enjoy the release and take photos. We drove to a spot near where the bird was found, but well away from the troublesome fence. Here's what happened next. At the west end of Lake Crowley, in the huge, grassy Long Valley, Debbie set down the cat carrier with the falcon and checked to see how it was doing. The falcon seemed fine, so Debbie released the lock and opened the door. The young Peregrine falcon took a step forward and peered outside. The falcon took one jump and flap and lit on the ground a few feet from the carrier. After a short rest, just a few seconds, the Peregrine falcon took flight. It flew over the water, and then started spiraling upward. It flew with no difficulty and wasted no time gaining altitude. Just a few minutes after release, the falcon had reached the clouds and started flying to the west until we lost track of it. The proud parents. As we packed up, I wondered what their cat, Diego the Dark Lord of Destruction, would think of the new smells on his carrier. Postscript: one of the images shows a motor home in the background. On the way out, we discovered he was stuck and gave him a tow.

Overly dramatic sunset.

High-key sunset.

empath : empathy :: _____ : apathy

A low-key sunset.

Band of Granite. Wheeler Crest with a spotlight on it.

Well, we finally had clear skies when a rocket went up from Vandenberg last night. I took a photo. You can almost see something. The dot is the base of the rocket, the curve below is the exhaust plume. Or I might need to clean my lens.

Baby clouds sliding down the mountain canyon.

Pleasant Valley, where the Owens River spreads out into oxbows, from Chalk Bluff Road. With all the snow and rain, the Coyote Willow and similar shrubs have really been filling up the valley floor and obscuring the river.

No cats for #caturday, so I decided to go with some hummingbirds that were kung-fu fighting. (Those birds were fast as lightning.)

Good morning!

Some days we have a distinct wind layer that is just floating atop the warm air near the ground. It may be there all the time, but we notice it when the mountains kick off puffy cumulonimbus clouds that rise…and then get torn to shreds.

Partial cloud cover at the right time of day puts the rugged, granite crags of Wheeler Crest in sharp relief.

From low to high, Owens River to the high Sierra. As you look up, you see the Horton Creek drainage, then higher up it switches to the high peaks feeding Bishop Creek. The river is obscured by the thirsty Coyote Willow. The Tungsten Hills fill the mid-ground.

Another pretty breakfast.

Tuff Henge. Blocks of Bishop Tuff lay on the Pleasant Valley floor, fallen from the cliff behind the camera.

There were monsters in the sky yesterday.

Sawmill Road in the Horton Creek valley. Still cycling through photos from Tropical Storm Hilary.

Today’s game is “find the thermocline.”

Sunflowers growing along Horton Creek, Coyote Willow lining banks. The Tungsten Hills are brown and dry in the distance, with Mt. Tom hidden by clouds of Hurricane Hilary.

Tuff and poof. The pink rock is Bishop Tuff, the welded volcanic ash upon which we live. The poof, well, that’s just the usual white stuff in the sky.

Horton Creek drainage, sunflowers blooming, looking to Pleasant Valley and the White Mountains.

Round Valley pastures lead to Mt. Tom, Pine Creek Canyon, and Wheeler Crest.

Round Valley, with cloud cover courtesy of Tropical Storm Hilary.

A recent conversation with Diego. #caturday Diego: Did you say something? Me: Please don’t put your claws into the upholstery. Diego: Whatever.

As Tropical Storm Hilary waned, she left a parting gift.

Oooooooohhhhh.

Time for #WhatsItWednesday, Towers of Power edition. What’s up with these towers?

Filed under #InvoluntarySculpture.

Hilary pretty much obscured Mt. Tom yesterday.

At the market, the young checker was having trouble with the scale, anxious that it was actually broken. I remarked that they were sensitive devices, and added, “Pretty much by definition.” Imagine my shock when he actually laughed out loud. I usually just get quizzical looks at remarks like that.

As Tropical Storm (née Hurricane) Hilary approached, the skies leapt into action.

In August, we usually have no clouds, searing sun, and everything is parched. But this year is anything but usual. This curtain of rain fell on the valley a week ago, well before Hurricane Hilary came knocking.

I don’t know what they wanted, but I had the urge to back away slowly. #caturday

Every time we get clouds like this, I hear Dan Akroyd’s voice in my head, saying “What he means is Old Testament, Mr Mayor. Real wrath-of-god type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the sky!”

I believe this is the dust kicked up from two bulls wallowing. If you look closely, you can just make out their silhouettes. Here’s what the National Park Service has to say about bison wallowing.

Time for #WhatsItWednesday. Expected difficulty: moderate for the general solution, extremely difficult for the specific one.

We continue to get more storms than I’ve been used to, even through the summer. Here, storm clouds gather over Mt Tom and Wheeler Crest, with a spotlight sneaking through to Pine Creek Canyon.

I’m told these are not Brown-eyed Susans, but common sunflowers (Helianthus annuus). What remains true is that they are blooming like mad. My local bird expert is excited for the fall, as this bumper crop of seed may attract a big influx of birds.

Rummaging through old files, I found a short entry in a folder named “Writing”. Last modified in 2020, I have absolutely no memory of it. Reproduced in its entirety: I dreamed I was the winterkeeper. Nothing left to prove and everything to get rid of. I converted my fat to survival skills. Worship the buffalo. Envy really. Live without shelter, rut with abandon, fill the plains with life. Tell lies, like “When I was born my daddy put a camera in my hand.”

In my neighborhood, when you get a text in the evening, it’s likely a “beauty call”, which means you should grab your camera and go outside. The text I got last night was “u better be looking out your window.”

Today, I admonished a cat not to wolf down his food.

While I was looking for the dance flies, the sun went down behind the ridge, putting a spotlight on their mating dance.

Brown-eyed Susans are everywhere this year.

RIP Robbie Robertson. Listen to “Music from Big Pink” yesterday to remember his genius. I pulled in to Nazareth, was feelin’ ‘bout half past dead…

Another type of #WhatsItWednesday. Can you explain this?

After record snowfall, record runoff makes for great waterfalls. Horsetail Falls, June Lake.

I went searching for the dance flies and the Brown-eyed Susans. I climbed down into the marsh, where the dense banks of Coyote Willow swallowed up all the open views. I had to navigate by dead reckoning until I found this spot.

As the road turns, so do the utility lines.

Best wifi password I’ve seen in a while, at a brewery/restaurant: pikabrew.

Before. During. After.

Horton Creek drainage, with clouds of flies doing their mating dance. This is a wider shot of the same scene as yesterday’s photo, with focus on a nearby swarm.

The answer to yesterday’s puzzle. In summer, these flies gather in large clouds and spiral upward. I once read these are mating flights, eggs and sperm mixing in the air, but I’ve lost the reference. These appear where cattle have been grazing, so I think they are a kind of dung fly.

A study in contrasts, a Spotify playlist put Prince’s “Kiss” and Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You” in sequence.

A different sort of #WhatsItWednesday.

The Owens River in Pleasant Valley is full, the flora is rampant. The bluff on the north side shows off the local Bishop Tuff.

Pleasant Valley in peak summer.

Another bit of cirrus lit from below by the setting sun.

It felt like these clouds were sending me a message, but I still don’t know what it is.

I guess this is #WhatsItFriday.

A building in Mammoth Lakes presenting an abstract view.

The eastern slope of Mt Tom becomes alluvial rubble, filling the valley floor.

Deactivated my twitter account. I left it fallow for 6 months or so. Nothing good happened.

Rain on the Volcanic Tablelands.

It’s always darkest before the dawn. But what about sunset?

If yesterday was for meditation, today is a day for inspiration. Let your thoughts float, expand, and catch the light.

Homeoclock: a device that tells you the time as the ancient Chinese cultures understood it.

It’s a good day to let your mind meander, deep and hidden, like the river that cut this canyon.

When someone says, “Come see the hummingbird chicks,” don’t dawdle, because just a few days is enough for them to outgrow their nest and fly. The near one took off when I got too close. Fun fact, many hummers use spider web silk to make their nests expandable.

Sunset over Wheeler Crest, earlier this week. We got rain the next day.

I feel like “phonetic” should be spelled with an “f”.

I don’t have a true #WhatsItWednesday, but how about we play #WhatDoYouSee? #RorschachClouds

The sky couldn’t make up its mind yesterday, so it just produced every kind of cloud it knew how.

I thought breakfast was kind of pretty: cast iron pan, black beans, tomato sauce, an egg, and hot sauce.

Hot outside already, harsh light, so I went for something soft and cool inside.

The broken lines of pergola.

You know it’s summer when the zucchini ripen like wildfire: Just picked at 6:00 pm tonight, Thursday, 7/13/23: a boxful of different varieties of organic small to medium zucchinis! They are chilled and ready to go home with YOU!!! Take an armful!

On the southern shore of Mono Lake, even when shrubs do get a foothold, fire may come through and put a stop to that.

A vague, meandering statement that is neither true nor meaningful.

The southeastern shore of Mono Lake is a tough place to make a living, even for a Jeffrey Pine.

I think there is still time for #WhatsItWednesday, even if it’s already Thursday for all you furriners.

Flooded pastures are a common sight this year only due to the deep snow and high runoff.

Most years, this is a mud puddle, an artificial widening of a creek diversion that goes dry in summer. Except, this year, the runoff still hasn’t peaked yet, so the water continues to overflow it. Views like this are hard to come by in our valley.

Where the water runs down from the Sierra Nevada, ranchers made roads and lined them with Cottonwood trees. Decades later, this road is an oasis of shade.

In the future, when they say, “Elon Musk broke Twitter,” it won’t mean the same thing as it does today.

Hagemite, a dark brown paste with a bitter umami flavor, made by boiling children in a cauldron. Hagemite is produced and sold by witches, marketed as a healthy breakfast food for children.

The time a witch can stay aloft on her broom.

It’s summer, so Greybear is cooling off by keeping his paws outside the sheepskin-lined bed. Sheesh. #Caturday

When I took this, I was trying for “landscape as body”, because somewhere in there I saw a figure. In post-processing, the illusion was gone. So I tried the digital equivalent of squinting, reducing local contrast to a minimum. I still don’t see a figure, but I’m intrigued by the result.

That feeling when… the cat knocks over the trash can, you drop yesterday’s socks on him as punishment, but he just thinks he is being rewarded with toys.

A #VisualPuzzle for #WhatsItWednesday. I think you will find this isn’t what it looks like.

It’s the 4th of July, clear skies, a light breeze, and pushing towards 100F. So I’m looking at photos of rain from a few weeks ago.

Summer has arrived in force, along with the predictably cloud-free skies, so I reached back a few weeks to find a picture that felt cooler.

Just two blokes hangin’ out, a day late and a dollar short for #caturday.

When a cat is hunting mode, and you wiggle your finger within range, you are a…

If I fits, I sits. #Caturday

Same rain as yesterday’s photo, just further up the valley, showing the Buttermilk Hills in the foreground, Grouse Mountain in the mid-ground.

Rain over Bishop Creek.

Time for #WhatsItWednesday. Well, it’s kind of obvious what it is, but what is it, really? I think iit’s an orange warrior and his glowing orange weapon, but who am I to say?

To end the series, I’m revisiting the beginning. This is the same cloud just ten minutes later. Winds rising up over this ridge will reshape clouds quickly, often stretching puffy little balls into sheaves of white streaks. In this case, I think the winds textured the bottom of the cloud.

Closeup of the last cloud formation in the series. I really don’t know what to call this.

Part 4 in the series of clouds from a single evening. This cloud runs from south to north, forming where the cold moist winds over the Sierra meet the hot desert air. We often see long clouds in this arc, but this shape is very different. Links to the first, second, and third posts in the series.

This photo of another bank of clouds is looking south to the Coyote Hills, where the Eastern Sierra Nevada dribbles down to the desert. This is the third photo in the series, all clouds from the same evening. The first and second photos were looking northwest and east, respectively.

Yesterday’s photo was taken facing westward. Today’s shows the view to the east, a bank of lenticular clouds over the White Mountains.

Last week I walked outside at sunset to see this. It turned out to be the least dramatic cloudscape in the sky that day. More to come.

Time for #WhatsItWednesday.

When I look at these clouds, I hear Joni Mitchell singing, “…and ice cream castles in the air.”

Mt. Tom, feeling quietly furious, though it doesn’t know why.

Finishing off the photos from last week’s trip to the Parker Bench super-bloom. The yellow flowers are Arrowleaf Balsamroot, which, frankly, is not the greatest name.

Buff the kitty, he don’t care what appendage you use. #caturday

It’s a banner year for moths, presumably fuelled by all the rain. Every night 20-30 get in and I have to vacuum them up. This one took an interest in the latest soccer news on reddit.

Neighbors.

Deadman Creek is running high and fast with runoff from record snowfall.

A California mule deer doe keeps an eye on me as she eats some Bitterbrush. I’m told that Bitterbrush is the mule deer’s primary source of fat, so it gets propagated everywhere around here.

I was out scouting for firewood and the views of the record snowpack in the Sierra were pretty great.

That feeling you drank just a bit too much.

Arrowleaf Balsamroot and Blue Lupine on Parker Bench, looking north to Mono Lake.

Arrowleaf Balsamroot having a banner year at Parker Bench near Mono Lake.

Me: Mortimer! Mortimer: What? Me: Look up! Mortimer: Ohhhhhhh!

Point of Rock Spring, Ash Meadows. According to the park brochure, the water that emerges in these springs has been underground for thousands of years.

Everything is flat for miles in all directions. What is that cone warning me about? It seems like a dare. I wanted to drive on that spot just to see what would happen.

Crystal Reservoir, Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, where deep Mojave water flows emerge in the middle of the desert to make a few precarious habitats.

I brought my own absurdity to the desert. Before I drive through Death Valley, I stock up on food and water. A supermarket in Las Vegas has decent sushi, which I put on ice in a cooler. I was in Ash Meadows, looking at freshwater fish in desert pools, when it struck me how ridiculous this was.

The desert seems to collect absurdities. Infrastructure is often crumbling, or improvised, signs that big dreams have failed in the harsh conditions and more modest ones have taken their place.

I drove through Death Valley National Park yesterday, and I had the pleasure of witnessing this dust devil. Correction: I did drive through Death Valley, but this was near Ash Meadows.

This is Mortimer, named when the vet’s assistant said male, not renamed when another said female. Mortimer is a small, shy cat who only comes out to play when everything is quiet. A rubber band and an office chair provided a fifteen minutes of amusement.

The sign reads: Theo’s MUSEUM OF INTERESTING THINGS Have a beautiful day! Est. 2020

These magenta flowers grow on long stems, forming a layer of color hovering above pale sage-green leaves.

I can’t believe the New York Times doesn’t recognize “deligod”.

Yesterday I saw a snail dreaming of writing a novel.

Nevada wears its geology on its sleeve.

Name a bookyou love that nobody else seems to know about or appreciate. Mine is “Doorways in the Sand”, by Roger Zelazny. I am reading it for the many-eth time, and still enjoy it.

My brother and sister-in-law are serial Golden Retriever owners, first Budger, then Bingley, now Booker. I have to think every time I need the current name, so I’ve decided on a coping strategy. I’m just going to use MRGR, pronounced like “merger”, which stands for Most Recent Golden Retriever.

On this Memorial Day I honor this fallen horse and the friend he left behind. I stop for photos at their paddock, and they always come over to check for carrots. Alas, I stopped by last week just as the rancher was arriving with a front-loader, the horse equivalent of a hearse. RIP

Pedestrians have the right of way at crosswalks.

His Majesty, in royal slumber.

“What do you ask of your King, subject?”

A bird’s-eye view proves the world is made of cotton fluff.

Late afternoon light and shape.

The light and space attracted a mother to give her baby girl room to roam.

Just light.

This should totally be a word.

Smoke signals. I think it says, “Stand up and go outside.”

As the snow melts, the mountains become blander and the pastures bright with greenery and flowers. The party is always where the water is.

I need to set up a family chat room. I need a technology that will support users from multiple generations, all devices, and won’t start any fights. What is your answer to this impossible question?

Virga over the White Mountains, lit with just a hint of sunset.

Yesterday had the perfect cloud.

Uh-oh. Maybe I should turn around?

Wind turbines, Mojave, California. This is the photo I was after when I pulled over and saw this scene.

The scene of the crime for yesterday’s #WhatsItWednesday. I stopped to photograph wind turbines and found a radiator and a child’s car seat. I feel like someone’s life exploded.

Time for #WhatsItWednesday.

I found Chumbawamba’s album “Tubthumper” a few years ago, and I come back to it sporadically. The lines that tickle me, but are also always strangely haunting: Do you suffer from long-term memory loss? I don’t remember.

From the back catalog, a lovely lizard at the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve. I got down low to get a closer photo at a better angle, but alas, it did not care for my company. Update: an expert tells me this is a Side-blotched Lizard (Uta stansburiana). Not the most flattering moniker.

Late afternoon clouds over Mt Tom. This is the time of year where cloudscapes are frequent but not very menacing.

I came up with a new insult. You are as unpleasant as a solar shower at the end of a long hike on a cloudy day. No points for guessing what inspired it.

Last week had a few really good days for clouds, and this seemed like a good Sunday photo.

Shade on sand.

This made me think of Ferdinand the Bull, just resting peacefully in the shade.

Last year’s drought brought fire, this year’s record rain and snowfall brought re-growth.

Waterfalls are everywhere this year!

I’ll let the clouds do the talking.

The Coyotes Hills are brooding.

Cumulonimbus over the White Mountains. We’ve had clear skies for most of the month. Great to see some poof back in the sky.

I bet the cattle are enjoying all this water, fresh greens to munch on all over the place.

The old shed down the road always looks a bit haunted in afternoon light, even with spring growth bursting around it.

Just a reminder to keep going, despite the obstacles.

Time for #WhatsItWednesday.

I used to get confounding directives from marketing about product versioning. They actively avoided sortable, consistent labeling schemes. And then I read this: …Wrexham have won promotion to League Two at the second time of asking, the English Football League’s fourth division…

Rain clouds over Bishop. We are just getting reports of how much summer runoff we are going to get (a lot), so for once, the rain is making people twitch a bit.

Contrails, smeared by wind, hovering over the White Mountains at dawn.

Rest stop pergola, Owens Valley.

The Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve was beautiful, but after leaving the park, I discovered denser growth of poppies an fiddlenecks under power lines to the east.

More wildflowers, another raven.

Flowers in the Antelope Valley Reserve. The orange are California Poppies, the tall yellow ones are Fiddlenecks. The low purple ones might be Filaree. Not sure what the low yellow ones are.

A beautiful flower with a name that didn’t age well: Blue dicks.

I thought these were Blue Lupines, but according to a wildflower guide, the more likely species to be found in the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve is the Grape Soda Lupine, named for their distinctive scent. The yellow flowers are Fiddlenecks.

A raven flies over the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve.

A Horned Lark at the Poppy Reserve, a species I’ve only seen once before, a few years ago in western Nevada.

Greybear demanding attention after sticking his head in the way while I was doling him out some yogurt. #caturday

I predict there will be controversy over today’s pangram.

It’s called the Poppy Reserve, but it really has all sorts of wildflowers in grasslands on rolling hills. The yellow flowers in the foreground are fiddlenecks, which are distinct from fiddle-head ferns, but they do unfurl in a similar way.

I visited the Poppy reserve in Antelope Valley recently. The light wasn’t great, but after the rains, the blooms and landscapes were worth capturing anyway.

Time for a visual puzzle, although this is more in the style of #WhatsItWednesday. Does looking at these make your fingernails ache?

Another lone tree in Pleasant Valley. Chalk Bluffs behind, then the White Mountains.

Red paint. Yeah, that’s the ticket. That’s what I’ll tell them.

Burned in a fire a few years ago, Pleasant Valley has many skeletons of trees, while the grasses show no trace. The Chalk Bluffs catch light in the background.

A lone Cottonwood tree stands in the floodplain below the White Mountains.

There are earth-movers everywhere these days, restoring roads and water channels after the flooding.

Entertaining cats with a box and a toy fishing rod.

Saturday morning cattoons. #caturday

I have cats this weekend, so I can #caturday. It got a little chilly overnight, so Diego was catching the morning light for warmth.

Nature’s spotlight was in full effect this day. The Fish Slough peak is lit up in the mid-ground, with the White Mountains looming behind, and a Cottonwood tree doing the limbo.

Taken from the same location as yesterday’s photo, but facing west instead of east. @miraz This is the counterpoint to effect we have been extolling (heavy dark clouds in the background with a shaft of horizontal light hitting the foreground), shooting into that light and catching a reflection.

A Cottonwood among the power poles. Is that like a cat among the pigeons?

For those who play cribbage, my best hand in a while.

Fence post and barbed wire, Riverside Road. White Mountains in the background.

Five Bridges is a large flood plain with the occasional lone tree. Fire swept through a few years ago. The grasses and willows have recovered. The skeletons of Cottonwoods remain.

After shopping in town, I stopped by some canals to see the high water levels. The clouds and the setting sun looked promising, so I went to Five Bridges, a spot in the valley that comes to life in partial cloud cover. It did not disappoint, and those photos will run for the rest of the week.

I’m looking forward to a summer with snow on the heights.

Clouds were filling up the far valley, looked to me like something gigantic was boiling.

Fit a curve to these points: Nights and Weekends, 2008 Lady Bird, 2017 Little Women, 2019 Barbie, 2023

What’s up? Red-tailed butt.

California.

Time for a visual puzzle.

The eggs are worshiping idols and whispering behind my back.

I found an owl in my pear.

Life at intermediate altitudes is getting easier. Roads are cleared or being repaired, the days are warmer and dry. Snow continues to fall on the peaks, which is good for skiers and photographers. But the folks down in the flood plains are preparing a lot of snow melt this summer.

Rain on the horizon.

This immature Red-tailed Hawk needs practice defending itself. It came to our neighborhood recently, but yesterday a pair of ravens took exception, attacking in mid-air, knocking it off perches. I have not seen the hawk since, so maybe it moved on.

It’s not often we have standing water, and when we do, we often have cloud cover. The desert scrub isn’t very bright without full, scorching sunlight, so the result is a very dark mirror.

The landscapes here are often sliced horizontally. Rapid changes in altitude and geology create corresponding changes in ecosystems. The White Mountains rise 10,000’ from the Owens Valley. They separate valley from sky, with many zones in between.