@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.

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.

@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.

@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.

Shark’s teeth on Wheeler Crest looking pearly white.

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.

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.

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.

@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.

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.

Spring is not prompt this year, but I’m not complaining. The copious snow and rain is a great relief, even if it does wash out the roads. The warmth will come soon enough and then the desert flora will explode with exuberance.

One of the double-edged swords of the internet is that we get to know people’s pets, wherever they may be. We ramble along with the happy times, then get sideswiped by the grief when they die. We can’t offer much in support from afar, but here’s what I imagine dog afterlife should be.

This is firewood, but I really want to make an instrument out of it. Maybe a mandolin? A small harp?

Greybear in the sun on a lazy Caturday, pondering how to add spice to his life. He decided the best way was to attack his brother.

To get photographs of special moments in the mountains, it helps to live among them, so you have home court advantage, so to speak.

Someone decided not to take a chance climbing the hill in the snow and turned around.

Time for a visual puzzle.

On Monday, I ran into my first insect of the spring, a wood ant that hitched a ride on my socks. These ants are really annoying, and very stinky when you crush them. I set out a bait trap, but the next morning we got four inches of snow, which I hope will deter them for a few more days.

If you look closely at the highway in the lower right corner, you will see a tiny white dot. That is an 18-wheeler travelling through our valley.

I went to the sun room to photograph houseplants, but I was diverted by a cat sleeping in a box. These are decorative organizing boxes.which are pretty, but the glue stinks, so I set them out in the sun to off-gas. Diego didn’t mind the smell and I forgot all about the plants.

The analog view is my antidote to a digital career.

Today’s Spelling Bee wants to enter the photo challenge.

Looking back through the snow pics from the last month or two, giving second chances. Spring is gathering speed, but I still want to celebrate this winter. Eaves and pergola frame the view, my substitute for a portico.

The Clark’s Nutcracker is a corvid native to the western United States and Canada. They harvest and store pine nuts, and can remember the location of thousands of caches, which allows them to return from migration early, before spring.

The base of Mt Tom in snow and cloud. The snow in the center canyon is disturbed by an avalanche. To the lower left and lower right, partial snow cover exposes roads cut into the mountain.

This shot took patience: find the camera, then an SD card, then struggle with autofocus. I was lucky the bird stayed put. My local bird expert confirmed this is a Violet Green Swallow, and that she’d never seen such a closeup. Note the rain beaded on its feathers.

My horizons have been dramatic, recently. Volcanic Tablelands in the foreground, White Mountains behind, fog in the Owens Valley in between. Towers of the Pacific DC Intertie bracket the scene.

Light makes connections between physical structures.

We’ve had rain, flood, power outages, deep snow, deep cold, now more rain, even bigger floods. A section of our road to the south collapsed on Friday, while the northern route was still closed with ice and snow. And the deepest cut of all, today we woke up to daylight savings time.

In a landscape muted by rain, one shiny cloud stands out.

These mountains are gimcrack. They look nice, but a little weather comes along and they fall apart. I mean, this is supposed to be a dry creek. Sheesh.

My coffee ritual involves a french press and a mug preheated with boiling water, covered with a stainless steel prep bowl of milk. The coffee stays hot, the milk gets warm, but never curdles, and the mug is usually just too hot to touch after the pour, perfect for an atmospheric river event.

Two things I’ve not seen together before: my neighbors’ Baja garden and 2 feet of snow. Makes for nice patterns, though.

If I had my way, my retirement home would be on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Why? Photos. I’m bookmarking this page to visit more regularly for articles like this.

Walking under the eaves becomes more challenging with a large snow pack melting on the roof.

We got enough snow that the whole landscape changed character. It always looks stark, but now especially so, despite being simultaneously more beautiful.

In my neighborhood, the contrast between human engineering and landscape is so stark, the nature of photographs changes wildly with small adjustments in composition.

Yesterday’s loaf turned out nicely, but I didn’t think to photograph it until after I had sampled. The supporting cast here is a trivet made of contrasting wooden tiles, my preferred setting for food photography. Cleverly made, the tiles connected by wire, it is fun to fold and fiddle with.

I managed to catch Jupiter and Venus as they zip past each other, just before setting behind the crest.

“Well, that shut them all up. Finally, a little solitude.”

A break in the weather let us see the new fallen snow on Mt Tom, some of which was airborne again due to the high winds.

Well, the photo challenge is on, but I don’t think it’s amiss doing an easy visual puzzle as well.

So close! Wordle 620 2/6 🟩🟩⬛🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

A Northern Flicker manages to secure a meal, even in deep snow. A Roadrunner came walking up the road (sic) soon after, and did not look happy. It was later spotted running across the snow. This is the extreme northern end of their range, so I wouldn’t be surprised if some die.

Snow days can be hard work for parents with young kids.

Snow Days

It snowed more than a foot on Friday, then another foot overnight by Saturday morning. I was just settling down to a weekend of hacking, when the power cut out. So I switched to battery power, and cursed myself that I hadn’t retrieved my larger batteries from a friend’s house. The wood stove was already hot, so I put on a big pot of water, and fried some eggs in a cast iron pan. Later, I used the water to make soba noodles with a sauce of powdered mushroom soup. Meanwhile, we had no indication when the power was going to back on, and it seemed likely crews were going to be delayed making repairs, so I prepped for a long weekend without power. Then I went out and shoveled, again, took some photos with no light, came in and stoked the fire, then did it all again. I took a long nap in the afternoon and woke up to beeps that meant the power was back on. That was lucky, because I had just been dreaming that I needed to put some snow in an ice chest and move the freezer contents outside. But the snow continued to fall, so I went back out to shovel. I woke up Sunday morning to sunlight on trees bent with snow. I got dressed and out immediately with my camera and walked the neighborhood. Total snowfall was approaching 3’, the most this place had seen at once since 2005. Everyone was digging out or heading out skiing. The view down the valley was transformed. It’s rare they get snow down to 4000’, but when it happens, it’s beautiful. My neighbor had visitors coming and needed to dig out a parking spot. Volunteers showed up and made some snow totems while they were at it. Nobody was really sure what this one represented, but we recommend against crossing it, because its creator is pretty fearsome. And as I’m finishing this post, the snow is beginning to fall again…

Mr. Sulu, maximum magnification. Now reduce by a factor of two. Again. Again. Again. That’s as far as she’ll go, Captain.

We don’t mess around with trucks, our plows are construction equipment. We got nearly another foot overnight, and then the power went out for six hours. Fun times.

And the power went out. Crews were set to arrive Monday to finish upgrading our power lines…

Out shooting before dark, I saw two women in thick parkas emerge from a nearby airbnb to play in the newly fallen foot of snow. They stood two yards apart and pelted each other with snowballs, giggling all the while in some Slavic language. A good time was had by all.

Snow cornice forming on my rain gutters.

Status update: 90 minutes later.

Current status.

Super skinny lenticular clouds.

It’s Wednesday, so I think it’s time for a visual puzzle.

We had some nice clouds yesterday. Many were photogenic, but not unexpected. And then there was this monster, for which I have no explanation.

I think today’s loaf was the prettiest I’ve ever made. It’s tasty, too, made from freshly milled rye and hard red winter wheat.

Agonym, definition: a synonym for excruciating pain.

Amongst the myriad harbingers of doom available to depress us, there is one software issue that makes me sigh and worry, seemingly out of proportion with its effect. If I open a page at w3schools in Chrome, when I come back in the morning, the tab has crashed.

And then a rainstorm came down from the mountains and shut down all the dust.

A big wind came up the valley and created a dust storm with crazy atmospheric effects.

Steller’s Jay on the snag. This winter has been good for corvids in our neighborhood. Pinyon Jays are regulars, and we have a small number of Scrub Jays. Ravens are a given. And we have at least a pair of Clark’s nutcrackers, a bird I’d never heard of until I moved here.

Recommendation: The Don Was Motor City Playlist

Yesterday I posted an [impossible puzzle].(https://cliffordbeshers.micro.blog/2023/02/16/what-do-the.html) You weren’t meant to solve it, just to be intrigued. The answer is Don Was, President of Blue Note Records. I knew a little of Don Was, because years ago a friend turned me on to Was_(Not_Was), a band that took me a while to appreciate. I had to invoke my rule of listening to new music at least three times, because I didn’t hear it properly at first. It’s not his band I’m recommending, but only because recommending music is fraught. I tend not to do it anymore, as the success rate is so low. So often what excites me, makes others shrug. But I strongly recommend his radio show, The Don Was Motor City Playlist, on NPR’s WDET Detroit, hosted by Ann Delisi. One or two recent shows are available to stream for free, but the entire backlog is available from Spotify. They have kept me copmpany during many a recent coding session. The show started in 2021, a pandemic project, airing every Friday night at 10PM Eastern time, and it is phenomenal. Don Was turns out to be the Kevin Bacon of modern music. He’s worked with everyone, playing, producing, partying. His stories take you on a ride through the music industry like no other I’ve ever experienced, while he and Ann laugh their asses off at the memories. In between, he selects the most amazing, delightful, and varied playlists I’ve ever heard, yet they effortlessly form a unified whole. So what’s with the puzzle? * At 14, he formed a band called the “Opalescent Hobnails” and almost got signed to a record deal by claiming he wrote songs actually composed by Arthur Lee. * In 2011, when he was down on his luck and ready to quit, he became President of Blue Note Records. * He produced an album for The Highwaymen and watched one night as Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings gave Willie Nelson psychedelic mushroom tea to drink on stage. He said Willie really didn’t seem to mind. * He has worked with the Rolling Stones for over 25 years. * He produced Bonnie Raitt’s Grammy-winning album, Nick of Time * The Dalai Lama picked him out of a crowd, fondled his dreadlocks, asked where he was from, then called music superficial. * He met with Brian Wilson, while the big lawsuit was still going on. Brian had written new songs and wanted to record them with the whole group, but didn’t know how to ask. So Don Was went to San Diego, met the rest of the Beach Boys in a diner, and asked them if they were willing. Next thing he knew, the Beach Boys were at his house, recording a new album. Alas, it never saw the light of day, because Carl Wilson’s death from cancer intervened. Every episode is has stories like that, filled with famous artists of all genres, surrounded by music and laughter to match. @JohnPhilpin Run, dont walk.

What do the following have in common? “Opalescent Hobnails” Blue Note Records Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and psychedelic tea The Rolling Stones Bonnie Raitt Meeting the Dalai Lama on an off day Mediating a Beach Boys reunion

Millpond in winter.

A modest proposal for a micro.blog alternative to Reply All

Here’s something I think would be an awesome little feature for micro.blog. I and many others have asked for a Reply All, but it hasn’t appeared. I suspect that it isn’t hard to implement, it’s just not in the spirit of this community, and might be a road straight to spam. Recently, I was replying to several people and I just tried dragging the name from their reply. It worked, except what I got was the URL of the blog instead of the @name format. What if there were a button or icon in the reply header that, when clicked, would insert into the current open reply area, and when dragged, have “@name” as the drag content? I feel like this would make replying to posts with a lot of comments much more fun.

Hey, it’s Wednesday in my location. Time for a visual puzzle.

And now for something completely different: red onion trio.

A Red-tailed Hawk waits for thirsty critters to make a mistake.

Shift change. Wheeler Crest, lit by sunrise, touched by moonset.

A Robin was giving me the stink-eye today. Pretty tough look from a bird that can’t keep its wings in place.

Girl balancing.

Shadow of an object I’ve had since childhood, a strange trigger in the middle of the afternoon.

Why does old snow get bumpy like this? This patch is on the north side of some brush, on a downslope, so it is still thick when other spots in the sun are now clear. But I think I’ve only just wondered why it is shaped like this.

Here’s a visual puzzle. I know what this is, but there are parts I cannot explain.

Finally, enough precipitation to fill the borrow pit and make a reflecting pond.

It’s been cold here, so I’ve been watching fire, but that’s indoors, of course. Outdoors, I’ve been watching ice.

I find myself watching the fire. Not sure why.

Poconip, Fog on Mono Lake

This week I drove through Lee Vining, the tiny town above Mono Lake, and experienced “poconip” for the first time. A Paiute word, poconip is the name for a dense fog that forms when cold air from the mountains meets the humid air above the lake. It was a sunny day, before 9AM, but the light was swallowed up and we slowed to a crawl. The upside is the rime frost, a delicate covering of frozen fog that adorns all the trees, bushes, power lines, seemingly anything thin and delicate enough to freeze and catch the moist air. At the north side of the lake, we started to climb, and visibility got better, though intermittently. Finally, we climbed back into the sunlight, just like climbing above the clouds in a jet. Looking back, we could see none of the lake water, just a featureless bank of white.

Bird on a wire. In this case, it’s a Magpie, sitting on cables covered in rime frost near Mono Lake. I learned the term ‘poconip’ yesterday, a Paiute term for the fog that forms over the water as the cold Sierra air comes down. The fog is quite the hazard to navigation.

Time for a visual puzzle.

A moment of zen.

What do you do when you want to go skiing in the fresh snow, but the county won’t plow the really steep hill you have to drive down? Well, my neighbor’s solution was to get out his broom and sweep the road.

Birds can be maddening. The ease with which they flit around, the angles they can take, sometimes I get so jealous. And, of course, they can fly. Bastards.

I recommend micro.bloggers play Globle today.

Definition: turncat, noun, a cat that suddenly lashes out while being petted. Alternate definition: cat.

Pine Creek Canyon, after the storm.

Mt Tom, covered in snow, draped with clouds.

Cattle in Pleasant Valley, seemingly unmoved by the snow on the White Mountains.

After sulking, then meditating in the sun, Greybear was finally ready for his contractual photoshoot.

Greybear, in repose.

Greybear, the supermodel, was visiting this past week. Saturday morning the light was streaming in, but he was too sleepy to pose at first.

Another life bird, the Bohemian Waxwing. The Cedar Waxwings have yellow bellies and no wing bars. The Bohemians live in the high Rocky Mountains, so we don’t get them often here. Even the expert birders get excited when they show up. One neighbor just added them to his life list, despite being very experienced.

Runes of fire, secret messages from my woodstove.

A Downy Woodpecker visited this week, an infrequent guest. Normally we get Hairy Woodpeckers. They look similar, but the Hairy Woodpeckers have longer beaks, different markings on the neck. This Downy seems untroubled by gravity. He’s picking bugs out of the dead pine in my back yard. I should really cut it down, but the birds love it and the lack of needles makes it a great photo site, so I’m still conflicted.

Well, the cats are visiting again. They brought their wool cat cave, which they never use. But I couldn’t find Diego, and it’s really cold around the edges, so I wondered, was it possible…? Yup. A black cat in a dark cave. I could just barely see the gleam of an eye. I put my hand in and gave him a pat. Super cozy in there.

Cooper's Hawk on the Snag

A juvenile Cooper’s Hawk visited this morning. Although it might be a Sharp-shinned Hawk. My bird expert wasn’t 100% sure, and I have to send more photos so she can think about it. Since the storms, we’ve had a bunch of birds showing up. Another local expert didn’t think they were fleeing the storms, per se, but were seeking new food sources. I’m not clear what the difference is, and it is clear that divining the reasoning of bird movements is not trivial. They just aren’t that forthcoming about their motivations. But there is something I know for sure. This Cooper’s Hawk was looking downward while he was on that branch, to where rodents and California Quail are always making tracks.

All morning this view was pure white, snow storm everywhere. When the storm broke, the White Mountains peeked through the different type of cloud banks.

Black Mountain was looking very sharp today.

Flooding can be so serene, if you aren’t worried about property damage.

Swaddled in clouds, Wheeler Crest is all dressed up, with nowhere to go.

We’ve had an influx of birds recently, possibly pushed south by the big storms. I suspect this hawk is taking advantage of the population increase to fatten up a little.

Fog over the highway after two days of rain.

We are often on the borderline between snow and rain. With daily temperature swings of 30F-40F, even if it snows, the melting starts soon after. Here, snow on the Cotoneaster bush has started to melt.

If you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes.

That’s what they say about the weather here, and they aren’t wrong. It rained again today, for a bit. Then it snowed. Then it stopped. And then it snowed four inches in two hours. Nobody drove down this hill for most of the day, probably because it had an inch of slush as a base. And now it is all freezing. But at least the stars are out.

How long is a cubit? Asking for a friend...

A few days ago, my neighbor was out with a shovel clearing out a culvert entrance in the ditch next to the road. “It’s going to be 1862 all over again,” he said. “Get your Ark ready.” About the same time, my brother sent me a note, asking if the “bomb cyclone” was affecting us. “A little,” I said, “but mostly it is hitting northern California.” Well, the storms have continued and we’re in the crosshairs now. It has rained for two days, with another to come, and more expected at the end of the week. When my neighbors bought their house, the insurance underwriter asked if they were in a flood zone. They said, “If our house washes away, the world has bigger problems.” I’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, there are normally cows in this pasture. And it’s normally pasture, not a lake. At least it’s pretty. Noah’s ark was supposed to be 50 cubits by 30 cubits by 300 cubits. I don’t think I have that much wood, but then, we don’t have elephants and giraffes here, so maybe we can build smaller.

I have a sudden desire to see a biopic of Gareth Bale starring Christian Bale.

Cinder Cone, Owens Valley

Between Independence and Big Pine, the slope below the Palisades was smooth with snow. On the valley floor is a volcanic cinder cone called Red Mountain. The Owens Valley is full of volcanic structures, all of which I find difficult to photograph. The volcanic rock is dark and pockmarked, and just swallows light. Red Mountain is usually just a dark spot within the image. So the Sierra’s steal the show for now.

Leaving Death Valley, Approaching Lone Pine

This is a classic place to take a photo. You can see it many car commercials and old westerns. Head straight for ten miles and you’ll be in “Afghanistan”, the location for the opening scene of Iron Man. Still gray skies, so no light, but the recent snow storms have brought back some contrast to Mount Whitney and the surrounding high peaks. It was fun driving this road, because there was zero traffic. I could stop and take photos from the centerline if I wanted to.

Death Valley National Park, Joshua Trees

Time was drumming in my ears, get home, get to work, so I turned on the navigation and set my speed to match. Except there’s no signal in Death Valley, barely any turns to make, and its hard to look at the scenery when driving so fast. So I stopped when I saw this in my rear view mirror. The photograph from the road was empty of foreground, except for dots, which niggled at me as I drove on. I passed a dirt road leading north, stopped, backed up. The dots were Joshua Trees. You can go to Joshua Tree National Park to see them in force, but they do grow in patches elsewhere. A patch consists of trees perhaps 50 to 100 yards apart, covering several square miles, like the opposite of a jungle. I never did turn on the navigation, even when I got in cell range. And I kept stopping, even though the skies were grey and the photographs lacked light, because that fresh snow on the peaks was beautiful, and it seemed a shame to waste the drive.

Marking the passage of time. My father (94) with all four sons. New Years Eve, 2022.

Death Valley, muted by grey skies, but brightened by standing water. Strong storms this winter have caused washouts. Many roads are closed, with no estimates for repair. Erosion marks double time here.

Approaching Death Valley from Rhyolite, the mountains in the distance fresh with snow. Cold, barren, yet full of beauty.

The tarmac had leopard spots yesterday. I’ve never seen that before.

Last year, Blur

I meant to post this for Halloween, but it didn’t make the cut for some reason. I am drawn to this photo now as I think back on 2022, and realize that it is already a blur. This is another example of an imperfect photo being more interesting than one that more faithfully reproduces what we see. My New Year’s resolution is to make more mistakes like this.

Remembering the Big Show

I sometimes refer to the cloudscapes here as “the big show”. Everyone sees the quality of light change and goes outside to see what’s up, literally. (Literally “literally”, not “OMG!” literally.) This is what we found one day in May of this year. But today’s big show is the year gone by, and I find myself singing “Across the Great Divide”, by Kate Wolf. I've been walkin' in my sleep Countin' troubles 'stead of counting sheep I don’t really know Kate Wolf’s performance, but Nanci Griffith’s from her amazing album, “Other Voices, Other Rooms.” So it’s Nanci’s voice I’m singing along with in my head. The first thing that surfaces is sadness, remembering her death during the pandemic, and the stories that surfaced about her frustrations at not making it to the big time. Where the years went I can't say I just turned around and they've gone away This past week I’ve been visiting family. My father is 94, hanging on, but has lost a step or three. It’s always good to see him, but the experience is counter-weighted by his loss of mental acuity and the difficulties of caring for him, though that mostly consists of worrying about our step-mother, who shoulders the burden. We are grateful for her magnificent efforts, but she is slow to ask for help, and we fear she will run herself into the ground in the process. I've been siftin' through the layers Dusty books and faded papers My two brothers and sister-in-law who live here help out as they can, and I’m grateful for their efforts as well. I’ve helped out with heavy lifting, but I find it hard to engage in the care process. So I’ve helped review the paperwork and worried about terms and conditions, provided food and entertainment, and hope I’ve done enough. They tell a story I used to know And it was one that happened so long ago And in the quiet moments, I fnd myself swimming in memories, revisiting decisions I’ve made, or, more often, not made, that have changed the flow of my life. It's gone away in yesterday Now I find myself on the mountainside Where the rivers change direction Across the Great Divide And I look back at this photo of a cloud like no other I’ve seen, a visual manifestation of immense flow and turbulence, and remember that we can only control so much. We make decisions with too little information and too much bias, and there seems little chance that life will go exactly as we plan. The big show continues regardless of how we choose, and I remind myself to put down my burdens, go outside, and enjoy the sky when it lights up.

Clouds at the end

Since it has been such a banner year for clouds, I thought I would close with a few more photos of them. Does this photo remind you of one I posted earlier in the December retrospective? Does it surprise you that these photos were taken nearly a month apart? If you went down to a creek and saw the same standing waves on different days, would that surprise you? I think this is the most startling thing about lenticular clouds. They form in standing waves shaped by mountains and valleys. If the wind and humidity are similar on two different days, similar cloud patterns will form. And again, they don’t travel with the wind, they remain where the pressure changes happen. That’s what I tell myself when I get wanderlust: all the exciting stuff happens right here where the pressure changes are. There’s no need to go running around the globe to see amazing things, there are enough here right in your own backyard. Yeah, well, that trick never works for long, but it does get me to go to new locations near me looking for unknown things, tucked away in little canyons.

Rabbit Brush, Yellow

The desert scrub isn’t always the most photogenic. I work to make it so, since it really is beautiful, but I feel I often have mixed results. But in the fall, the Rabbit Brush blooms and turns the desert bright yellow, a beautiful sight to everyone except those allergic to Rabbit Brush pollen. Rabbits like to hide in these bushes, which I think is where they get the name. If I walk off the trail, flushing a rabbit by accident is pretty common. It happens often enough that I think there are two lines of defense: hide in the bramble and hope not to be detected; if that fails, sprint through the open spaces between shrubs, taking random turns to make them hard to follow. We have jackrabbits here, with lonnnng ears, skinny torsos, and legs that look two sizes too large for them. Curiously, they remind me of the lowrider cars of East L.A., fitted with hydraulics that make them bounce high on demand. I’ve been distracted from my retrospective by holiday weather and events. I hope you don’t mind. This photo returns me to the program and I hope finish the year out strong with some cloud photos I’ve been hanging on to.

Natural patterns, big and small

When I am in urban or sub-urban landscapes, I tend to avoid the man-made. There is always some influence from construction, of course, but I seek out photos with a majority of naturalness. That inevitably means I narrow my view and look down. The scenes with buildings seem either mundane, or, if elegant, then like they are someone else’s work. These rocks are part of landscaping, but the pattern is random enough that the interaction with snow produces something that feels natural. I’m not fully sure why I do this. I guess it’s my style.

Lay, Lady, Lay.

Mortimer, Tiger Girl

Apparently, there is a book about a cat named Mortimer, though for the life of me I can’t google it. My brother got a wee little frail cat and named it after the cat in the book, only to discover on a trip to the vet that his new cat was female. So, his Mortimer is a girl. And she is a very pretty little thing. But Mortimer is also fierce, displaying the personality of a tiger to go with her stripes. She intimidates the dog, who is perhaps 60 pounds heavier. Another cat , Figg, came to visit for Christmas, who is much larger, but there were many spirited discussions between them about appropriate behavior, in which Mortimer held her own. And she was so stressed by all this that any attempts to pet her were an exhibition in bi-polar behavior, rubbing the furniture to invite you in, then hissing and swiping to drive you away. It was many days before I managed to get a photo. I found her curled up at the feet of her human, late in the evening. She was comfortable enough to let me approach with my phone, but I dared not mess with the lighting, lest I break the mood. Always take an insurance shot of the scene as you find it, from the position you are in. Only then try and get closer, add light, or do anything else to improve the photo.

Interruptions

I don’t know whose chalks these are, but I completely understand why they didn’t put them away. Temperatures dropped precipitously last week, from above freezing to below 0F in an afternoon. I have a full beard, a scarf, and a good hat, but the cheeks and eyes complained pretty bitterly about being left uncovered. I imagine the child (of whatever age) who left these behind had little motivation to retrieve them. To be fair, chalk is a consumable, not a tool to be maintained for a lifetime. And as long as it stays below freezing, I don’t think the elements will hurt these much. It just raises in my the perpetual question of workspace management. For projects that take longer than one session, that need to fit in the cracks of normal scheduling, how do you manage them? Do you get another desk and set up your tools and leave them there? Do you make a new toolbox and fit in everything you need, packing and unpacking on demand? Neither really work for me. I do better if I schedule enough time to make it all happen in one go. Unfortunately, that often means projects get delayed for long periods. It would be nice to leave everything, run inside for hot cocoa, and not come back until spring.

Christmas photobomb with a moral

The Christmas sermon was about how different the Christian mythology is from so many other religions. In most, god takes human form as a powerful warrior and leader. But the baby Jesus is born poor, naked and wrinkled, just like the rest of us. This inspired today’s photo of the haves and the have-nots. Also, who doesn’t love a photobomb? If Finnegan ever takes up acting, I think he will be cast as Jabba the Hutt. He is a Maine Coon cat weighing in at 30 pounds, but he has so much fur he looks 40. Booker, the golden retriever, was allowed inside for the opening of presents, and promptly engaged in the tradition of snagging discarded wrapping paper and refusing to give it back. The expressions that crossed his face during the tug-of-war… A merry Christmas in the land of orange animals, which is nothing like a nativity play.

Christmas Eve

As many around the U.S. are experiencing a “bomb cyclone” in the days before Christmas, I thought this photo from the spring was appropriate, when the mountains got a fresh coat of snow. Sometimes just looking at a photo like that makes me appreciate my wood stove. I have no emotional attachment to fossil fuels in machinery. Mostly, I’m glad to see them disappearing because they smell so bad. When I drive back to the cities these days, I am keenly aware of the fumes pervading the highways. But a future without cozy fires seems a little bleak to me. Also, as a source of heat, woodstoves really excel at warming the bones and banishing the drafts. Forced hot air is rather stale in comparison. Not to mention that I love collecting all the burnable waste in the house as fuel. Tissue paper, meat scraps, bacon grease, milk cartons, all get sent to the stove to burn bright, then be returned as ash to the yard. I grew up in the Unitarian faith, and most of their churches have a candle lighting ceremony on Christmas Eve, a living celebration of the proverb, “It is better to light a candle that to curse the darkness.” I’ll be attending one tonight and it’s always a wonderful service. Everyone gets a small candle as they enter. At the end of the service the lights are extinguished and the minister lights a candle from the main chalice. That flame is passed from seat to seat as everyone quietly sings “Silent Night”. It’s a ritual that reminds us of connection to each other, to nature, and tugs sadness out of corners and sets it free. Fire is part of our collective consciousness, and I hope we don’t lose our connection to it.

Leaky Windows

Do you have modern windows, sealed tight, with multiple panes? Then you probably don’t see this when it gets very cold. But if you have a sun porch with old, leaky window, and storm windows that rattle around in their aluminum frames, then you get to see Jack Frost in action. That first photo has traditional ice crystals, stellated like snowflakes, spreading across the glass. These always remind me of William Morris fabrics. The ice on the storm door on the front of this house has a very different pattern that forms, though I am at a loss to tell you why. It is less recognizable as ice, but more interesting for playing games of imagination. I took this in a hurry today. I’ll go back for more tomorrow.

A Sourdough True Crime Story

Ladies and gentlemen: the story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. While packing to visit family for Christmas, Dufous T. Firefly decided to make his specialty bread for them. To do this, he need to bring freshly milled wheat flour and a small amount of his sourdough starter. Dufous milled just over a kilogram of wheat berries into a ziplock bag, rolled the air out, and sealed it tightly. He took his sourdough starter from the refrigerator and used it to make two fresh starters. One he put into a clean mason jar and returned to the refrigerator, the other he put into a plastic jar with a screw top that he had bought filled with frozen pesto. The plastic wouldn’t break in the luggage, and the screw top would be strong enough to handle the pressure changes in the airplane. He put both the flour and the starter into a very large ziplock bag, rolled and sealed that one, and put it into his luggage. His foamy sourdough starter had an interesting, earthy color, because it was created and maintained with freshly milled rye flour. This photo shows the starter with honey drizzled into it, the start of a recipe of dinner rolls. Dufous’ trip was a long one, including a 6 hour drive to a big city, an overnight stay in a motel, and then two plane flights. Unfortunately, the first flight was delayed, so he missed the connection, requiring another night in a hotel and the last leg the next morning. When he finally arrived, he unpacked his bag and discovered the sourdough had leaked out of the jar. Fortunately, the flour was protected in its own bag, and the starter did not escape the larger ziplock. That evening, he set about making the bread dough. He washed off the jar of sourdough, and tried to open it, but the lid would not turn. He remembered that he had screwed that lid down tight so that it wouldn’t leak, so he gave the lid a full grip and turned. Dufous then remembered many things at once. The plastic jar was smaller than the normal jar, but he had put in the same amount of freshly fed starter that he normally made. Fresh starter expands, up to 2-3 times its original size. The longer the starter rests, the more it expands. The recommended time is 12 hours. His starter had rested for three days. Explosive decompression is a scary thing, but at least sourdough starter is not toxic, and some warm water gets it out of a sweater. Reading glasses, dish drainers, and the sides of refrigerators are easily washed. And Dufous is quite tall, so he doesn’t need a ladder to wash the ceiling. Dufous hopes these loaves will match the quality of his previous efforts.

Light, Expose

This is one of my favorite photos to show the importance of the right lighting conditions. This was taken in July, when the sky usually has absoutely no clouds, and landscape photos are minor variations in brown and sage green. But if some clouds manage to get to the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada and block some sunlight here and there, what a difference it makes. Valleys suddenly appear between ridges that were indistinguishable, shadows of scrub plants add texture, everything that was flat develops depth. (Side note: “indistinguishable” is a helluva word.) There are some boulders in my valley that are only visible at certain times of the day, either when they cast big shadows or a flat face reflects light straight at me. Otherwise, I can’t make them out, even with binoculars. Photographers always say, light is the key, but it took me ten years to understand what that meant. So, if you are starting out, work to understand that first.

I may write a December retrospective post on this image, but I’ll do a standard #WhatsItWednesday first.

Mistake, Failure

Not every mistake is a failure. I had my camera set to manual exposure and took this image before I realized it. I took a bunch of other photos with the correct exposure and forgot all about this one. But when I saw it in my photo editor, I experienced an immediate sense of nostalgia., but I don’t know why. Perhaps it is because this overexposure looks like a bad Polaroid? Maybe it triggered some deep memory? Regardless, I like the minimalism of this image. It brings a different train of thought than the properly exposed images, and I find myself returning to it. Discoveries like this are part of why I avoid rules of photography. I prefer to explore each parameter from end to end, to understand how it changes the image and discover what effect it may have on me and others.

Fall, Granite

Cottonwood trees in fall colors really make Wheeler Crest look its best, I think. This granite ridge is impressive when you can see the whole thing, but I find it even more amazing when I can only see part of it. Wheeler Crest is so big, its scale is hard to understand. The section in this image is less than half the vertical span of the front range, and yet the base is almost three miles from where I took the photo. You can just see a bit of the next ridge back at the upper left. All told, the crest rises about a mile and a half from the valley floor. I once knew a fellow who cycled 300 miles in three days. His wife travelled in parallel by car with their kids, so all he carried was a spare tire and a credit card. For lunch on the second day, he stopped at a rural diner and ordered two of everything, and the two young waitresses on duty were very intrigued. He told them where he was riding from and to, places they’d heard of but never been, and they were impressed. Then he said he’d started that morning from a town to the south, a place the waitresses had been many times because it had the nearest mall, and they were blown away. The longer distance was abstract and easily dismissed; the shorter distance was far more impressive to them because they had travelled it themselves, and it was nearly an hour by car. Looking at this photo and thinking of that story, I’m more understanding of their amazement than I used to be.

Close, Moon

Robert Capa said, “If your photographs aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.” But how do you get close to the moon? Join NASA or buy a bigger lens. I wouldn’t mind joining the space race, if I could find the right niche, and I have a big enough lens to photograph the moon in good detail. But, and it’s the darndest thing, close up, the moon always looks pretty much the same. Photos of the moon taken terrestrially rely on composition and context to be effective, but also have surprising exposure challenges. How bright is the moon? If you point your camera straight at it, what should you set your camera exposure to? If you look up the answer, I bet you’ll be surprised. [Exposure Value]((https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_value) is a scale of brightness, useful in determining camera exposure settings (f-stop and shutter speed) for different scenes and lighting conditions. The brighter the scene, the larger the EV, and 1 EV is one stop. Snow in full sun: EV 16; Christmas tree lights: EV 4; stars and the like are all negative values. Scenes lit by the full moon are roughly EV -2. But if you look directly at the full moon? EV 15, nearly as bright as full daylight. Given that a single image might have a dynamic range of 6 EV. trying to capture a range of 17 EV means having both the moon and the moonlit scene requires special measures. One solution is to photograph the moon in the sky with clouds that are still brightly lit, which is what I did above. I have zoomed in shots, but I like this wide shot better. Sorry, Mr. Capa. This is why I warn about photographic “rules”. They aren’t worthless, but they can be constricting. Sometimes, the most interesting photo is the one that steps outside the rules.

Borrowed Cats, #Caturday

Well, it’s time to celebrate #Caturday again. These two villains live next door, and I get to borrow them when their people foresake them. This is Greybear, the supermodel. It’s not just his visage, he has the personality to match. He needs to be cuddled like a baby on your shoulder (always the left one) and he has quite the vocabulary around summoning food. But he will also pose for the camera, staying in one place for 20 minutes at a time, but changing position and expression at just the right pace. A single photo shoot with Greybear could fill a magazine. He’s not all cuteness, either. He’s got attitude and brings it to the runway, like any good supermodel. Diego, the Dark Lord of Destruction, is the black one, and takes a different approach to life. He has two methods of getting attention: lie on the most vital and/or vulnerable piece of equipment on my desk; play increasingly aggressively with the lowest pieces of a huge stack of papers. He actually asks very politely for attention first, but if you’re busy, you’ll miss it. He looks evil, especially with eyes lit up, but he never uses his claws in anger. However, I did once make the mistake of tickling the corner of a cardboard box with my bare finger while he was inside. The blood loss was significant, but we agreed the injury was my own fault. I always use a stick now, at least a foot long. The first few times they fell under my care, I visited them in their home, but that always left them starved for attention and me wracked with guilt. So we switched to bringing them over to my place, and that turned out to be a winner. They complained a bit the first time, but by the third or fourth, they knew what to expect. Mind you, they prefer being home with their people, which they make quite clear by running into their respective carrying cases when it is time to go home. Sometimes they get so excited, they squeeze into the same one. And I like having them visit, because it is rather like what grandparents say: I’m happy to have them come stay, and happy to see them go home.

Snow Shadow

Wheeler Crest during a recent snowstorm. I mentioned that we rarely have a blanket of clouds, but we did get a snowstorm recently where the cloud cover came and stayed for a couple of days. We got some lovely snow, but there’s no light peeking in for dramatic photos. What’s left in this case is a reduction of elements, featureless clouds, snowy mountains, and the desert chaparral. I decided to look up “chaparral”, since the word keeps occurring to me, but nobody here uses it. The definition seems flexible, covering desert scrubland in several different locations, from Oregon to Mexico. The Wikipedia article says the vegetation here is California transmontane (desert) chaparral. Rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? Maybe that’s why nobody uses the term here. They talk instead about the Great Basin Sage and Antelope Bitterbrush, two of the plants that dominate in this harsh envionment. In the absence of light, my eye turns to geometry. Somehow, these wedges of the world capture this snow shadow realm very nicely: so much snow, but none makes it down to the chaparral.

Clouds, Humility

Yes, that says “humility”, not “humidity”. I’ve been writing about clouds in this December Retrospective with ease and confidence, as if I really know what’s going on. Then we get to a formation like this and I have to pony up that I have no clue about this one. That’s a good thing. We can’t be experts on all things and it’s good to be reminded of that. In graduate school, I had a moment in the engineering library where I grasped how much I would never get to read. It was a small library, relatively speaking, and the section I frequented was so cutting edge it barely had any content, yet there was still too much to wade through. Where I was standing I could see the ends of all the aisles, and I realized I couldn’t even think of enough disciplines to assign to those aisles, much less absorb what was in all of them. As a group, humanity understands a great deal; individually, each of us should remember we have limits. Here’s a closeup of the same formation, taken ten minutes later. Maybe those are mammatus formations dotting the underside, so called because they look like breasts. But I forget how and why those form. I think I’m actually more confused about what is happening when looking at this second photo. Unlike the Sierra Wave, which shows up regularly, this is the only storm like this that I have seen. I hope it shows up again. I might have more ideas next time.

Thoughts on #WhatsItWednesday

This year I’ve borrowed an idea from @dejus, a regular visual puzzle posted on Wednesday, dubbed #WhatsItWednesday. Here is my photo for this week. My version of this game is slightly different than @dejus’, in that his normally has a clear photo of a manufactured object, usually a small part of a larger machine or product which is very recognizable. That’s a fun game, but the puzzles I come up with have a different flavor, generally stemming from physical processes, such as ice freezing. However, obfuscation by narrowing the focus to remove context is a fundamental trick that I use as well. The name also doesn’t quite suit me, so next year I will probably “re-brand” to #VisualPuzzle. Interestingly, none of my puzzle photos have been landscapes: they are just too recognizable, even when you zoom way in on something. The only photos I know of that could qualify are drone shots, where a pattern we don’t normally see can be hard to place. I’ve valued the #WhatsItWednesday meme because it makes me look for abstractions in small things. I love the clouds and landscapes, and they are popular with my audience, but having a regular alternative goal acts as a palette cleanser. The most difficult part of this game is gauging how difficult a photo will be to recognize. Ideally, I’d like to find a “Goldilocks” zone, where nobody gets it at first, but a few hints brings recognition. Alas, Papa and Mama bear dominate. That said, I think today’s puzzle is going to be easy for people, so I’m providing second one that I figure will be impossible.

Roadrunner, Owens Valley

A roadrunner sits on an old, burned fencepost in Owens Valley. Funny thing about the Greater Roadrunner, their range stops right where I live. Any further north and the increase in altitude brings changes in climate that apparently don’t suit them. They come up the Owens Valley, a long channel running north to south between high mountain ranges. The valley has water, plenty of wildlife, and little snow. After I noticed the range map, I looked up what it eats. Wikipedia says they are opportunistic omnivores: Its diet normally consists of insects (such as grasshoppers, crickets, caterpillars, and beetles), small reptiles (such as lizards and snakes, including rattlesnakes), rodents and other small mammals, spiders (including tarantulas), scorpions, centipedes, snails, small birds (and nestlings), eggs, and fruits and seeds like those from prickly pear cactuses and sumacs. Dang. Smash and grab artists. Warner Bros. made them seem so nice. Well, we certainly have plenty of lizards here, but I guess they peter out to the north. I wonder if they eat wood rats? One of those little fiends moved into my car and did a lot of damage. I’d love to see a roadrunner skewer one of them.

Rain Shadow, The Other Great Divide

Normally, a great divide is a drainage divide, the peak of a mountain range where water on either side flows into different drainages. In the Eastern Sierra Nevada, the prominent feature is the divide between mountains and high desert, a change in climate known as a rain shadow. The predominant winds are from the west, bring warm and wet ocean air. As that air is forced up and over the high peaks, it cools and condenses the moisture into rain or snow. If there is any moisture left as it makes its descent, it runs into the hot, dry air of the Great Basin and Range, which stretches from here to western Colorado. Basin and Range. It sounds musical. To geologists, it has specific meanings that I wasn’t aware of until I lived here. Geographically, a basin is a valley with no outflow. Mostly, these form lakes, but in the rain shadow, they are just sandy valleys, mostly devoid of water. The mountain ranges that separate the basins are raw rock, layered, tilted, barren. The high Sierra is barren in its own way, freshly cut granite with little soil, but the altitude and water make for a wildly different environment. This photo shows the divide. Snow and evergreens above. Great basin sage and bitterbrush below.

Clouds, Mountain huggers

I’ve talked about cloud layers and lenticular clouds, but there is another formation here that I love: mountain huggers. I know, I go a little overboard with the technical meteorological terms, sorry. Here is Mt Tom with clouds flowing down the eastern face. Weather comes from the west and spills over the high peaks. Mostly, the valley is full of hot air that dissipates all the moisture. In this case, there’s enough to make it to the valley floor, but just barely. Sometimes the mountain huggers float horizontally in long streams, buoyed by the hot air below. This is another answer to the question, “Do we have fog?” Yes, we do, and wheneve it rains enough (which is seldom), we can see it in the distance on the mountains. Oddly, unlike a London fog, these clouds don’t hide detail as much as they reveal it. Those granite ridges are hard to distinguish from each other when they are bare, especially from fifteen miles away. With the fog sliding down the canyons between them, the ridgelines stand out as separate entities. I noticed this when I saw one more ridge than I thought there would be. That area is really hard to explore, because it’s a long drive up a rocky road followed by extensive hiking, and I don’t have a clear idea of where each of those canyons emerge. The whole weather system changes the appearance of the mountain entirely. Since I can’t see the peak, and the base looks completely different than usual, I wasn’t sure, looking back through the year’s photos, that this was actually Mt Tom. I had to study the foothills and the details of the valley floor to be sure. Fog from a distance is different than when you are in it, but it still changes the way you see the world.

Lenticular, Sierra Wave

Persistent stable clouds form in the Sierra Wave. Winds form standing waves over the mountains here, just as flowing water does over rocks. Dubbed the “Sierra Wave”, these formations give themselves away with pressure changes, which condense moisture into clouds. These clouds are often “lenticular”, meaning they are shaped like lenses. I suppose a physicist might say the bending of the air is in fact a lensing effect. Water isn’t compressible, so we don’t see a similar effect in streams. The curious thing about lenticular clouds is that they don’t float by. Cumulonimbus floating over the plains move with the currents, so the sky is ever changing. Lenticular clouds change shape slowly over time, but are mostly stationary, an integral part of their environment. The formation in this photo lasted for several hours. Our lenticular clouds are often layered, like fine pastry, but I don’t know why. I do know that the edges catch light and add contrast to photographs, so the clouds don’t just appear as blobs. Lenticulars are also very smooth, not bumpy like cumulonimbus, nor wispy like cirrus. This makes them a real puzzle for autofocus algorithms. Often I will look at a shot in post-production and think it out of focus, only to look down at the mountains and see they are sharp and crisp. Lenticular clouds are fascinating to watch because I like to think about the physics of their creation, but since they have a very defined and stable form, they don’t lend themselves to the cloud shape game.

Sunset, Beauty Call

Sunset over the shoulder of Wheeler Crest. Clouds are a big part of the show here, and they’ve been especially vibrant and varied this year. That’s been convenient for my daily photo blog, because I’ve also been chained to my desk a lot. But it makes for a lazy compromise: one of the points of keeping a posting schedule is to get out and explore the world, and that’s easy to do when amazing things are just sliding by. We get a wild variety of cloud forms here, due to the rugged terrain, the change in altitude, and the change in climate. Wind is funnelled and shaped by the canyons in the high Sierra, then shocked by the hot dry air of the desert. But what we rarely see is a sheet of low-hanging gray that covers several states and persists for days, like I grew up with on the east coast of the U.S. Here, those blankets get chopped up by the underlying peaks and valleys, so It seems like there’s always a gap where light gets through. All that combined creates scenes like this, where sunset can get underneath the chassis and light it up. Add in a dramatic ridgeline, and there’s almost always a photo to be had on a busy day. And it doesn’t seem to matter who you are, young or old, retired or not, everyone gets absorbed in what they are doing and misses parts of the big show. That’s why we help each other out by texting “beauty calls” to each other, an alert to go outside and watch cloud porn.

Granite spires, Wheeler Crest.

Wheeler Crest is a wall of granite, roughy 8 miles long, rising from 5000’ to 12,500’ in less than two miles horizontally. A couple who live in my neihgborhood are professional climbers. After they moved here, they got hold of a climbing guidebook from the 1950s, when Wheeler Crest was a popular destination. Their tale of climbing those spires made it clear to me why climbers might prefer other destinations these days. They started out before dawn, hiking several miles to the base of the cliff, then climbed some hard-scrabble alluvial mounds, which got them to the base of the spires they wanted to scale. The spires are pink granite, rising over 700’ on their face. Once at the top of the spires, which is still far below the top of the ridge, they followed the instructions in the guidebook, traversing over to the next channel down the face. Unfortunately, when they got there, they saw no way down, and at that point they had no reliable navigation. They chose to keep traversing and the third channel proved to be navigable. After a nervy descent and another hike, they arrived home well after dark. Bishop is still a home for climbers, but the focus has shifted to bouldering. Much of the rock around here is volcanic, with big air bubbles embedded, which make for great handholds. I suspect climbers capable of the kind of adventure my neighbors had now go around the world to special locations. Boulderers seem to be looking for climbing they can do repeatedly, conveniently, without mounting an expodition. My neighbors were no spring chickens when they did this climb, in their early 60s, I think. I asked them how they stayed so fit, and the answer was simple: they never stopped moving. And so Wheeler Crest seems mostly untravelled these days, which I don’t mind at all.

Lone, Cottonwood

A lone Cottonwood tree in Round Valley. Cottonwood trees grow in the high desert along the waterways. Large, asymmetrical, brittle, they seem to rush through life, neglecting to care for themselves properly. Presumably they are called Cottonwoods because of the white fluff they produce in the spring. But if you pick up a log of Cottonwood, it feels about half as dense as you would expect. almost comically light, so you’d think it is half cotton as well. Without that density, the wood lacks strength. There are some lanes in the valley with Cottonwoods lining both sides. I’ve been advised not to take those routes during high winds, and indeed, if you drive them after a storm, you often find your way blocked. I know a pasture where the Cottonwood trees are massive, but mostly horizontal. Curiously, Cottonwoods are not prized for firewood, though they look like hardwoods. That may be because the wood is light and burns too quickly, but the rounds are a nightmare to split. The grain spirals, like DNA. Lodgepole pine tends to have a straight grain, and it splits easily. The rounds grab the maul and wedge, holding them an inch deep, but also stop them dead. Lodgepole pine is the prized firewood, and we rarely see it lying on the ground for long, but Cottonwoods go uncollected for years. Cottonwoods lose their leaves in fall, but they start new foliage soon after, just stubby buds waiting for spring, so the trees look fuzzy in winter. When backlit, this makes the trees glow, even when they look bare. When the late afternoon light puts the big granite wall in shadow, the trees still in the light create a view with amazing contrast. That’s when the valley seems at its best.

Retirement, Molly the Mule

Speaking of retirement, this is a mule, out to pasture in Round Valley. My neighbor owns a mule named Molly, bought when she was retired from pack train service. Molly worked hard for decades, hauling packs into the mountains. She is nearly fifty now, and is well cared for. I don’t think that is Molly in the photo, but for me it might as well be. I still can’t reliably tell a mule from a horse; I asked my neighbor to teach me, but for her it is so obvious, it is hard to imagine someone else can’t see the difference. This is another mule a pasture or two away, so the view is the same. Bishop, California holds an event called Mule Days, a sort of historical rodeo celebrating all the amazing things mules can do. Mule trains were key in the development of this area, making the high Sierra accessible to mining, logging, and tourism. I was once passed by a mule train on a hiking trail. They were coming down from a lake, having carried in supplies for campers. Tied nose to tail on short tethers, the mules walked at a pace that was surprisingly fast, and which I was sure I could not match. I watched their feet as they magically found their way on the rough ground. Mules have a reputation for being stubborn, but all the ones I’ve met here have been quite sweet. Not far from this photo, there’s a corral that encompasses a meadow. I went in to photograph the poplar trees that grow there and found myself facing roughly twenty mules, all of whom were eager to see if I had treats for them. I had no reason to expect mayhem, but so many large animals walking eagerly toward me had my lizard brain worried. I imagined the headline: Man Mauled by Mules in Meadow. I held my ground and was spared any injury, but all my pockets were thoroughly sniffed. They were just a little disappointed that I was empty handed. Mind you, there was nobody else around for miles, so there was no hope of rescue if I was wrong. My neighbor visits Molly twice a day, brushing burrs from her coat and keeping her company. This winter, she gave Molly a blanket, her first, to keep the cold out of old bones. I’m told Molly enjoys the blanket very much.

Tired, Gray Fox

One week into the new year, this little Gray fox spent a few mornings on my deck. It climbed the stairs, walked over to the corner, curled up, and went to sleep. It looked tired, presumably from a night of hunting, and slept there all morning, protected from the wind. The longer it slept, the warmer the sun, the more it uncurled. A neighborhood cat came up the stairs, but I waved at him from a place the fox couldn’t see, and the cat took off before causing any mischief. The fox was difficult to see, having chosen a spot out of sight of most windows. Why was it surprising to me that it should understand sightlines, and how to hide? So I went about my day, peeking infrequently, and when the sun got high, the fox was gone. I see foxes occasionally, crossing roads and yards. They poop in driveways, but have no owners following them with plastic bags, so their scat tends to stick around. And I hear them at night. Or rather, I hear the squeals of a rodent fighting for it’s life, and I think a fox has found a meal. Without putting out an infrared trailcam, it’s hard to know for sure, but for now I prefer listening and wondering. Over time, I might piece together episodes into a coherent pattern. Two days later, the fox returned and slept the morning away. This time, I saw it leave, and I noticed how stiffly it walked. Perhaps what I had taken to be exhaustion from hunting was actually infirmity. It’s fur looked patchy and it’s gait was far from smooth. I think this fox was not well. Many of my neighbors have expressed a vehement desire to avoid end-of-life facilities. Let a bear get me, or a mountain lion, or simply do not follow when I walk past the end of the trail. I don’t know any that have made this choice, but we all are less afraid of dying in the wilderness than alone in a hospital. One neighbor had a spot picked out, high up in the mountains, but as he aged, he lost his balance, and he couldn’t hike there anymore. So he continued on, down the accepted path, and seemed quite cheerful about it. It was enough to have dreamed the alternative. I sat quietly and watched until the fox descended the stairs. I never saw it again.

Vox clamantis in nebula.

Just last night, I told @Maique that we almost never get fog. Naturally, I woke up to this: That curling cloud on the valley floor is fog, if you’re in the right place at the right time. But that whole thing blew away within minutes. Deep, enduring fog is just a cloud bank on the ground, requiring atmosphere saturated with moisture and little wind. Conditions here in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada are usually just the opposite. Moist air arriving from the west gets sapped of moisture by the cold heights, and the Great Basin and Range to the east provides an endless absence of humidity. And the air is rarely still here. With an altitude change of 10,000 feet over just a few miles, and three large canyons funneling cold air to the valley floor, turbulence is the norm. So yes, we get fog, but you’ve gotta be quick to see it from the inside. It took two days of steady drizzle to get this fleeting bit. Rain brings new faces. This bird was preening on the snag this morning, and I managed to catch it in full voice. I can only imagine it is yelling, “Finally! Fog!”

Not a word, more’s the pity.

Sharp, Mt Tom

Mt Tom in February. This photo jumps out at me from the collection because of the light and contrast. Yesterday’s photo was muted, smooth; this image feels like it could cut. Partly, that is due to the escarpment that comes down from the peak, the far edge of Elderberry Canyon. I don’t know the geology that formed all that; I have a book near me that might have the answer, but I haven’t looked. Sometimes I want to know what experts have learned about the world around me, the names, history, and workings. Sometimes I like to chew on the problem myself. I find value in doing the work. I have to pick and choose my challenges, though. The top of Mt Tom is about 10,000’ off the valley floor. It represents an impossible goal. So easy to photograph, so hard to climb. But I like having it there, a reminder that time runs out and some things must be left undone.

Lustrous, Owens River

The Owens River on a cloudy winter day, running south from Bishop down the Owens Valley. The river is straight here, where the valley floor widens and flattens. In Pleasant Valley, to the north, oxbows rule, the river always turning tightly, and somewhat turbulent. This run is long and smooth enough to make a decent mirror, which you can see in the reeds at the edges. But the bulk of the reflected image is sky, full of soft clouds that seem out of focus. Where our eyes expect detail, we find only jumbled light. The message is blurred, only the mood is transmitted. Though the Inyo Mountains are small in the distance, the snow cover chills the mind. Turn up your collar, sit on the crunchy ground, watch the bubbles, and listen for birds.

December Retrospective

This month, I’m posting photos from throughout the year, some “best of”, some that were held back, for whatever reason. And unlike my daily photo posts, I’m hoping for longer form writing. I want to remember, tidy up, reflect, celebrate, summarize, and turn a new page. Ideally, I’d like this to be an annual endeavor, prepared throughout the year, with commentary, and storylines weaving together. The result should be something that’s printable, less seasonal than an advent calendar, more coherent than a photo calendar, perhaps something like the cross between a holiday card and a coffee table book. The preparation bit is lagging behind, and I’m not sure if I will be able to fit this into my holiday schedule, but I guess I won’t know until I try. I’m starting with a photo of the Eastern Sierra Nevada covered in snow, though I don’t know exactly which stretch. I don’t remember taking this photo, nor do I know exactly what bit of the Sierra this is, and that’s part of what drew me to start with it. I am reminded that more happens in a year than we can remember, and that taking time in the present to document photoshoots can be worth the effort. But I remember the storm that brought this snow, offering the promise of a full snow pack that was not fulfilled. All that snow was gone months before it usually disappears. So I’m thinking I will get out more this winter to enjoy it.

This week I’ve decided to disengage the safety on #WhatsItWednesday. I stumped my Thanksgiving guests with this image. Perhaps m.b. folks can do better.

Looking down from the Volcanic Tablelands to the Fish Slough Ecological Reserve and the north end of the Pupfish Peak escarpment. The White Mountains are behind.

Hiking in McGee Creek, where the trend is upward.

The light that emanated from Patrick, when he separated his head from his body, was all the motivation we needed.

Photographing the sunrise may not seem like a big commitment, but when it is winter, and I am sleepy and barefoot, it takes some mental goading to get out there. I haven’t photographed dawn without clouds for a while. There’s a simplicity to it that I’m enjoying.

After the ritual stuffing of the humans on Thanskgiving, I always try to get out for a good hike the next day. We decided to hike during the USAvENG game with our phones off and watch on DVR when we got back. Here we are, munching on turkey sandwiches in the Volcanic Tablelands.

Spatchcocked! (Violins frm Psycho shower scene shrieking.)

Happy Thanksgiving! I have some wonderful guests, a feast in the works, and a full firewood rack. That’s plenty to be thankful for. Whether or not I retain my current weight, that remains to be seen.

Time for an update from the #WhatsItWednesday headquarters.

I stopped on my way into town to watch the animals graze. This looks like a horse to me, but mostly we have mules here, and I think I’m still quite bad at distinguishing between the two.

Some big fat robins stopped by for a week, fleeing snow and ice, devouring juniper and cotoneaster berries while they were here.

This is the picnic area at a rest stop in the Owens Valley, where temperature runs high and humidity low. Whoever created this pergola was a genius, I think. The repeated bars provide shade, but also dramatic lighting. This space feels cool, but open and clean.

I’m very fond of the Cotoneaster in my front yard. It came with the house, but it was novel to me. It is surprisingly drought resistant and it bears red berries that the birds like very much, so I’m thinking of propagating it around the yard. Also, fuzzy leaves.

A Cedar Waxwing, enjoying the juniper berries. Waxwings are mischievous birds, and I never tire of their bandit mask, so suited to their personalities.

Ice formed from snowmelt at the bottom of my wheelbarrow, embedded with chips of lodgepole. Did you know that some people say wheelbarrel? Understandable mistake. A barrow is an archaic word for an open container carrying people or goods. Not a huge difference from barrel.

This week’s entry in the #WhatsItWednesday franchise.

At the prompt “aluminium”, I made pizza to go with my last can of Wasatch Brewery’s “Polygamy Porter”. The can encourages you to “Take some home to the wives!” Smooth and chocolatey, it paired well with my portobello, salami, and serrano pepper pizza.

Snow adorns the Cotoneaster, bending the branches low. American Robins have arrived in force, eating these and the juniper berries. My deck will be covered in berry poop before they leave for the winter.

No matter how early I rise and venture forth, someone is out there before me. I have tried to adjust my schedule to rise before dawn, hundreds of times, perhaps even thousands. I always fail; I can never get to sleep early enough. I’ve always been the last to bed.

My suspicion is that I could not carry the equivalent weight of snow and ice as this little plant. The curve of the stem makes me see engineering blueprints in my head. Also, I think that plant is casting the shadow puppet of an ant.

The snowstorm turned my display of firewood rounds into a bunch of marshmallows.

Tuesday’s storm brought snowfall so thick, we couldn’t see the mountains. Wednesday dawned clear and bright. The snow ministers to our parched landscape and our eyes, so tired of the desert brown.

I completely forgot last week. Well, #WhatsItWednesday is promised to no one, I guess. I am looking forward to this week’s puzzle, though I am not certain of the difficulty.

It’s snowing today. First predicted for Sunday, we’ve seen the leading edge for the last two days, high up behind the ridges. But passage into the valley requires negotiating a concensus consensus on temperature, pressure,and humidity, and that takes time.

Fire provides insight into the structure of flora. In full foliage, you can’t see more than a yard into these plants, and you need tough pants to walk through them.

I would love to hear sounds echo off these granite spires, but getting close enough to them is a serious challenge, so I will just have to settle for photos when nature’s spotlight arrives.

When one whiff tells you that you badly need a shower.

How long is a date?

Or “Why does @Jean have so much trouble with international announcements?” How long is a day? Easy, 24 hours, give or take a few seconds, because planetary rotations and orbits aren’t static. But how long is a date? Well, it can seem like forever if you aren’t interested in the other person… Ooops, sorry, I meant, for a given date, say November 6, 2022, how many continuous hours is it that date somewhere on Earth? This is a different question than the number of hours in a day. I didn’t trust my mental arithmetic, so I wrote a little Haskell program to convince myself. This is a literate Haskell program, and I’m going to use the standard time library, even though it lacks some elegance. import Data.Time First, I’m going to calculate how many hours are in a day, just to verify that my method works. I’m going to take the difference of two date/time values and show the result in hours. The values represent midnight on successive dates, in the same timezone. I’m using UTC for convenience. howLongIsADay :: Hours howLongIsADay = toHours (diffUTCTime ut1 ut0) ghci> howLongIsADay Hours 24 Great. So, if we stay within one timezone, we get the standard answer. But what if we consider the difference between the beginning of the day in New Zealand and the end of the day in Hawaii? For that, we need to start with ZonedTime values, convert them to UTC, and then take the difference. howLongIsADate :: Hours howLongIsADate = toHours (diffZonedTime zt1 zt0) ghci> howLongIsADate Hours 46 Well, not 24, but also not 48. New Zealand is UTC+12 and Hawaii is UTC-10, which is a difference of 22 hours. Presumably I could find more exotic time zones 24 hours apart, but I don’t need to bother. The surprising part is that any particlar date spans 48 hours. I suppose anyone who deals in international finance knows this quite well, but I don’t think I had understood this fully. The new reality has replaced my old, fuzzy understanding, but I think I would have thought about 36 hours, thinking sunrise to sunset…somehow. If you find this confusing, just be glad I only used standard time. Many places change to and from daylight savings time on different dates, so the number of hours difference can change during the year. Anyway, I expect that contributes to @Jean having a hard time scheduling these challenges. Pun intended. newtype Hours = Hours Int deriving Show diffZonedTime :: ZonedTime -> ZonedTime -> NominalDiffTime diffZonedTime t1 t0 = diffUTCTime (zonedTimeToUTC t1) (zonedTimeToUTC t0) today :: Day today = ModifiedJulianDay 59889 tomorrow :: Day tomorrow = succ today -- I avoided using IO to simplify the presentation, but I acquired the correct -- number by running this once using it in the pure value of 'today', found above. today' :: IO Day today' = utctDay <$> getCurrentTime ut0 :: UTCTime ut0 = UTCTime today 0 ut1 :: UTCTime ut1 = UTCTime tomorrow 0 zt :: Day -> TimeZone -> ZonedTime zt d tz = ZonedTime (LocalTime d midnight) tz zt0 :: ZonedTime zt0 = zt today nzst zt1 :: ZonedTime zt1 = zt tomorrow hst nzst :: TimeZone nzst = TimeZone (12*60) False "NZST" hst :: TimeZone hst = TimeZone (-10*60) False "HST" toHours :: NominalDiffTime -> Hours toHours = Hours . cvt . truncate . nominalDiffTimeToSeconds where cvt h = h `div` (60*60)

Clouds in the Eastern Sierra Nevada seem exempt from the usual rules.

I know some of you will enjoy these recordings of mechanical keyboards.

Sometimes I have nothing pithy to say, just admiration for the creative process of clouds at sunset.

Doing today’s Spelling Bee, I keep finding “pronup”, and I’m wondering if that’s a synonym for “golddigger”?

A woman with no ticket evading security in an empty section of stands creates a real-life game of Ms. Pac-Man.

Skies like this grant license to play hooky and head out with a camera.

Fresh snow on Mt Tom. This is the tiniest morsel of snow, and it probably won’t last, but since the drought left us without a snow pack all summer long, this feels like a feast.

We had a small brush fire a week ago. They figure 25 acres of reeds went up in smoke, but was contained in just a few hours. If you look closely, you can see a helicopter dropping water on the burn from a suspended bucket.

Happy Halloween!, courtesy of this Hentz’s Orbweaver in my woodpile. That’s actually not his face, but his rear end. I’m not sure how a false face might help a spider.

Sunrise. With winter approaching, we are getting clouds again, which makes for easy photos, as long as I can wake up.

A note on Wordle strategy.

Today’s Wordle went like this for me: Wordle 497 5/6 ⬛⬛⬛🟩⬛ ⬛⬛🟨🟩⬛ 🟩🟩⬛🟩⬛ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 If you get to a point like my third guess, where you have several fixed letters, but many options in the remaining places, pause. Trying the remaining options one at a time can lead to trouble. Instead, collect the most likely letters that fit and try a word that uses as many of them possible. This will narrow the field dramatically. I was sure my fourth guess would generate a hit, which would tell me the answer, but five misses had the same effect. Often, I find that this helps when a letter appears more than once in the word and I have mistakenly ruled it out.

Agave thorns. Note on the right that the leaves have impressions of thorns. These leaves start out tightly bundled together and the thorns leave their mark on their siblings. You can see the impressions in yesterday’s photo as well.

Be glad it’s not Wednesday, because I don’t think y’all would be able to identify this closeup of agave either. The dividing line intrigues me, because the dark part sometimes turns from shadow to object for me. There’s a psychology test in here somewhere.

This discovery is the coolest science announcement I’ve seen in a while. Researchers created strong magnets just by adding phosphorous to nickel-iron, without the need for mined rare-earth elements. If scalable, this could remove the bottleneck for magnet production.

The business end of the agave leaf.

Don Was, on performing with a full orchestra

From The Don Was Motor City Playlist at WDET FM. Don Was, on doing a live recording with Bob Weir, backed by a full symphony orchestra: There’s nothing like the power of that orchestra behind you. And when an orchestra’s that big, all the players feel the music a little bit differently. So they’re not, like, right on top of each other. There’s some width in the note, and that’s where the power comes from, and that’s where the expression comes from. It’s how each of those players feel it a little bit differently, and how far the conductor will let them go before he reigns it in.

This seems creepy enough for a pre-Halloween #WhatsItWednesday, doesn’t it?

On my way home from suburbia, the large landscapes returned.

Exercise in futility, take #729: try to make the elbow in this tree look interesting. I love the overlapping patterns of bark, the depth of the space, when I see it in person. And I always try to capture that feelling. And I always fail.

Autumn shakes the leaves off the bean plants, exposing the dried tendrils they use to scale the walls and trellises of the garden. Literally creepy, I find them scarier than any Halloween costume.

Pale blue. Altadena, CA.

The leaves of an orange tree, always so glossy.

In Southern California, people landscape with ornamental plants from all over the world. These grasses always catch my eye, and they feel like the Great Plains, but I have learned not to guess. Many plants I have identified are not from where I expected.

I have no idea about the level of difficulty of this one. #WhatsItWednesday

Do you remember in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”, when Eddie draws the Singing Sword? It starts lip-syncing to Frank Sinatra’s “Witchcraft”, hitting the high note on “it’s strictly tabooooooo!” Well, that’s all I can see here.

The pepper tree, from below. Gnarly.

My friends’ house is shaded by a large pepper tree, and I’m always fascinated by the leaves and seeds. They droop. (Such an odd word, that. Not sure I would think of it in a word game.) I like the variation in texture. Dots and dashes, a secret message.

I’m looking for recommendations for a science fiction author. Someone current, with ongoing work.

While back in suburbia for a while, I took to my old habits, wandering the neighborhood looking for small subjects. Flowers near the sidewalk are always good, but I never get around to identifying them.

Yesterday morning I woke to fog in Altadena. I had the wit to hop out of bed and go for a walk with my camera before it burned off. The trees here have great silhouettes. Some are strong and proud. Others, not so much. Some just serve as a frame. These two went jogging while communicating through phones and earbuds. She kept thinking they’d lost the connection, but really he was just tired of talking. Or listening. I don’t think they saw the beauty around them.

A Day in the Life Photo Challenge Altadena, CA. Oct 13, 2022, 6PM (PDT). Visiting friends, photos of me on the fridge, posing with baby daughters, now grown. The corner of the yard holds a cafe table. It used to be tiny, for tea parties in tutus. My knees hurt, remembering.

I woke up to to some beautiful fog, got out and shot some nice photos, very different from what I’ve been posting recently. Checked the time stamp: 8:58AM PDT. Start time of photo challenge? 10:00AM PDT. Time the fog burned off? 9:45AM PDT. Sigh.

An elegant little figurine my friend’s parents bought in Mallorca, many years ago. We assume it is Don Quixote, but we don’t really know. It is always in front of that window, and I always think of it in silhouette.

Today’s subject may be difficult emotionally as well as visually. #WhatsItWednesday

Burning the grease off before grilling some lamb. The grapevine climbing up to the deck light provided a nice counterpoint.

Supper quiet.

Dreams seen by a man-made machine How does it seem, how does it seem That we can see each others dreams That we can see each others dreams Last night sleep, only to the beat Song by Can, from the soundtrack of Until the End of the World

I have invented a device that attaches your phone to your knee so you can watch the screen without holding it. I am calling it a “Patelly”.

When you are running late on a long drive to a party, but the clouds just keep getting better and better… shooting blindly can be better than nothing.

Last night’s wooding (firewood collection) trip at Dry Creek Road, near Inyo Crater. A truck coming down the road stirred up the dust to the west, providing the atmospherics.

Lodgepole Pine needles, Inyo National Forest.

My first pangram is not in the word list. Some editor is a dickhead.

Taking the fast lane. One sheep decided to pull left and accelerate, presumably because all the good bushes were taken.

A more standard view of the paperweight from yesterday’s #WhatsItWednesday. I did a little more research. Seems to be made by Cristal of lead crystal. 24% lead! You learn something new every day, if you pay attention. (Should this be #WhatWasItThursday?)

This is either easy or impossible, I’m not sure which, though it might be somewhere in-between. #WhatsItWednesday

Sheep grazing along a road in the Inyo National Forest. There are some Basques around here who drive sheep all over the countryside during the summer. We wondered if the forest service lets them graze to keep the foliage down along the roads.

Sunrise, clouds and contrails.

Pleasant Valley, the day the lenticular clouds were tearing apart on Wheeler Crest. You can just see them in the distance.

The valley floor, late September, early morn.

Photos with great light are one of the principal benefits of waking up at sunrise.

The mathematics of sunrise is cruel. Too early in summer, too late in winter, yet that is when the rate of change is slow. Spring and Fall times sprint by, rewarding me with just a few days of easy rising to beautiful dawns, then leave my body clock hopelessly confused.

A light puzzle. #WhatsItWednesday

A strong easterly wind was forcing the clouds coming over the crest into unusual shapes. It seemed to me the lenticular clouds would form on the west side of the ridge, then get ripped apart when they got hit by the desert air.

Juxtaposition: quiet, not quiet.

I liked the soft look of these clouds. They seemed appropriate for a Monday morning where I’m a little short of sleep and want something quiet.

Fresh cumulonimbus served on a bed of fog, with streaks of grey sauce. Honestly, I have no idea what I’m doing tonight.

I was feeling sort of abstract today.

California Quail, sittin’ in a tree, looking quite dapper.

The answer to this #whatsItWednesday, a stained glass window, covered with 3M insulation film, looking at my neighbor’s porch light. This house was built by the high school shop teacher, with hand made windows I haven’t had the heart to replace, though they are not airtight.

I planned pizza, but a frozen salmon filet thawed a bit too much as I dawdled taking photos coming home. So I improvised a salmon pizza. Sauteed fennel and onions in olive oil, sliced salmon, goat cheese. 8 minutes on the stove, 4 under the broiler. 1 extra for the arugula.

Abandon all hope, ye who attempt this #WhatsItWednesday. I’m experimenting with different levels of difficulty. I expect figuring this one out will be ridiculously hard. But you guys surprise me sometimes. Okay, often.

Wheeler Crest, spotlight on the shark’s teeth.

I think Wordle was trying to tell me something the other day.

A Great Horned Owl hooting at sunset. A second one came to a nearby tree and hooted loudly, which made this one decamp. I’m not sure if that’s hunting coordination or if this one was just paying hard-to-get.

Last night’s pizza was pretty good. I put some shaved fennel and goat cheese in it, which tasted good, but the fennel needed to be thinner so it would cook better. Pretty one, though.

This week’s bread. 100% freshly milled whole grain: a bit of rye, a bit of soft white wheat, and the rest hard red. I put the dough in the sun right after mixing and it puffed up, then I left it in the fridge an extra 8-10 hours, so the result has a hint of beer.

Wheeler Crest looking steely in the morning light under storm clouds.

Cloud pocket. That spot is actually a huge canyon running from upper right to lower left, but the ridgeline in front obscures it. Often, there is little way to distinguish the distance of that back wall, so it took me a long time to recognize the space there.

The solution to this week’s #Whatsitwednesday This setup was inverted aand I was looking through the bend of theglass at the mesh.

What’s going on here? #WhatsItWednesday

I really want to go see the waterfalls in Death Valley, but their very presence means the place will be barely navigable.

Foggy clouds sneaking around the face of Wheeler Crest, a wonderful accompaniment to actual rain sent by Hurricane Kay.

We got real rain this weekend, overflow from Hurricane Kay off the coast of Mexico. During a lull, the clouds were flowing down the mountain slopes.

California Quail have been scarce in our neighborhood this year. I have speculated it is because of the drought. In advance of the rain from Hurricane Kay, some quail have reappeared. Causation? Correlation? Coincidence? I don’t know. But I’m glad they are back.

Here’s a weather pattern I haven’t seen before: hurricane moisture coming up the Owens Valley, crossing the Sierra east to west, and falling as rain on Yosemite.

Folks liked the cowlick photo from yesterday, so here’s another section of reeds in Pleasant Valley.

Software developers have a huge blind spot. Witness a full page of ad-hoc documentation to compensate for an alert so devoid of detail, you have to google the text to figure out what action to take. Open source doesn’t help if you don’t realize there’s a problem.

Pleasant Valley, cowlick in the reeds. Somehow, I ddn’t get down here for a month or so and missed out on everything going full green. I will try to catch the fall changes.

Juxtaposition.

Pleasant Valley, yesterday. Hurricane Kay is coming to SoCal, and we think the clouds on the left are the advance guard for our region. High winds expected in eastern San Diego County.

A funny shape for this #WhatsItWednesday.

Rain on Bishop Creek Canyon, from a few weeks ago. A hurricane is moving towards Southern California. We might get some more moisture this weekend, which would be very welcome.

Greybear won’t be working on Labor Day. Or any day, really, but especially not today. Because not working in the present is the most important thing to a cat.

Just the valley, looking dapper in mid-afternoon.

Still rolling through cloud pictures from mid August.

Yesterday’s Spelling Bee pangram was “prodigy”. Naturally, I didn’t get that until I’d exhausted all possible spellings of “porridgy”, i.e., thick and gloppy, like porridge. Or my brain.

We have clear skies and full summer heat, so I’m reliving the cloudy days from earlier in August.

Storm over Mt Tom.

I needed to kill a large flying ant tonight. I missed it on the first grab and it wouldn’t stay still, so I reached for the nearest book to act as a makeshift swatter. It turned out to be “The Art of War”, by Sun Tzu.

A dark #WhatsItWednesday. #Pareidolia

The cinematography in Netflix’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s “The Sandman” is terrific.

Grey skies at night, photographer’s delight.

Curtain of virga, with a line of sunset.

A week ago we had some blustery weather come through, but there were cat photos to post, sothey got delayed. Now I’m backing up to remember what happened. I had a clearer shot of this, but the wind was whipping through and this is much more like I remember.

This is a good #Caturday to be an indoor cat, lest this Coopers Hawk take an interest.

After a hard WhatsItWednesday, I thought you all deserved a sunset.

Spotlight on a bubble of Bishop tuff. Tuff is volcanic ash that was so hot when expelled, it welded into pale, pink rock. It is a distinctive geologic feature of this area.

I think I’ve found a really good #WhatsItWednesday this week.

After the modeling session, time to remove the makeup.

Diego, watching the birds, reflected in the sun room door.

Greybear: Please, please, please, can I come up on your lap? Me: Only if you pose first. Greybear: I’ll pose in your lap. Me: That’s too close for this lens. Greybear: Use your phone. Me: It won’t capture your supermodel details. Greybear: Okay, I’ll pose.

You know it’s really #Caturday when your monitor, printer, and desk speaker are all in peril. Diego, the Dark Lord of Destruction, and I are engaged in ongoing negotiations on the matter.

I always want to roll a boulder down this silhouette. Bowling for Pinion Pines. It wouldn’t work, because the silhouette is a visual artifact, but I think that’s what makes it so compelling. Also, a boulder big enough to see would destroy houses. Minor detail.

Alternative medication

They say, “Don’t read the comments on youtube,” but like anything else, there is good and bad. If you find content that really gives you joy, you may find a diamond in the coal dust. I’m a 71 year old. I heard this 2 weeks ago for the first time and nearly fell out of my chair while dancing to it. I dance to it the way Popeye dances after taking his spinach. It’s so tight and moody- dare I say much better than the originals. I listen to it twice a day instead of taking my medication.

Every corner of the sky had something special that evening, and every minute brought new surprises. It’s nights like these that we walk the streets together and repeat the same joke: Doesn’t it just suck to have to suffer through these?

On a typical #WhatsItWednesday, you post a puzzle, in photo form, to which you know the answer. Alas, I have no memory of taking this shot, nor can I explain it. If the camera were moving, the background should be more blurred. Anyway, I like the effect.

Amazon is drunk again.

Raggedy clouds catch the sunset light and scatter it back. We continue to get clouds in the late afternoon, where August is typically relentlessly blue sky and searing heat. Everyone is enjoying the respite.

Scattered clouds over Wheeler Crest, lit from below by the setting sun. This is one of those sunsets that looks like a painting, because painters love these kinds of sunsets.

Last week’s full moon. There were too many clouds to see it at moonrise, but gaps opened up as it reached mid-sky.

I’m using a new recipe from Breadtopia, and I’m very happy with it. This is 100% whole grain, freshly milled hard red wheat and soft white, no sifting, which has always been a struggle. This is ridiculously easy and consistently good. The secret is time.

What kind of clouds you want? We got all kinds! Fluffy, poofy, wispy, from white to dark and brooding. We’ll throw in some blue sky for free! New shipments arriving soon!

I tried for a caption about clouds, winds, mountains, but all that came to me was Gary Larson’s crocodile punchline: That was incredible! No fur, claws, horns, antlers or nothin’…just soft and pink.

Ambition. This tiny Praying Mantis staked out the hummingbird feeder for several hours, often clinging to the underside, making threatening advances when hummers came to drink. It felt like a puppy barking at a bear, but perhaps nature’s bookie was giving other odds.

When a storm breaks late, the clouds hovering over our valley get lit both from below and above by sunset. The color pallette always speaks to me. It’s not the normal pinks and oranges people fill hard drives with, but blues, greys, tinges of salmon.

Waxing crescent moon, peeking through the clouds after sunset.

When rain or snow comes our way, we often get this strip of cloud running level along the crest. Cold, wet air comes spilling down from the heights and meets the dry warm air of the desert. Often, the elevation matches that of the pass out of sight to the right.

Pine Creek, wearing a feather boa. The rain clouds continue to cover the area. It cooled off so much last night that I had to close the bedroom window.

It has been raining since midnight. Not hard, but steadily, so that the eaves are always dripping, a rhythm track I haven’t heard for years. Someone just walked by with an umbrella, a first for my time in the eastern Sierra Nevada.

We’ve been getting late afternoon thunderstorms for the last week, kind of like south Florida. The cloud cover isn’t unusual in spring, but I have not seen it in summer. I’m not complaining, just observing, because it is cooler and very photogenic.

Mt. Tom and Pine Creek Canyon, all dressed up for the rain.

We got actual rain yesterday. Not for long, maybe a half hour, but it will make a difference.

I saw these Water Striders and wondered out loud what it would be like to be so light and free. The first turned and said, “I’m underwater on my mortgage, my life ain’t so grand.” The second said, “I’ve got trenchfoot.” And then I woke up.

Though the boat ride on Convict Lake was a week ago, the good time lingers on through photos. Here are some of my neighbors, basking in the good light from the lake, hair blowing in the wind.

Dead wood on the shore of Convict Lake.

Kara, enjoying the boat ride on Convict Lake. Her nose was working overtime with all the new smells. She found her sea legs pretty quickly and seemed to enjoy the rolling motion that blurred her face.

Convict Lake had a startling look near sunset. A heavy chop alternately reflected the brown of the surrounding mountains and the evening sky, and bobbed the boat, creating an unusual motion blur. I don’t normally push the saturation, but the move toward abstraction was irresistible for me.

The smoke chased away a bunch of tourists, which opened up some boat reservations on Convict Lake. A neighbor works there, so she shanghaied a bunch of us for a sunset cruise and barbecue. The air was clearer, but you could see the haze as the sun set.

The Oak Fire erupted into the headlines on Saturday, burning 15,000 acres southwest of Yosemite National Park. The prevailing westerly winds brought us the smoke before I noticed the news, sending us scurrying for air filters and muting the landscape.

I love a big, partially-cloudy sky. Once again, the arc of confrontation, where wet weather from the west meets the hot, dry rising air from the desert.

The tail end of the storm passes the mountains. Clearer, calmer, brighter skies can just be glimpsed at the pass.

Battleship. That’s what I think of every time I see a cloud like this. The broad base, the enormous turret, and the convoy of dark clouds all support the illusion.