Sunset after ice storm

Another Tuesday, another ice storm. This one was average in both duration and result. Some small to medium sized branches fell into the driveway and the power stayed on. For ice storms, this is a good result, though I’d be happier if I never had another one. It doesn’t take a very large branch to make a terrific noise when it falls on the roof. And that occurrence is always followed by dogs barking and cats racing to hide under sofa and bed.

After the ice storm comes the clean-up and clearing of the car, safely parked down at the bottom of the lane in an open area away from falling branches. I strapped on my Yak-trax and spent the next hour chopping through the ice that covered the car. Meanwhile, down off the mountain, the storm brought only rain.

The chickens huddled in the dark under the cabin—no eggs from them lately. While the chickens are looking miserable under the cabin, a few of the feral cats head to the chicken coop and curl contentedly in the straw there. It’s only at dusk, when the chickens return, that they leave.

Wild birds emptied my feeders well before noon. I’ve had no sign of winter finches but the usual suspects eat double or triple what they usually do in a day’s time. And near sunset they were still looking for more.

And it was when I was filling the feeders again for the last time yesterday that the sun finally broke through the storm clouds and made its first appearance of the day, doing so in rather dramatic fashion. I’m glad I was there to see it.

Reading a snowstorm in the sunset

Sunset at the cabin on New Year's Day.  Snow on its way

Snow has begun to fall.  Even without a weather report, I could see the storm that was to come in last night’s sunset, the first of the new year. Storm totals are predicted low, then higher, then lower again.  I am taking no bets on how much will fall at my cabin. Roundtop often gets quite a different amount than what falls in nearby towns anyway.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve refused to move the car because the roads up on the mountain were bad. And when I finally do deem it safe enough to travel, I find that the roads down in the valley are not only cleared but dry.  That’s always a shock and has caused me no end of embarrassment when I tell co-workers the roads were too bad to drive on.  I don’t think they believe me, those urban and suburban denizens whose high-heeled boots never actually touch the earth as they travel from living room to garage to parking lot and back again.

Where I live, weather is often the focus of the day.  How hot or cold will it be? Will I need sandals or Yak-trax? Do the chickens need more straw?  Will my water pipes freeze? To me, the weather is a bit like a neighbor who can be fun but just as often brings trouble. Today, I’m expecting a bit of trouble.

Sunset over a beautiful weekend

The barn swallows have left the mountain.  I found two on Saturday and none on Sunday.  Last Saturday a group of nearly 30 perched on the wires near a snowmaking pond.  This week, I had to look to find even the two I did see.  The turn towards fall takes another step forward.

I’m finding that the hours of daylight just don’t cooperate with human activity.  Most summer evenings are too hot or too buggy to fully enjoy sitting outside.  But sometimes, the weather cooperated and I could work outside around the cabin, and when I was done I could sit and enjoy the long evenings. Now, the bugs and the heat are mostly gone, but by the time my outside work is done, it is dark outside.  It is, apparently, too much to ask to have evenings long enough to complete outside work and then time enough, sans bugs and heat, to sit outside afterwards into the evening. I guess I’ll just have to learn to deal with that.

I’m also noticing more goldfinches and fewer chipping sparrows, another sign of late summer, if not yet quite of fall. Robins are few and far between at the moment. Some, I suspect, are already moving south, and the northerly robins haven’t yet arrived.  Hawkwatches in the area are already starting to count migrating hawks. The numbers are still rather small, but the birds are moving out of the north.

This August is shaping up to be one of the coolest ever in the local area. Augusts this cool are not unheard of, but they only occur about once a decade or perhaps a bit less. I could get used to having a cool August more frequently, that’s for sure!

Today’s sunset photo was taken last evening and made for a beautiful show.

Almost sunset

Almost sunset over South Mountain

A day of poor weather is approaching and threatening to cancel my camp session tomorrow.  The approaching system makes for some great sunsets and sunrises, though. Today’s photo is was taken just before  sunset last evening.  I also got a nice sunrise photo this morning that I will probably post later.

If my camp session is held tomorrow, it will probably be a wet one. I don’t mind getting wet.  I have the proper clothing for that. The biggest problem is that rain makes the stream muddy, and when it’s muddy the kids can’t see anything and if they can’t see anything they can’t catch anything.  Crayfish and similar stream denizens like to find the sunny spots in the stream.  Without the sun to lure them from under their rocks and other hiding places, I worry that the kids won’t be able to find much.

A little drizzle won’t hurt too much but an actual rain, anything from a moderate rain or worse, won’t make for a great day for the kids, I’m afraid.  Over the years I’ve had a few rainy sessions.  One was a total washout.  The kids were soaked and unhappy. I was dry enough, but it wasn’t an especially fun day. The kids didn’t catch anything.  It remains to be seen if tomorrow brings that kind of rain or the kind of rain that doesn’t totally impair the day.

Tonight, I’d better make sure my rain jacket and tent fly are in the pack, just in case.

Appalachian sunset

One good thing about all the rain that’s fallen here over the past week or ten days: the rain has been fairly sporadic, if not when you're underneath one of the brief, torrential downpours. The big grey clouds roll across the sky constantly, sometimes allowing peeks of sunshine, never looking the same from minute to minute. That situation has produced some outstanding sunsets and sunrises over the past days. Today’s photo is sunset over South Mountain, taken last evening.

Usually, I prefer the sunrises and sunsets of winter to those of summer. That’s due in part to the forest blocking my best views of them. Another factor that’s perhaps more important is that summer skies here in Pennsylvania are often veiled by the haze of humidity. The haze mutes the sunset, and they just aren’t as pretty unless the air is crisp.

Last evening a brief rain shower right before sunset cleared the sky of fog and haze long enough to produce a really nice summer sunset over the Appalachians.

Sunset before snow

Snow is coming today.  The sky is overcast, the air feels raw (though at 12 degrees it doesn’t take much for it to feel that way). The chill air takes on a dampness that goes bone deep.  I can feel that it’s going to snow long before the first flake falls.

Last evening, the first signs of snow ahead appeared, in the form of a lovely sunset. The first clouds were just starting to arrive.  The best sunsets (or sunrises) always precede a storm.  It’s only the storm’s timing the determines whether if will be the sunset or the sunrise that is the pretty one.

This morning’s sunrise was invisible; the clouds were already too thick for the sun to penetrate. The storm is already too near for the sun to peek through the clouds.  So the sunset provided the glory ahead of the upcoming storm.

I wasn’t in the best spot for the best photo of the sunset.  I was running the errands I usually do on Friday evening so I can stay home and play in the snow when it arrives.  When I rounded a bend on the back road I was driving, there it was.  So I had to stop and grab a shot.  Fortunately, some back roads around here are still lightly traveled enough that I can do that, even during evening drive times.

Sunset

Winter sunsets are the best.  I suppose it's because the air isn't usually hazy the way it often is during the warmer months.  This one was especially nice yesterday evening.  When I'm driving home from work and can see there's a good sunset coming up, I usually try to reach this spot before I stop and take a photo.  Sunsets reflecting in both water and sky are the best of the best.

I've tried a few other sunset-over-water spots around my cabin at Roundtop, but I haven't found any that are better than this spot. It has a lot to do with where the sun sets, as well as the water.  A larger pond just 100 yards or so away doesn't work as well because the sun sets further towards just one end of the pond, and I've never gotten the full effect of the reflection. At another pond, the mountain you see in the background blocks most of the reflection in the water.  The mountain is just too close for that pond.

Even this pond only really works well in the autumn and winter after the leaves are down. When the leaves are still on the trees, they block a lot of the effect of a good sunset.

It's really the sunset, the water and the open sky that are all needed at just the right time. That doesn't happen all that often, even when you find just the right spot.

I hope I'm wrong

Sunset on a perfectly clear evening

Fall didn’t seem to progress very much here at Roundtop this weekend. Despite frost on Friday night, the leaf color just doesn’t look like much yet. And I’m starting to think it won’t be much this fall. Many leaves are down already, and the leaves that remain look as though they are just curling up, turning brown and falling.

The view to the north from my cabin is now about 50% open. I can see the sky and at night I can see stars through the canopy. In summer, my view of the sky is nothing more than pinpricks of light between a very few holes in the leaves. To the south, the direction that is most closed in during summer, the view of the open sky is less than to the north, though I can already see the curve of the top of Nell’s Hill. So the leaves are falling already and in pretty good numbers.

The leaves that are left don’t show much sign of color and when they do that color is mostly brown or a sick-looking, dull green. I’ve been trying to remember if I’ve noticed similar drying and leaf drop in other autumns before the leaves turned color, and my best answer is that I haven’t.

Summer, as anyone who lives in the east coast of the U.S. will remember, was very hot and dry, but then by mid-August the temperature moderated and the weather often turned rainy and overcast. When that happened the trees and the forest started looking more normal again, and some of the plants that started to wither in the July heat regained a more robust shade of green. The water table was replenished, and I thought the effects of the heat wave were over. I guess not.

With the number of leaves that are already down and the sad appearance of the ones that remain, I’m not expecting much from the fall color change here on Roundtop. I hope I’m wrong.

Moonset and sunset

 Spring is well along now on Roundtop Mtn. I won’t have many more days before I lose the view to the west and will once again spend the next six months encased in the “green box” of foliage that covers my cabin.

I miss the open views of winter, though I appreciate that the dense canopy of foliage is the only thing that stands between me and the need for an air conditioner. Those layers of thin, green leaves prevent the sun from penetrating down to my cabin. The thermometer in my car shows a drop of 5-10 degrees as soon I drive under the cover of the forest.

Usually each summer has a week or so that has me questioning my lack of air conditioning, but then the humidity clears or the temperature drops, and I wouldn’t need the thing for another year anyway, so I do without. I suspect that choice will change once I retire and spend entire days in the cabin, instead of just my non-working hours, but that’s a topic for another year.

Both of today’s photos were taken off the back deck of my cabin and show nearly the exact same views. The only difference is that the sun sets on the north side of Nell’s Hill and the moon sets on the south side of it. In the sunset photo, you might be able to see a few of the always spindly redbud trees just beneath the sun itself. In the moonset photo you can see the lights from the porch of my nearest neighbor to the west, which is about a mile away through the forest.

Soon my neighbor’s lights will disappear, as will the entire view of Nell’s Hill. It will be Halloween or later before they both reappear. I always look forward to that.

Sunsets

 I couldn't decide which one I liked the best, so I'm posting four of them.

This is the scene I came home to last evening on my way up to the cabin. Sunset (or sunrise) reflected over water has to the best, don't you think?

Here where I live, my best sunrise and sunset photos always seem to be taken in November and early December.  At first, I thought that was because the times I was out and about corresponded to the times of sunrise and sunset.  That's not it.  One major reason why these are the best is because of  the position of the sun on the horizon at sunrise and sunset.  In summer and later in winter, the sunsets and sunrises don't reflect into the pond so much because they are further south or further north.  Even that doesn't appear to be the entire story, though.  Summer sunsets and rises are often hazy with humidy and so the sky isn't as crisp as it appears this time of year.

So here's another reason to enjoy November.  It's hard to argue with a sunset like this one!!

An embarrassment of riches

Yesterday, the sky produced an embarrassing amount of glorious colors.  The sunrise, with photos posted yesterday morning, was exceptional.  The sunset went beyond exceptional and turned into the kind of thing seen only a few times in a lifetime.

I took a lot of photos.

I was fortunate to be arriving home just as the sunset neared its peak. So I was able to use one of Roundtop's snowmaking ponds as the foreground for the photos.  The sunset reflected off the ice on the pond, heightening and extending the colors in the sky. I was lucky in this, too.  Because the ponds are the source of water for snowmaking, they are rarely iced in.  The recent cold spell helped keep some ice on the pond even so.

And one nice thing about the sunset is that it lasted quite a bitj longer than the sunrise, which was also lovely.  That didn't last very long, though. The sunset went on for minutes, growing ever deeper in color as the minutes went on.

Eventually, as we all know, all good things come to an end, but even the last gasp of the sun's setting was glorious.

I wish you could have been here. 

I hope your own sky embarrasses you with riches.