27 July 2008

If You Don't Like The Weather...

... just wait a minute. Of course, in that minute, lots of things can happen. This is what the landscape in back of me looked like when I started photographing some flowers.


Ominous, but not too bad, right? The wind was picking up in nifty little gusts that made photographing the flowers a matter of 1)wait, 2) time wind gust, 3) push button on digital camera, 4) wait for delayed reaction, and 5) hope I got the shot. A few sprinkles started, but whether they were from the clouds or if the wind pushed water from a neighbor's sprinkler over, I wasn't sure. Being an optimist, I voted sprinkler, and looked through the lens to take this:


A gust of wind almost pushed me over, and made the flowers whip wildly. I unglued my eye from the camera, and looked up to see the trees almost bent double as another lovely 60mph gust of Wyoming wind roared by. I tried to photograph the trees, but by the time I took a picture, the trees had bounced back. For the moment.


Across the field I could see a wall of rain, dust, and debris hurtling towards me. That group of trees in the back of the picture vanished, the trees bent sideways again, someone's styrofoam picnic cooler kept up with the birds hightailing it to the safety of the pines. This is one time I'm glad I wear glasses, as a face full of gravel is not a pleasant sensation. I ran for the house before the next gust knocked me into the siding.

After all the tree-whipping, leave-stripping blasts of wind, the rain was a disappointment. It moved over so quickly it hardly got the ground wet. Even so, I much prefer the hit and run storms to some of the lightning show spectaculars we get around here. So, no lightning, no thunder, no tornado, and only a few flowers shredded by the wind. All in all, a good afternoon...

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

"There's no place like home,there's no place like home"

And your Grandmothers name was Dorothy.........

Constance Brewer said...

Grandma Dorothy would have appreciated Wyoming. *g*
How's the weather back there? Still raining?

Meghan said...

Great pictures, Constance. I can't complain about the weather here except to say it's been foggy and chilly all day.

Constance Brewer said...

Meghan - thanks. I bet everything seems foggy and chilly after Greece. *g*

Anonymous said...

Ms. A-Moose' estate got hit hard by a severe storm last Sunday.
One tree and many limbs down.
Even blew some corn down in our garden.
Cleanup almost complete.
Bonfire wood aplenty.

Constance Brewer said...

Anon - I weep for the loss of corn...
you could send some my way. Make up for the non-Nirchi's and non spiedies I have. :P

I assume you did clean up by 4-wheeler?

Anonymous said...

Cordless sawzall and 2 feeter.

Constance Brewer said...

If a tree falls in Wyoming, and no one is around to hear it...


... it still makes the front page of the paper!

Anonymous said...

Because you have so few trees!

Constance Brewer said...

And so little entertainment!

Gabriele Campbell said...

It's not easy being a tree in Wyoming. :)

Great photos.

Constance Brewer said...

Gabriele - thanks.
I have 11 trees around my house, grown from seedlings, and 20 baby lilac shrubs. I guard them jealously!
At least you have castles to drool over. :)