Category Archives: Sunsets

As usual, sunset-ish, filling the bird feeders, when WOWSERS!!

The picture doesn’t do it justice, it was bright! And it lasted for at least 15-20 minutes, much longer than normal.

This is where it’s coming from – the Sun in the clear as it set, with some scattered clouds dropping virga for the final rays of sunshine to shine through.

As I was working, and looking at that rainbow over the wall, the hummers were active, buzzing me as I stood near their feeder.

Finally the Sun broke through and started illuminating the nearby water tanks and power lines, while still leaving the rainbow and some drifting sheets of rain.

The rainbow was small when viewed as part of the big picture, but the whole thing with the bright blue sky and bright white clouds with the band of color streaking across it all. With hummingbirds.

I’ve shared plenty of photos of the western sky at sunset, either because it was aflame and spectacular and awesome, or because it had planets and the Moon in it, or both. But the view to the east during those same moments is also gorgeous, if somewhat more sublime.

Directly behind us to the east are row upon row of empty, graded lots for parts of our subdivision that were never finished. That’s a whole long and interesting story to begin with, no doubt to be discussed another day as it seems some developer has bought the empty land and plans of building there in 2027. We’ll see. Beyond that are these three huge water tanks that turn the most subtle shades of pink and orange at sunset. And the power lines coming up from the Mesa and the Cajon Pass. Beyond them, the mountains, dominated by the triple-peaked Pinnacles and the mountains heading up into the Mojave Desert. All purple-ish at this time of the dusk.

More to the northeast tonight there were layers of clouds heading up toward Barstow, the higher ones still almost still white but getting the lightest tinge of pink, with the lower, closer clouds already entering into night’s shadow, with every shade and level of illumination in between. And more power lines and water tanks and vacant lots. Welcome to the southwest corner of Hesperia!

It does make a most lovely, pastel backdrop for refilling the bird seed feeders!

Ridden hard…

…and put away wet!

After weeks and weeks of “clear and a gazillion” conditions, I was surprised to get a “Red Flag Warning” from the National Weather Service. A chance of thunderstorms, rain, high winds, and dry lightning that could spark brush fires.

Okay! The weather app went from 0.00% chance of rain to 15%. I was not holding my breath waiting for the gully washer, despite the fact that we started to pick up some clouds over the mountains. Then the clouds got thicker and started moving west.

Right about sundown…

It was unusual in that it wasn’t colored from north to south, pole to pole, but just in one narrow little spot. There might have been more clouds down over LA or Antelope Valley that were blocking all of the sunset rays except for through one little hole in the clouds. But the display it left on this end! WOW!

No enhancements, no editing, no filters, no effects. This is straight out of the phone, exactly the way it looked.

There were spots, like here on the right, where rain was falling, but it’s “virga,” rain that never hits the ground, evaporating before it can get there since it’s falling into such dry air.

The longer I looked, the more vibrant it looked.

I was out moving back and forth between the front yard and the back, taking pictures and trying to get the bird seed feeders refilled before it got dark. But every time I hung a feeder I had to stop with that task and start taking pictures again.

The birds were impatient (they have brains that are theeeeeeees small…) but I finally got it done.

From there it was time to grab The Long-Suffering Wife so she could see, and sit out in front to watch it finally peak and fade.

So with all of the clouds, grey or crimson, I wasn’t going to be seeing the Moon, Venus, Jupiter, or Mercury tonight. But this was a pretty great trade off. It’s acceptable. I’ll take it!