Some Spring Summer blossoms

My, it's been a while! 

I've been busy... chasing butterflies, birds, clouds in the sky...

Hope you've enjoyed Spring.              Now it's summer.

1st 2 photos are of a tiny purple flower growing in the bushes. I never saw all that detail before!! COOL!
((There's a link below to a flowers page where my photography is included  & for sale))

You see part of my thumbnail in the next photo. 

May rhododendron blossoms opening. PRETTY! 

this bee is too busy eating pollen to enjoy the beauty of the blossoms. 

http://fineartamerica.com/art/photographs/flowers

I used a dramatic setting on my camera to achieve this interesting effect.

Some Spring Summer blossoms

My, it's been a while! 

I've been busy... chasing butterflies, birds, clouds in the sky...

Hope you've enjoyed Spring.              Now it's summer.

1st 2 photos are of a tiny purple flower growing in the bushes. I never saw all that detail before!! COOL!

You see part of my thumbnail in the next photo. 

May rhododendron blossoms opening. PRETTY! 

this bee is too busy eating pollen to enjoy the beauty of the blossoms. 

http://fineartamerica.com/art/photographs/flowers

I used a dramatic setting on my camera to achieve this interesting effect.

Weather drama

After missing most of the snow and stormy weather this winter season, we're getting some snow now that is actually sticking to the ground, here in NE PA, USA.

BEAUTIFUL!

Stay safe out there! The photo is a different day,, still as exhilarating as any beautiful wonder of nature!

Sunshine is delicious, 

rain is refreshing, 

wind braces us up, 

snow is exhilarating; 

there is really no such thing as bad weather, 

only different kinds of good weather.

John Ruskin

Autumn mountain view

Here's a more recent view of the mountain range(see the last post in Lackawanna County, PA, that had purple flowers in the foreground.)

BEAUTIFUL Autumn colors!

This is taken on Sept 29, 2013.  It's a little higher altitude than my mountains in the Valley.

 Another bunch of color just off the highway.

You can see the colors are not so far advanced, or dramatic yet, in the valley area

as they are higher in the mountains, just North of the Wyoming Valley, PA.

Here's my mountain:

Last Night's Eerie Drama

We had a storm front moving through - & some DRAMATIC cloud formations in the sky!

The start of a humid & warmer-than-usual few days for the Labor Day holiday weekend, 

with highs averaging in the mid 80s.  (this was actually night before last, Aug 29, 2013)

** Here's a panoramic view**

just as it's starting

I also show closeups left & right, below this photo.

They are all within 10 minutes: 7:40pm or so - 7:50pm.

THE SETUP

Around 7:00 we noticed the sky outside... it didn't look yellow, in fact there were bright blue areas to the Southwest (That's the left side of this photo), but it "felt" yellow.  The air itself was yellow - 

a thick dark yellow.

The wind was still - nonexistant, even though you could tell something was approaching from up the street. Eerie!

I went outside, the sun had just dipped down behind the mountain - the sun sets in the center of the panorama above, right where there's a dip in the crest, a passage through the mountain to the other side.

(ALRIGHT,... 

I can't resist ...

 imagine creepy sci-fi music playing as you read, "to the other side" above.)

Back to reality people! That "dip" in the mountains is where the local highway, the North Cross Valley Expressway, rt 309, cuts and climbs through the mountain, giving access from the major highways and the Wyoming Valley cities & riverside towns... "to the other side" (couldn't resist again), to the "Back Mountain" as it's called locally, towns of Shavertown, Trucksville, Dallas... I posted a Google map on August 14, 2013.

     I digress. So... I went outside. the sky was blue, we had just had a nice sunset with greying clouds lined with streaks of pink then purple. Nice. But,    the    air      felt     yellow.  I turned around and looked up the street (off the panoramic view, off from the right).  The sky was an entire mass of GRAY. Heavy. Then I started hearing lots of distant rumblings. You probably guessed right - those rumblings were approaching thunder & lightning. You could palpably feel the air getting thicker, then the breezes started as I ran around the yard, prepping for a storm, in case there were strong gusts.

A FEW PHOTOS OF IMPRESSIVE CLOUDS EVENT

     Then I went inside, upstairs to the window where I can get the best shots, and started shooting. 

 First was the panoramic view above.

Closer view looking LEFT: approx 7:43pm

     

Closer view looking LEFT: approx 7:49pm

Interesting how some clouds started poking up higher & higher at the top.

Closer view looking RIGHT: approx 7:43pm

 Closer view looking RIGHT: approx 7:49pm

(In this shot I zoomed back out. I wanted to catch what I could of the huge cloud at the top.)

Then the sky turned grey, almost completely cloud-covered,

as the storm arrived.

FINAL NOTE: I wish you could have been here! I'm sure you probably experienced similar weather events, so you know how powerful the visuals and feelings can get. After this, there was nothing worth recording. It was grey. there was wind. Some rain. Somewhat anti-climactic. 

But this part was really quite fun. And beautiful.

 *1 or 2 of these photos will be available at http://christina-verdgeline.artistwebsites.com in the "My Mountain" gallery.