Fragments From Floyd

Expect a sunrise image a day for four. I came home yesterday from my morning walk wet, exhausted and with a few keepers. I rushed down the valley to beat the sun to the bend in the creek, to take advantage of the even light from the morning sky without stark shafts of light that would dapple the rushing riffles if I didn't hurry. I was too late after all, because although I had never noticed in years past, the sun in late June finds a notch in the mountain and shoots a beam right to the end of the ravine into a cove otherwise in shadow almost all day and all year. I'll go back and try again this morning.

But then, from the far end of the valley, I looked back toward the house and saw that fog had appeared out of nowhere, as if it had flowed down from Lick Ridge behind the house as I was racing the opposite way. It had draped itself, pink and orange, across the road and north end of the east ridge. Amber rays needled through the white pines and dying hemlocks on the ridge, and I race-walked back toward the house through the pasture that still held standing water from the weekend rains, to catch the light with a few shots before sun lifted full above the treeline.

This kind of lighting doesn't happen very often here. And even less often am I there to see it. And I get to share it with you! So there will be a few more yet. Now, if I could just find a way to share what the valley smelled like. The "mystery perfume" is back.