After the storm clouds, with their rain, thunder and lightening, moved eastward I decided to follow along looking for interesting clouds and, of course, a tree in solitude. Joyfully I found both.
After the Storm
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Facing the Storm -
Storm Clouds
Storm Clouds Last night the skies began to darken as clouds rolled in from the west. Before long a deep rumble could be heard and flashes of lightening lit up the skies. I stepped onto my balcony and was greeted with a very bright flash and clap of thunder as the skies opened and a severe storm raged through our area. Mans concrete and asphalt drainage systems were no match for incoming water so flooding was everywhere. What an awesome show of natures power. The last two evenings have produced storms. I took these images two nights ago as I drove east about 40 miles in pursuit of cloud formations.
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Open Space
Open spaces “…mere open space, a lack of trees, and vegetation that doesn’t rise above the height of a man’s head do not make a prairie…prairie refers to a natural community which, like a giant organism, is composed of a multitude, a sum total of its parts. It is a complex ecosystem of grasses, flowering annual and perennial plants, shrubs, a few trees, and a variety of wildlife, from the macro-vertebrate to the microcosmic.” From Mary Taylor Young, Land of Grass and Sky: A Naturalist’s Prairie Journey (2002), page 101
This was taken about 15 miles east of my apartment. Of course where my apartment is used to be 15 miles east of town. Large raindrops were falling, wind was blowing and temperatures were dropping as the storm clouds moved across the prairie.
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Storm Clouds
Storm Clouds The disappearance of a major natural unit of vegetation from the face of the earth is an event worthy of causing pause and consideration by any nation. Yet so gradually has the prairie been conquered by the breaking plow, the tractor, and the overcrowded herds of man…that scant attention has been given to the significance of this endless grassland or the course of its destruction. Civilized man is destroying a masterpiece of nature without recording for posterity that which he has destroyed.
– John Ernest Weaver, North American Prairie (1954)