Our house sits about 750 feet above sea level overlooking the Los Angeles Harbor, San Pedro, Long Beach and the cities beyond. Sometimes, while skies are clear at our level, clouds and marine conditions lay a thick white blanket over the area below us. We awoke to just such conditions last Saturday morning. I'm sharing a sequence of photos beginning with the sunrise as my Wednesday Vignette.
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| My cat Pipig was crying for her breakfast so I didn't get out the back door before the sun had mostly surfaced above the cloud cover |
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| I took this photo with the sun hidden behind the Agonis flexuosa's trunk in an effort to block some of the glare. The cloud blanket always brings snow to mind for me. |
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| The clouds often have interesting shapes when viewed from up top. That brownish pink color is created by smog - we haven't had sufficient rain to scrub the horizon clean. The red color in the foreground are the bracts of a Bougainvillea planted on the upper slope just beyond our Xylosma hedge. |
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| This photo was taken just a few paces north of the prior one as the sun continued to rise. Here the folds of the clouds looked almost like ocean waves. |
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| My garden is more fully revealed here but the cloud cover is still intact |
Once the sun had risen, the cloud cover below us slowly began to dissipate. It was gone before noon.
I wrote this post yesterday morning, a bright day, filled with sunshine. I'm shocked by yesterday's election results, which I'm not yet able to process. I'll make no attempt to mine these images for meaning. The clouds in my photos are just clouds - they clear out and we can see what's in front of us clearly again.
Visit Anna at Flutter & Hum for other Wednesday Vignettes.
All material © 2012-2016 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party
Great shots of a beautiful sunrise! I feel warmer and dryer just looking at them.
ReplyDeleteIt's warm and very dry here, that's for sure.
DeleteWhat a lovely series - thanks for capturing it for us, Kris! Your photo reminds me what a special plant bougainvillea is for really glowing in low-angle sunlight.
ReplyDeleteMy husband hates Bougainvillea but it really is a wonderful plant in the right setting and, planted just beyond the hedge at the top of a slope that can't readily be reached without trudging through the neighbor's property, it's outside the reach of his clippers.
Deletethe third and last Bougainvillea has left my garden!
DeleteBut the neighbour's plant is waving over the wall. Sigh.
Bougainvillea is especially beautiful when you don't have to prune those vicious, thorny canes, Diana!
DeleteIt's a surreal sight.
ReplyDeleteThe view is particularly odd when the clouds sit a little lower and the tops of the shipping cranes in the harbor below stretch above like the necks of dinosaurs.
DeleteI can't process what just happened, either. Your beautiful photos made me feel momentarily better, but I still have a knot in my stomach that I can't seem to get rid of. I'm just stunned...
ReplyDeleteI'm still tied up in knots trying to determine what's next too, Anna. Public policy advocacy is going to become an increasingly important aspect of my life I think.
DeleteLovely. Just what I needed to see.
ReplyDeleteNature does help to ground one.
DeleteGreat photos Kris. I grew up with a similar cloud layer masquerading as ocean, only mine was hundreds of miles inland as we looked out over the Spokane Valley, the effect was just as magical.
ReplyDeleteIt's nice to have all the mechanical workings of the harbor hidden from view on occasion. The clouds are our version of a pristine snow-covered landscape.
DeleteA lovely series of images Kris; it isn't just you trying to process what happened this week; like Anna above I felt a physical sick feeling in my stomach when I awoke to the news.
ReplyDeletePolitical shifts elsewhere in the world perhaps should have prepared us for this. I'm still trying to come to terms with what it means - and how to deal with it.
DeleteYou do have the most amazingly dramatic skies. Thank you for sharing these wonderful photos. The news this week is really too awful for words.
ReplyDeleteYes. Still, we must figure out how to respond constructively. I, for one, do not want to slide back in time into the 1950s.
DeleteBeautiful photos Kris. Always beauty somewhere in our world , no matter what else happens.
ReplyDeleteThat's been my mantra this week, Kathy.
DeleteIt's the view of gods :)
ReplyDeleteWould that I had Zeus sitting at my elbow, Eliza. Perhaps I could encourage him to toss a lightning bolt or two.
DeleteFantastically beautiful!
ReplyDeleteIt looks like you have a heavenly garden above the clouds.
Mariana
If only those clouds would rise a bit higher and drop some rain, Mariana!
DeleteWhat a beautiful series of photos! It must be wonderful to have this view through the year and to be able to watch the sea of clouds in all of its manifestations. I also love how the light washes over your garden as the morning sun progresses.
ReplyDeleteThe clouds don't settle below us all that frequently but, when they do, it's a pleasantly eerie sight. Also interesting, if rather clammy, is the experience of having clouds actually roll across the garden at our level - it's very different than moving through fog.
DeleteSo much beauty ♥
ReplyDelete