Second day of the abomination the world calls Daylight Savings Time, and already our schedules are completely shot.
It’s not just the losing of an hour; it’s not even the complete lack of sleep last night [none; zero]. It’s the way it portends eight months of disruption, now that its duration is even longer, while we are too old for our circadian rhythms to adjust to something so utterly unnecessary.
That’s not the only disruption for this day, however. After yesterday’s weather, so much like early May — brilliantly clear skies, impossibly warm air for March without the winds that turn it wintry — last night began the process of the newest change. Overnight, it was still all clear skies, but with the air riven by a brutal north wind that seemingly arose out of nowhere. By this morning, the lenticular clouds that herald a change in the weather had put in an appearance, their broad shelves sweeping across the peaks. And while today’s lesser winds have spun most of them out into nothingness now, a few remain . . . and the week’s forecast has altered drastically.
Originally, it called for rain and snow for Wednesday and Thursday, with the possibility of a repeat performance on Saturday. Now, the front is expected to begin moving in tomorrow night, and remain more or less in place through Sunday.
It’s wonderful news, if it proves to be accurate. But it’s also a reminder of just how fast conditions change here — in spring, and at every other season.
Between the time change and the insomnia it spawns, and the inversion of my work schedule, it’s been a difficult day. But I cannot get the beauty of yesterday out of my mind; the warmth, the serenity of the air, the beauty of a day spent beneath skies of neon blue was too affecting. And while I still hope that the forecast holds and we are granted the predicted five days of precipitation, increasingly I find my thoughts drifting toward the warmer winds of summer already.
The wild creatures feel it; it’s obvious from the behavior of the wild birds now. The elk still visit occasionally in the darkest hours, if in much smaller numbers; Coyote put in his first visible appearance last week. The prairie dogs are awake, out of the burrows, and absolutely wild, chasing each other around the fields at top speed. And like the grass beneath, the trees are beginning to show signs of life: no leaves for many weeks yet, never mind blossoms, but the branches are awakening, coming to life, changing color in preparation for both.
One of the most obvious such changes is found in the branches of the weeping willows: As they renew themselves for another year, they adopt a color much like molten gold, almost unnaturally brilliant against the clear blue of this high-desert sky. It’s a sight captured in the image that is the subject of this week’s Monday Photo Meditation, above, and the photo’s name is reflected in this post’s title: Neon Blue, so christened by Wings on the day in early 2017, if memory serves, when he shot it in digital format.
It’s an unusual image, focusing as it does purely on the downward-draping strands that form the weeping willow’s branches, pulled toward the earth by gravity, against the bright background blue. One might expect the the “neon” descriptor to apply to the branches, their golden hue positively electric . . . but it was the blue contrasting with them that caught his eye, its intensity deeper than so-called “sky blue,” neither quite cornflower not quite turquoise, with hints of cobalt and even indigo seeming to backlight it.
It’s an extraordinary contrast in color.
Wings would have caught this shot right about this time of year — perhaps as early as late February or as late as early April, but no, my best guess is that he took this in March, squarely in the middle of this threshold between winter and spring, when neither is willing to commit fully either to departure or to arrival. Back then, before the drought deepened so terribly the following year, the limbs were healthy, flexible, resilient, impossibly bold and bright. That was their standard, and we took it too much for granted.
It took only one year for that to change drastically.
Of seven weeping willows split between our northern and southern corners, two or three seem to be lost entirely to us, now. The rest have more dead branches than live ones, only bits of dirty gold showing through the upper branches. But those latter trees do at least have new growth at the main crotches of their trunks this year, and that is suddenly a gift beyond measure.
Those branches, of course, sit far too low to contrast with the blue of the sky. Then again, if the forecast holds, there will be precious little blue for the remainder of the week anyway. But where there is new growth, there is at least hope, and perhaps the upper branches will find some healing, too. Over the course of the week to come, we shall ride out whatever storms present themselves, and look forward to the warmth and clarity of skies of neon blue.
Summer, after all, is no longer that far away.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2024; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
