Wonderfully Wretched Day...

The weather is compellingly horrible today...and I just love it.  There's an edgy, sort of scary, excitement when the thunder rolls, and the wind rages, bending the gnarled branches of the old oaks with creaks and groans, while the graceful limbs of the birch dance and sway.

As it got darker and more ominous into the late afternoon yesterday, I walked the boys down the road to collect the mail before the storm hit.  When we got back to the house, the view over the valley was very dramatic with the light in the distance while Armageddon churned to life overhead.  A blue jay stopped for a moment--no doubt looking for a place to hunker down--just as I was framing the shot...

The storm held off until after dark, but then the deluge began in earnest, and is still going strong.  This afternoon the wind has finally died down, though the rain is worse.  When I opened the blinds this morning, my prayer flags on the back deck were sodden silky bits of fabric, though oddly, one had been neatly folded by the storm into a very cool origami bird.  Maybe that will help fly more prayers out into the world...

Just off the deck is a sweet little oriental cherry tree and though all the leaves have been gone for a few weeks now, this morning I had this: bird leaves.  There were many more perched in the branches, but even trying to stay as motionless as possible, half of them freaked anyway and flew off just as I took the picture.

Here's a strange association thing.  Just proves that either my brain is truly warped, or my heart will always belong to Scotland...

After I'd taken the top photograph, I took this close-up of the pine tree on the back slope.  I love the symmetry of the limbs, and it reminded me of St. Michael's Church, next to Linlithgow Palace.

 

St. Michael's, Linlithgow, Scotland.  I took this photo on a gloriously beautiful day in July, just before my birthday a few years back.  No doubt this is a case of you had to be there, but even if no one else sees it, I do.

 



Okay, before I get all morose, I'm going now for a nice cup of Yorkshire tea and a warm chocolate chunk cookie.  Besides, I can't resist the lure of my cozy chair, or the siren call of my book, especially while the rain pounds the roof and the gloom of a stormy afternoon deepens.  Sigh.  Heavenly...

 

[As always, click on photos to enlarge]