Wind Art

As anyone who reads my blog knows, the wind blows a little bit around here. During the past couple of weeks it has blown semis off the highway, knocked down power lines and I'm sure wreaked a lot more havoc that I'm unaware of.

So much stuff gets blown around here that I decided to coin the phrase, "Wind Art."

The other day we were driving through the pasture after feeding and I spied an example. I told Tom to drive over by the fence. When he asked why, I replied, "So I can get a picture of the wind art."

His predictable response was, "What?" But he steered the pickup over where I indicated. I guess he figures that by now, instead of having me explain, he can just read about it.

 Here's what I was talking about.

Then a couple days later we were driving into town and I spied a much better example. "Stop, I want to take a picture," I said. Tom didn't ask of what as he stopped in the middle of the road. He just kept saying, "Someone's coming, someone's coming." I quickly snapped a photo and we continued on.

Wind art. It kind of looks like a weird bird with a chicken head and feet, doesn't it?

I could have taken hundreds of photos of the stuff blowing around, but how many pictures of trash do people really want to see? So I started looking for other examples of what the wind can do.

Yesterday I drove over to the Paradise Valley, which is north of Yellowstone National Park. On the way down I took a few photos.

It's beautiful country with the Absorka Mountains lining the west side of the valley. A fire burned through this area last summer and some homes were lost. You can see burned trees on the mountain side on the left.

This is the view from our friends' house. Pretty spectacular, but what really caught my eye, was more wind art.

I just love the textures caused, not only by the contours of the mountain, but also by the wind scoured hillsides, the trees and the drifted snow.

On the way home the drifts kept catching my eye. The temperature hit fifty a couple times this past week and the snow is almost melted, but there is still some lining the road.

I changed the light and color a bit on the above and below shots to bring out the texture more.

After I got onto our place, I parked along the driveway and walked down into a small drainage and found some really cool shapes:

These last two drifts almost look alive to me, like some strange creatures at rest.

But now everything has changed. It's snowing! plus the air is still. I went out and fed the bees and now intend to spend the afternoon inside, keeping the wood stove stoked and watching the snow come down.