Watching a Sun Set

Every now and then one really should take time to enjoy the changing nuances of the sun setting at the end of the day. I allowed myself that break from my beading yesterday (or perhaps it was just procrastinating?) and found myself surprised by what unfolded. What initially caught my eye was not blazing colors or masses of clouds filling the sky. No, it was several of these elongated shapes back-lit such that the edges glowed around a dark grey mass.

As I broadened my focus, I noticed the peachy fluffs of clouds scudding rather quickly to the east while those elongated clouds remained stationary. The higher level of clouds had not picked up any of the color, and in an optical illusion, looked all in the world like they were scudding equally quickly to the west. I forced my eyes to stay steady on them, confirming that this was just a trick of the eye and that they actually were not moving much at all.

Now I was just enjoying those fluffy clouds floating along, and then I spotted the next surprise - some very black wisps in front or below them. I still don't understand how they could be, and I couldn't help taking lots of pictures of them.

Honestly, I started thinking "witches" for some reason.

Some of the cloud formation was bumping up like a thick fog against the mountain moving mostly north while the rest of it jutted out like fingers moving in a different direction.

Now I shifted my focus along that jut of mountain to this formation of clouds over Schweitzer Mountain.

And looking back the other way, a little south, I spotted this lone interestingly shaped cloud, still basking in the tints supplied by the ever lowering sun.

The sun was nearly down now, most of the clouds having moved off to the east, most color on what was left spent. Yet those elongated clouds that had first caught my attention continued to catch the last of the sun that made their edges glow, back-lit against a darkening sky.