Tuesday windmill

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I absolutely love it when the grass is green, the sky is blue, and I find another object at which to point my camera. After work I hit the dirt roads and went muddin’ with my truck, saw lots of cool birds and new places I’d never been…then drove into a patch of rain which washed pretty much all of the mud off the truck. In a way, things came full circle.

Monday night at the edge of the storm

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Once again, we just missed getting pummeled by a nasty summer thunderstorm. Today only you can check the WSI “Yesterday” radar loop by clicking here. The fact that we were on the end of some dramatic cloud formations made for a very unique sunset.

I was just wrapping up some yard and garage work and, while my view of the horizon is obscured, I could tell that the sky had a lot of unusual characteristics. So, in the course of running and errand for my wife, I decided to bolt to Hillside Park and snap a few shots. What you see above is the edge of the cloud cover, a window to the somewhat clearer skies beyond. Even cooler:

What’s neat about this part of the sky is that something’s casting a shadow on the clouds. The rays that spread outward are blocked in a couple of places, making for some neat texture to the bottom of the clouds overhead. It’s just too bad I didn’t have an angle without all the antennas in the way!

60,000 foot clouds in South Dakota can be seen in Bismarck-Mandan

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On my way home from a grueling evening of volleyball and pizza, my wife and I were curious about the light show in the southern sky. I giant cloud that looked like it came from the movie “Independence Day” was looming southward, and full of lightning. We decided to do the romantic thing and go to the top of Hillside Park to view it. I took a couple of quick photos as well.

Once I got home and got the truck in the garage, I checked the Intellicast Radar Summary to see how close it was. I was quite surprised to find that it wasn’t close at all! These clouds were still south of the ND-SD border, and the cloud tops were hitting 60,000 feet! I took a snapshot after originally typing this post, and they were just starting to cross the border (see above) and were picking up speed

With a storm cell that compact, boiling up to a height of almost 12 miles while dropping hail, we’re likely to see its aftermath on the news tomorrow. Good thing it’s not in a densely populated area right now; of course, who knows what it might do when it approaches Jamestown!

Let sleeping dogs lie…especially when they’re stacked

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These two canine companions were having a warm summer snooze in the driveway of their owners as I drove by. They live in a house near Fox Island and the surrounding backwater, so I’ve seen them many times before. In fact, I’d even heard about them sleeping this way before…I had just never seen it for myself. Now I have, and so have you! What a great couple of pals these pooches must be.

Friday night sunset

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Our family spent the evening at a friend’s place northwest of Mandan. My friend and I decided to walk the land, since he’s got a bunch of it. As we were wrapping up our survey of the area I was able to snap this blazing orange sunset shot, complete with streaming rays and majestic hills. Life in the country sure is good.

Many damsels, few in distress

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While accompanying a coworker on a fly-fishing lunch to the OWLS site east of Bismarck, I obviously had the camera with me. I’m glad I did, because there were tons of damselflies and dragonflies hanging around the water. These are fascinating little creatures…here are a couple of close-ups:

There are so many cool features on a bug like this, I don’t really know where to start! In the interest of time, I’ll just let the picture speak for itself.

One other neat characteristic of this bug is the design of the wings. The shapes of the individual wing facets are pretty cool, and remind me of something NASA would put together.

The lake at the east OWLS site has undergone a makeover, so there isn’t as much plant life along the shore. I expect that to change very quickly. Even without it, the damselflies are raiding the rocks along the shore, and they’re quite willing to be photographed! Go check them out when the storms pass.

Antique rollover

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Along Highway 1806 this weekend I spotted this old truck on its side along the railroad tracks. How long it’s been in such a state, who can say? But it made a pretty nice photo opportunity. Its wheels have long gone missing, so it’s unlikely to be removed anytime soon. I guess it’s actually a pretty nice decoration, in a rural sort of way. Just as I’m intrigued by abandoned farm buildings, old vehicles like this really catch my attention as well.

One thing that’s nice about a relic like this being hidden in rural North Dakota is that people are less likely to pry parts off of it for eBay! Although I notice that the trim rings are gone and the hood is open. To investigate further would have meant hopping a fence line, and I didn’t have permission to be there. No worries, I was in perfect position to get the photos I wanted, and this is one of them.

Saturday night sunset surprise

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I had just left a Saturday evening meeting at church when I saw that we were actually going to have a sunset, unlike all those past cloudy evenings! One of the most important elements of a good sunset photo is actually the foreground object, so I scrambled to think of a good place to go. I didn’t have much time because, as they say, daylight was a-wastin’. So I bolted to Misty Waters to get an angle at the Square Buttes and the river.

When I got there I got a nice tower, the buttes, and a reflection off of the river…all lined up for the taking! I had to stand on top of the truck to get the shot I wanted, but that’s never stopped me before. It feels good to get a nice sunset photo, something that I’d been known for in the past but have had a hard time getting in recent memory. Part of it is that I’m a husband and a dad, and sunsets are occurring later and later in the day. The other reason is that the rains with which we’ve been blessed lately also block out the sun. I’m more than happy to go without blazing sunsets for a while in order to get that rain!

National Trails Day 2007

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Saturday, June 2nd was National Trails Day. I can’t say that I knew that, but I did “hit the trail” yesterday anyway. One of my motorcycles is a dual-sport bike, basically a street legal dirt bike, and I put it to both uses Saturday afternoon.

The trip took me to a few different trail heads north of Mandan. Not only did I visit the Square Buttes from the western side of the river, but I also stopped in to visit my friends who are setting up for the Price Hare Scramble race, which sadly I won’t be entering because of church. I wish those things were held on Saturdays! Then I ventured north to the Cross Ranch State Park for a bit, taking photos along the way.

The pictures I got were pretty cool, I’ll probably be posting them over the next few days. In my opinion, the land north of Mandan is some of the most beautiful country North Dakota has to offer, especially now that everything is so green. It’s a long drive on a thumping dirt bike, but that makes it easy to deal with the gravel road and the dirt trails! The last thing I wanted to do when I got back, however was sit down…

OWLS site off to a fresh start

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The land between the Game & Fish office and the State Penitentiary east of Bismarck is set aside as an Outdoor Wildlife Learning Something-or-other, or OWLS (I believe the S is actually for Site). With acres of grasslands, small drainage streams, trees, and a spring-fed lake, this area is a host to a lot of wildlife, frequent fishers, and a few photographers. I’ve come home with some spectacular one-of-a-kind photos from this site!

Today they’re having a fishing day to kick off the year, and promise the possibility of catching any number of fish species. They’ve got bluegill, trout, bass…you name it, apparently they’ve stocked it! This is a catch-and-release area, by the way. I often see people bring their children out to fish from the floating bridge as an introduction to fishing, and it’s a great place to enjoy an afternoon with a hook in the water. It’s in town, it’s well maintained, and it’s a nice place in general.

Last year this lake was groomed, if that’s the correct word; the low water levels made it an opportune time to come in with heavy equipment and scoop all the slimy muck out of the bottom of the lake while regrading the shoreline. There are other habitat items here such as gravel beds, shelves carved into the bottom, and sunken culverts to help aid in the spawning processes of the various fish. It looks like everything went very well, the area around the lake is tilled and seeded, and we’re set to have a really nice OWLS site. We even got the rain we needed to help bring the water level up!