How much difference only a few seconds may make in the way the sky looks as the sun sets! And even at the same moment, how different one part of the sky looks from another!
For this week and the following three weeks, I’ll post in chronological sequence a series of pictures all taken from my deck on Block Island on July 1, 2010 between 8:08pm and 8:32pm.
8:08pm
8:16pm
Glorious natural fireworks for my Fourth-of-July post: special effects of clouds and air bring the sun down anything but spherically.
How wonderful to be back on the island this week!
We arrived on Monday on the 7pm ferry. This time of year, that means we reached the house still in time to see the sunset. Oh, these long days of summer!
Despite weather forecasts predicting clouds, showers, thunderstorms, rain heavy at times, humma humma yadda yadda, we had a perfectly glorious sunset, one of those sunsets made even better by an unsettled skyful of clouds.
Happy summer solstice! The sun has reached the northernmost point in its arc and will now slowly begin rising and setting farther and farther to the south. Summer is here, and on the island that means sweet flowers and mown grass; beach weather; and long, languid afternoons and evenings on the deck as the sun sets.
We worked hard all spring to get the house in peak shape for the season. Next week we get to relax as we hope our guests do and just enjoy the season. Well, at least I hope Dan will relax a little…
Here’s a photo from our visit earlier this month.
I wish I could post to this blog just how sweet the air smells on the island. The wild roses and the rosa rugosa are blooming. This is the air that God meant for us to breathe. What a blessing!
The weather was unsettled last weekend; the sunset was spectacular early but faded out as a cloud bank moved in from the west. There were thunderstorms that night.
As seen from our deck, the sun now sets to the north of the lighthouse as it approaches the summer solstice. This series of photos, taken between 7:30 and 8:00pm on May 15th, suggest that we will enjoy late northern sunsets for the next ten weeks. We or our tenants, that is. You lucky people who get to summer on the island.
I am so far behind in posting my sunset pictures that I think I will never catch up. So many wonderful pictures! So little time!
Here’s a picture from May 6, 2010 that’s pure visual cotton candy. Enjoy!
Wow. I’m finally nearing the end of the weekend of April 2, 2010. The photographs in this post were taken just an hour or two later than those in last week’s post.
More than a month has passed since I captured this sunset.
I wonder how far north the sun will have moved in this time. If the weather permits, we’ll see this weekend.
It’s a gift, that’s what it is.
I realize this almost every time I look at the sky. The sky is filled with unutterable, incomprehensible, exquisite beauty. I don’t know whether this beauty is inherent in the sky itself or in how we humans are wired to perceive it, but that doesn’t really matter, does it? Because either way … it is given to us.
So here is another ordinary everyday breathtaking sunset on Block Island. April 1, 2010. We are blessed.
I especially like how the sun image reflects in Sachem Pond.
Later, the breeze picked up a little, ruffling the pond. But the sky show went on.
After nearly four months away, we returned to the island last Friday on the 6pm ferry. What a wonderful homecoming! Of course, the question that kept our pulses racing was: Will we make it back to the house in time for the sunset?
Early signs were encouraging. The sun had not yet set when the ferry docked. We raced up Corn Neck Road. Oh–no, sorry, officer, what I meant was: We drove up Corn Neck Road just as quickly as traffic (nonexistent) and the speed limit would allow.
But there was a problem with the photographer.
The photographer wanted to stop at every photo opportunity. The photographer even made Dan turn the car around and go back once when he hadn’t realized she wasn’t joking. The photographer had to take a picture of the violent waves crashing on Crescent Beach, with the wings of the sunset spreading to the north.
The photographer *also* had to stop and take a picture of the sun setting over Great Salt Pond.
So it will come as no surprise to anyone that by the time we arrived home at about 7:15, the sun had already set. But it was one of those glorious sunset that keeps up the light show for a while after the sun goes down.
The contrast of colors was remarkable. An arrival to remember.
