SkyWatch #37

Welcome to a farm field in northeast Iowa. I had other plans for my SkyWatch post, but this morning a flock of gulls landed in our hayfield, securing themselves as first choice for today’s SkyWatch.

A search in my Birds of Iowa Field Guide informs me that these are most likely Ring-Billed Gulls, stopping at our field for a rest and a snack during their spring migration northward.

Besides the gulls, you also get to see what the sky looked like here this morning. It was overcast then, but this afternoon the sun is shining brightly!

Please visit the official SkyWatch website to find links to beautiful sky scenes from around the world. As always, many thanks to the SkyWatch team.

SkyWatch #32

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Welcome! The photo is annoyingly blurry, but it is of a farmstead to which I have a connection, having lived there during the first eight years of my marriage. One tranquil summer morning a stage curtain opened for a brief moment and the trickster took a potshot at me along the road by this farm. Somewhere far in the wings, my guardian angel was cracking up with laughter. I was but a child and knew nothing of such things. To me, the experience was incredibly embarrassing and I chalked the whole thing up to atrociously bad luck. For protection, I draped the equivalent of a burqa over my mind. Fabric disintegrates after many years of exposure to the sunlight of life, however. Many years later the tattered old covering ripped into shreds and fell away.

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Thank you for stopping by! And, thank you for the kind comments on my SkyWatch guest host "sundog" photo and text last week. Appreciation always to the SkyWatch team......Klaus, Sandy, Ivar, Wren, Fishing Guy, and Louise. And, to Dot who gave birth to SkyWatch. Truly, I admire and am inspired by minds from which original ideas spring.

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Please visit the official SkyWatch launchpad to find links to other SkyWatchers.

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The 13th & SkyWatch #31

Hey.........a nice surprise came my way. An email notice arrived the other day saying yours truly was chosen to be guest host for "SkyWatch Friday" this week. Its definitely a double honor because this week is SkyWatch #31 and falls on Friday the 13th.......how cool is that!!?? There must be a conspiracy afoot. Hmm......and people wonder why I have a history of paranoid thinking. Bring on the black cats......

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Go to Skyley.com to view SkyWatch No. 31, to link to beautiful sky scenes from around the world. Visit a few......or many. My photo of parhelia/suncats....er, SUNDOGS.....is right there in living color along with my accompanying text.

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Happy SkyWatch #31 on Friday the 13th!

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SkyWatch #27

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.......Power Watching.......
.......Bale Watching........

.......Cornfield Watching.......

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Like it or not, you've just viewed scenes from frigid northeast Iowa, USA. Thanks so much for stopping by. See skies from around the world at

the official SkyWatch Friday site ---> Skyley.blogspot.com.

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Have fun watching whatever you're watching today!!

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SWF #26 - WINTERFERENCE

Welcome to this SkyWatch Friday post from northeast Iowa, USA. Please visit skyley.blogspot.com to find the links to other SkyWatch sites.

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WINTERFERENCE!

Though I am not enjoying winter right now, I hope you are. I can hardly wait for green leaves to appear once again on these bare tree branches.

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SkyWatch Friday #25

WELCOME to my SkyWatch Friday post!

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Photos from this morning:

Cold.......Iowa.......January........Sky

Haha......there's no photo editing in this next one. The blurring is caused by heat from a trash fire.

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Thanks for stopping by!

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SkyWatch #22

A whirly-twirly WELCOME to you from chilly northeast Iowa, USA. Be sure to spin your way to the official

SkyWatch Friday site to catch the complete list of this week's links!

We have a miniature, ornamental windmill next to our garage. The windmill's apparatus is quite authentic-looking, and it spins merrily in whatever breeze happens to come along!


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Do you ever have a hankering to see gaze upon GREEN in the darkest days of winter? A manipulated photo such as this one can be posted on the Paintbox Pictures blog. I highly recommend a visit......the photos there are works of art! That unique blog was established by someone who was very involved with the operation of the excellent SkyWatch Friday site.......Old Tom Wigley, or Wom Tigley, or whatever his name may be!


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HAPPY SKYWATCHING!
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SkyWatch #21

First, we must attend to a THERMOMETER WATCH, however! Looks like the temperature was +3 degrees Fahrenheit this morning here in northeast Iowa, USA. Does that sound cold to you? It probably depends on what part of the globe you live on.

Its that time of the week again.......time for SkyWatch Friday! My sky post here is but one of hundreds from around the world........surf to

the official SkyWatch site to find links to all!

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Winter has definitely made a serious debut during the past week........icicles and snowy rooftops are typical scenes around the farm now:

One enjoyable gift of winter is bare tree branches........their starkness provides fascinating shadows and endless photo ops!

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Thank you for stopping in! Happy SkyWatching!
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SkyWatch #20

Welcome to this SkyWatch Friday post........zooming into your eye-space from northeast Iowa, USA. Visit the official SkyWatch site to find hundreds of sky links from around the world!

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From where I live, the eastern horizon is punctuated every day by plumes of steam from

the Hawkeye Renewables corn processing plant about ten miles away, near Fairbank, Iowa. The plant produces ethanol for powering motor vehicles and a corn by-product for livestock consumption. Here's a recent article about this ethanol plant from the Oelwein Daily Register, including an aerial photo of the corn-processing facility.

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If we pivot about 135 degrees to our left we will see a now-defunct source of power........an old-fashioned farm windmill. This one stands out in a field and used to have a water tank sitting next to it.......the windmill would revolve in the wind, powering an apparatus which pumped water out of a well for livestock to drink.

Sorry......there's not much sky in this photo......but, there's a little bit of SNOW.......and, corn still standing, waiting patiently to be harvested. This could be a SnowWatch or CornWatch photo!
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Thank you so much for stopping by! Happy SkyWatching! (If you're viewing this on Thursday and are celebrating the U.S. holiday.......Happy Thanksgiving, too! Oh-h, I'm so full of turkey, I can hardly move.......gotta go wash the dishes now.)
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Sky Watch #19

Welcome.......today is SkyWatch Friday's 19th edition. I missed a few along the way, most likely. Please visit the official SkyWatch site to find links to participants from around world. Many thanks to the SkyWatch team.....Klaus, Sandy, Ivar, Wren, Fishing Guy, Louise!

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On Tuesday of this week, the mid-morning sky appeared as shown below. WARNING......gazing at this zigzag sky for very long could trigger a headache! If anyone knows the scientific name of this type of cloud formation, please mention it in a comment......thanks!

[Dewdrop stopped by to identify the above cloud formation.......

it is Altocumulus undulatus. Thank you, Dewdrop!!]

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Last Friday, right after completing my SkyWatch blogpost, I headed outdoors for an afternoon walk and was greeted by the sight of a parhelion, also known as a "sun dog". Can you find it in the photo below?


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These scenes come to you from northeast Iowa, USA. Thanks for stopping by!
Happy SkyWatching!
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SkyWatch #18

Welcome to this SkyWatch post, coming to you from a farm in northeast Iowa, USA. Please visit the official SkyWatch website to find links to SkyWatchers around the globe! Many thanks to the good folks who keep SkyWatch operating smoothly every week!

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This first photo was taken one morning a few weeks ago when the clouds were simply marvelous! The tractor is an Allis-Chalmers 8030.

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On another morning in October, these intriguing streaky clouds were decorating the eastern sky like a set of streamers! I wonder what causes a cloud formation like this to occur?

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Have a wonderful day! Happy SkyWatching!
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SkyWatch #16

Welcome one and all to this SkyWatch Friday post! Please be sure to visit Skyley.com to find the list of this week's SkyWatch posts from around the world!
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One morning a couple weeks ago I was completely mesmerized by the cloud display above our farm. These photos are from that day.

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BUTLER DID IT! YES, HE DID.......IN THE MILKHOUSE.......WITH A PIPE WRENCH! (My apologies if you've never played the board game "Clue".) I hope you enjoy the photos anyway! (Uh.....in case you are confused.......the brand name "BUTLER" is on the bin......its a BUTLER bin......very common in Iowa.)

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AUGER WILL FIGURE THINGS OUT, FOR HE IS AN AUGUR! PERHAPS HE WILL READ THE CLOUDS.

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MEANWHILE, THE CORNFIELD CONTINUES TO HOLD ITS OWN AGAINST THE ARMY OF CLOUDS.

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HAPPY SKYWATCHING!!

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SkyWatch #15

Welcome to this SkyWatch Friday post from northeast Iowa, USA!

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This photo was shot through the window of a moving car, last Sunday, north of Dewar, Iowa. The stunning sunset was very distracting, actually. I should have pulled off the road and stopped to take the photo. This tiny rectangle of a picture does not do justice, of course, to the actual very magnificent display being performed by the interplay of setting sun and clouds.

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Here's another view of the same sunset.......in black & white for variety. The scene contained quite a conglomeration of light contrasts and shapes!

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These photos were shot with a Canon PowerShot SX100, a handy little camera for an amateur amateur like me, who has a tendency to shoot on the run! The camera is even easy to use one-handed, occasionally.......like for the photos shown here, taken sideways and blindly through the car window. I use Picture It!-9 for editing.

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Be assured, there are many, many wonderful SkyWatch posts to visit again this week! Click here to go to Skyley.com to experience a SkyWatchFriday tour. Many thanks to the SkyWatch team: Tom, Sandy, IMAC, Klaus, Ivar, Wren, and Fishing Guy. I don't know any of these people personally, but many thanks to them for their efforts each week with SkyWatch. Do you know who originated the SkyWatch idea........Dot, of Strolling Through Georgia blog. Many thanks, Dot!!

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Silo SkyWatch

Watch the sky through the silo climbing cage:

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This silo holds shelled corn for cows to eat. Yum, yum!

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Click here to climb up and down this week's SkyWatchFriday list at Skyley.com!

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Sunrise, Sunset in Iowa

Seven sunrises and sunsets have rolled around and here we are at another SkyWatch Friday post. Last week brought beautiful sunrises and sunsets to Iowa.

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Sunrise:

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Sunset:

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"Sunrise, sunset.....

Swiftly flow the days."

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Thank you for stopping by! Hie thee to the Skyley website to visit more of this week's SkyWatch Friday posts:

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Skies Courtesy of Ike

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Last Saturday evening, while Hurricane Ike was battering parts of the Gulf Coast of the U.S., we here in Iowa were treated to a spectacular cloud show around the time of sunset!

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This post, of course, is a SkyWatch Friday post! You can click here to go to the Skyley website which contains a list of links to sky scenes from around the world!! SkyWatch Friday is brought to you by Tom, Sandy, IMAC, and Klaus.........I don't know them personally, but they do fantastic work with the Skyley website and with commenting!

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I do hope there is good weather happening in your part of the world!! No one needs a hurricane, or tornado, or a typhoon.

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Take care and THANK YOU for stopping by!

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Keep watching the sky!

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