Years back in Bozemen, Jim Murphy, a friend who grew up on the plains of eastern Montana, commented about feeling confined by trees and mountains. He didn’t like not being able to see the approach of weather.
At the time it didn’t make sense to me. There was lots of weather … you just had to look up.
I grew up surrounded by mountains forested with larch, spruce and balsam. We then moved to Pacific Northwest’s forests made dense by rain, doug fir and hemlock.
And then … we moved to Central Oregon and the edge of the High Desert.
Now Murphy’s comment makes perfect sense.
The sage and scrub pine open up to an expanse of sky that gives fair warning to any changes in weather. As well as what is happening in the next county.
Unrestricted by dense forest canopy, we’ve become observers of clouds, the sky and by default the weather. There are lots of trees and mountains around us, but there is also a great expanse of sky.
If you’ve been visiting this blog then it’s apparent we post a ton of images that take in the landscape and with it cloud formations.
We have regular day trips that carry us out into the high desert … just to observe and photograph clouds and weather patterns.