A Cloud Sampler

 This past week has produced a wide range of beautiful clouds - even fog - but little rain. In the past 20 days we've had only 0.18" of rain, barely enough to get the crops by. And yet the sky has given us some amazing displays.
 The shot above is from the morning of August 21. The sun had risen behind garden-variety cumulus in the east and as I turned to walk back out Sam's lane, the sun broke through an opening and sent a crepuscular ray skyward. The atmosphere was a bit foggy and the angled shaft of light seemed to slice the sky in two above me. It did not last long.

 Later that same day, I was sitting on the sofa and happened to look out the east window and saw this lone towering cumulus. I checked radar and saw that its top rose to about 21,000 feet and it was beginning to drop some rain near Yellow Springs. It receded to the east.
 Lit as it was with a sun low in the west, the cloud took on a majestic billowy look. I took another horizontal shot of the same cloud:

 Finally, on the morning of August 24, I walked out with garbage for the compost in the very early morning (perhaps 7:15 am or so) and looked back to the east as the sun slanted between our row of pines at the front of our property. The early morning orange light was breathtaking as was the peculiar slant of the sunlight among the tree trunks.

 Even without rain, the grass is exceedingly wet every morning and thus gets lightly watered by the dew. Nature takes care of her own as much as is possible. And she provides me a light show of her work as I step gingerly through the damp lawn.