I watch an unkindness of ravens (Corvus corax) circulating above the Ridge harrying a lone red-tail (Buteo jamaicensis) who has to execute full rolls, talons-up, and other acrobatic maneuvers to stave off pecking and otherwise tag-teamed attacks from the largest of the ravens.

And then there are the monsoon clouds that spring up, suddenly a full hammer-headed thundercloud with wisps of precip draggling below the flat bottom of the cloud. God, which way is the wind blowing? Will it skew off over there, 500, 1000, 10,000 meters. Causing a flash flood to gush off the slick-rock canyon sides into the wash that is already choked with sandy runoff. Erosion is quick here, much of the sandstone is so friable that a chunk the size of a shoebox can, almost literally, melt in a year or so. The glacier front-environment in Iceland is like that, although rocks there are chiseled apart with freeze-thaw. Those cycles can happen several times a day with oscillations around 0C +/- 2C. None of the degraded Holocene clays that occur between the volcanic ash and glacial silt will last long — hydrated, and also prone to extreme weathering. Both landscape extremes change in living human memory. It’s only a matter of looking, watching, to see the change, to set a state-observation (a memory) in mind for longer term. The storm brings these thoughts, although in the last days it hasn’t rained here at all. While there have been numerous large storms passing across the Glade, gully-washers, as they are sometimes called, putting cold clear rain down by the centimeter. Nope, nothing here. Thunder, and if at night, horizons flashing with Lightning. But no water. Damn. Still watching the sky.