A black shape tossed by the wind among overhead powerlines caught my eye. When I turned and focused on it, I saw that it was a crow being blown sideways, with its wings spread out. I thought it was dead or stunned – you usually don’t see crows coasting with the wind the way seagulls fly. It looked like it was going to capsize and fall, but it righted itself just before tipping into an impossible angle. It turned and flew into the wind, flapping its wings in quick scissor-like gestures, hovering in one place for a few seconds. Then it fully regained its composure and flew confident and now crow-like against the wind.
A light ridgey thumbprint cloud spreading out directly above is the defining feature of this sky. It’s not prominent because of its size. It’s prominent because of the way it’s centered and framed by other clouds. It’ll pass overhead and disappear behind me, where it’ll merge with the others into a dense mass of cloud, and empty itself onto the Cascades. Snow in the mountains.