Somewhere Over the Rainbow….

You can use various linguistic intensifiers to describe the climate in Indian Valley—it can be brutally cold in the winter & mind- numbingly hot in the summer, & even having lived in both Burlington, VT & San Francisco, I’d have to say it’s the windiest place I’ve ever called home. We get those 3-day blows that rattle the tin roof & whistle thru the windows.

Having said that, tho, there are some real delights in the landscape. I love the openness here—the miles & miles of land stretching to a distant horizon, the atavistic sagebrush & bitterbrush, the grasslands & the creeks, the tenacious willows & cottonwoods that eke out their existence in the desert. Spring here tends to be long (often having its first real stirrings in late February), as does autumn (not unheard of that it lasts into the month of December), & both these seasons are lovely here. Another thing I’ll say: I’ve never lived anywhere that I’ve seen more rainbows, & definitely have never seen the ends of so many—it’s not unusual for rainbows to end in part of our eastern neighbors’ pasture, near that odd topographical protuberance Eberle & I affectionately call “Weird Hill.”

So here are some photos we’ve taken of rainbows in various seasons (none from the summer, when it hardly ever rains). & as a bonus, I’ve added a clip of the Alice Band (from our last show ever in December 2004) doing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” & “What a Wonderful World” as a medley—& no, I wasn’t playing uke, I was playing a hollow body archtop electric guitar—we knew better than to try & copy Israel Kamakawiwo'ole very closely.

Hope you enjoy the pix & the show!

Pic at the top of the post: a rainbow over our shop in May 1999

January 2009 - rainbows in winter are unusual but rather breathtaking












September 2008 - double rainbows both ending in the east stretch of our neighbors' pasture







March 2008 - This seems almost to duplicate the September double rainbow - or should I say pre-figure?









November 06 - Against a dramatic sky; this rainbow seems to end in Thorn Creek (which runs along the line of trees & shrubs)














April 98 - The end of the rainbow is just across the road; a lesson in this perhaps?