Purple Rain & Contrails

Does this post have anything to do with gardening?

Nope!

Vegetables?

Nope!

Tomatoes?

Again, Nope!

As I mentioned in the previous post, our wet weather weekend knocked a lot of projects into next weekend (alcohol has a tendency to do this too). But the skies cleared at just the right moment to put on one of those "once-in-a-lifetime" twilights that I had to capture.

You don't often see colors of red and purple against a blue background. Nor do you get to witness the kind of show that I witnessed just last night. The receding stormclouds and setting sun combined to put on quite the color show last night, which isn't something you often see.

The fact that I was -- at this point -- barbequeing some chicken on the outdoor grill left me lots of time to take in a great show. And -- as I took in this display put on by Mother Nature -- I noticed something else. And it was anything but mother nature.

North Natomas is very close to the Sacramento International Airport -- too close for my liking. It's great when one of us has to hop on a plane. The ride over takes all of five minutes -- no traffic. That's the plus. The minus is all those jets shaking the house when they fly over the neighborhood upon takeoff.

And they fly over all too often.

We're also close to Beale Air Force Base -- which is just a few miles to the north in Yuba County. We don't often see or hear those planes taking off -- but every once in a great while you can see them heading for home. You don't see the jet -- but rather the contrail it leaves behind.

Most of the time -- by the time you see the contrail -- the military jet responsible for it is long gone. But not this time. This one was streaking across the blue sky just below the cloud colors of purple and red -- and there was no mistaking the bright white contrail it left behind.

I find contrails interesting thanks to a rather "interesting" character that Venus and I met once at the American Legion Hall in Rio Linda. You meet all sorts of characters in Rio Linda -- and they all seem to congregate at the Legion Hall. And our friend "John" had a rather fascinating theory about "contrails."

They were -- in his opinion -- "evil." As in "George Orwell's 1984" evil. It was John's opinion that "Big Brother" government was keeping watch over all of us through the use of contrails. I never did learn from John exactly how "Big Brother" was using these trails to keep watch on us -- we never got that far with the conversation. Usually, we'd both nod our heads and say something like "that's nice John," and then head off quickly for another drink at the bar.

John was a character. But then again, so are we. And who knows? John just might be right. Perhaps our new First Lady wants to check out our heirloom tomato garden setup so she can get some tips and pointers about the new White House Garden? So why not put the pilots at Beale AFB to work? It makes perfect sense to me.

At least John would find this conclusion quite believable.