Sunset before the full moon

5:02 p.m., Jan. 30.

Full Moon Saturday, and as you can see from the sun's parting shots, our skies hold plenty of mystery and beauty around this time of month. Sunsets are almost always like this out here, and panoramas like this make sunset a truly moving time of day.

A beautiful sunrise is often soft and pastel in color, full of promise, but not as strong. Full sun above can wash out the daytime, infusing all activity with a weird sort of energy. But dusk, when the stability of the ground rushes up to meet the descending sky, well, there's just so much in it. It passes quickly, so you've got to get out and see it before the colors get hazy.

I am facing southwest in these pictures, looking out over the cattle fences and our chicken coop. Slopes and swells of grassland canyons lie beyond the fence posts you can barely see in the top picture.

In the above picture you can see the bar of color in between the black ground and the black sky, this shot was taken at 5:21 p.m. Within minutes the day is swallowed up.

What makes these light shows unfurl as they do? I used to ask my dad about it, and his answer was that we had open skies. It has a little bit more to do with light waves, atmospheric density and the way our eyes work, but in part, he's right. Dust and water help reflect the colors of light, and we've ususally got lots of dust blowing around out here. Smog and pollution have a silencing effect on the light. Reds have the lowest amount of energy, and are shorter in frequency, so that's why we see more of them at night. It's also sort of ironic that I feel more strength in sunsets than sunrises, but I like the ferocity of red and orange.