Flowering Plum & Amazing Clouds

The flowering trees are so pretty in the springtime! This is an ornamental plum tree, partially backlit by the setting sun. The tree is called an "ornamental" plum because it does not bear fruit.

On this day, I saw some of the most amazing clouds I've ever seen in my life. See that one puff of cloud hanging downwards, just to the right of the big tree? That bit of cloud was not very distant at all, and was hanging not far above those trees to the right. And yes, that field is a cemetery, dotted with grave markers and flowers in urns.

All of the clouds were in motion, too, very quickly moving and shifting, almost like the sky was a boiling kaleidoscope of form and color. It was the last vestiges of a storm system that had briefly formed from the heat and humidity of an unusually warm spring day.

In the 60-something years I've been on this planet, I have only seen something similar a handful of times, and this had to be among the top two displays of this type and magnitude. These photos really do not capture the splendor of the sight that I saw. Once the sun sank low enough to illuminate the underside of the clouds, the result was dazzling!