CLOUDS 8079 "Niiskaa's Cloud" There has been a lot of rain this year and along with that rain a lot of cool storm clouds. Here is a recent example of one such cloud, taken after a couple of rainy days. The photo was taken over Wauswaugoning Bay on Lake Superior. The clouds were directly above the Susie Islands. We were on our way back from picking up a kitten that a friend of ours had rescued from the recent storm. The kitten was found abandoned near her back yard. He was very fragile and we could tell he had been through a lot in his ordeal since being separated from his mother. We planned on giving him the best home we possibly could. Unfortunately he did not live long. We had him for just two days when he passed. We think he had already been on his own for too long and was either unable or unwilling to eat. We did everything we could to try and feed him some kitten formula, which he did keep down at first but eventually he started throwing that up. We could tell his condition was deteriorating even further and when he started having seizures we knew we had to take him to the emergency vet, even though that was a 3 hour drive away in Duluth. So, at 9 PM on a Tuesday night we left for Duluth. He died in Jessica's arms along the way, somewhere between Split Rock and Two Harbors. We had named him Niiskaa, from the Ojibwe word niiskaadad, meaning "It is stormy". We figured it was the perfect name for him since he was not only found in a storm, but it was also stormy the evening we picked him up. He was only with us for a couple of days but he sure touched our hearts and we got really attached to him in the short time that we had him. The cloud shown in this photo is the cloud that we saw on the way home after picking him up from our friend's place. We call it "Niiskaa's Cloud".

CLOUDS 9077 "Sky High" High altitude clouds have a spellbinding appearance over the Grand Marais harbor - Grand Marais, MN