Mist, Dew, Fog: Rain’s Gentle Cousins

There have not been a lot of rose-smelling pauses around here lately. And I’m most of the time not knowing whether to scratch my watch or wind my butt, as some unnamed fellow-southern-person famously said.

It has been (blessedly) rainy here of late and we’re about to catch up with the deficit for the year. Some of it has come as frog-choking downpours. Some as gentle day-long mist.

The heavy-fog gentle drizzles leave a different signature on the land and vegetation than the heavy drops that come like buckets poured from heaven.

One of those signatures of mist or heavy dew overnight is this tinsel of tiny drops on the finest of grasses (I cannot identify this one yet.) We find it along the margins of the field (just cut for hay this week) or (in this image) along the edge of the gravel road, almost to the exclusion of any other vegetation.

And on this particular morning, these Mist Plants (as I call them) created what looked for all the world like a cloud lining the road. And now that I think about it, that’s what it was–water droplets suspended in space.

Next time, I’ll take the larger view and show you what I mean.

Click for larger version.

And compare to this image (now a PhotoNote Card).