Solar Eclipse

99.789% obscuration was close enough for us to decide to stay home and view the eclipse from our own front yard. Well, at least three of us did... the Farmboy went to work; funny how one can't reschedule a celestial event to coincide with a weekend.

My Mother-in-Law aka Grandma Twist, lives just down the road came to enjoy the festivities with us. With how close she lives to us, we don't see her nearly as often as we would like, so it was fun to have her here with us.

It's pretty amazing how much a .211% sliver of our sun can still illuminate. It was like early dusk instead of the twilight that many saw. We didn't hear crickets or see pets lie down for a nap. We didn't see some of the most famed effects of a total eclipse, but the experience was still amazing, dumbfounding, awesome, epic, and highly memorable.

We viewed the Moon's slow passage across the sun with special custom-made boxes and with store-bought glasses. Both were equally cool.

I didn't buy any special camera filters, so all of my pictures are homespun, taken through my eclipse glasses or taken of the side-effects, rather than the actual eclipse. I think they capture the look of the morning pretty well, but I highly recommend that if you are ever within travelling distance of a solar eclipse, you really should go; it was a priceless experience. Bucket list material.

My very favorite was seeing mini eclipses embedded in the pinholes of dappled shade.

But if I take one moment from the entire event with me to my grave, it will be the ripples across the ground in the last moments before our fullest coverage happened. I tried to capture it in video, but it was so subtle, it really doesn't show. It was like the heat rising from a hot tin roof in full Summer, but across the ground in waves. I've read that this effect is from the topography of the moon, as it races across the sun, casting moving shadows of the peaks and valleys and craters of its surface.

Lately

the Reason for Three Feeders :: Ombre Eggs :: Playing with Old Friends :: Bigger than my Knuckle :: Tiny and Sweet :: Coloring :: Morning Companion :: Skyping with Cousins :: 8 Year Old in Armor :: Lavender :: Bumblebee on Fireweed :: Sunset :: Famous Floor (Joe's Donuts) :: a Force to be Reckoned With

Lately

We've had a little burst of warm (almost hot) weather this week. The trees and flowers are having the time of their lives, filling the air with pollen that dusts my car and makes my eyes itchy. At least I don't get sneezy and congested like some. The last two days were warm enough that I fell asleep with my bedroom window open, and during the day the house is full of birdsong through the windows, punctuated by the buzz and chirp of hummingbirds visiting our growing collection of feeders.

I'm so ready for Summer to arrive. The school year just seems to drag on and on... I'm ready to get my kids home for days and days of togetherness. I've ordered our curriculum for "Mama School" and can hardly wait to get started! There will be cursive and art and anatomy and reading and music. Not full time, mind you, but a few hours here and there, keeping us all on our toes and learning together.

Flowering Cherry :: Sharing :: Blazing Sky :: Best Friends :: Tiny :: Hail :: Speckled :: Crab Apple :: Putting out the Bait :: Hummer Food and Tattoos :: Flowering Currant :: Run :: Cherry Bark :: Bleeding Hearts :: My Babies :: Mock Solomon's Seal :: Sandals and Skirts :: Kitty Heaven