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full_metal_oxI sure do!
I’m something of an astronomy nerd; you have to understand that the great solar eclipse of 8 April 2024 was something I’d been counting down to my whole life. In my native Dayton, Ohio, I’d gotten to witness the strange begrimed 40-watt sunlight (1) and dappled crescent shadows of the partial solar eclipses of 10 May 1994 and 21 August 2017, after having gotten a fleeting confirmatory glance through SolarShields under welder’s goggles: the exercise was a bit like hunting basilisks or Medusa.
Another point is that I’m acutely homesick for the seasonal markers of the place where I spent 90+% of my life: the violets and wild chives and flowering crabapples, and the two equinoctial yellows of Moraine honeylocusts: neon chartreuse foliage in the spring, and in the fall flaming saffron—turning to orange piles of cornflake crunch beneath the feet. Even the lawn weeds here are unfamiliar.
Until a couple years in advance—by which time it was too late—I had not anticipated that, by the time the total solar eclipse at long last came to Dayton, I would be gone; behold the southern Gulf Coast of Florida’s experience of the Grand Portentuous Celestial Event.
( Continue. )
I’m something of an astronomy nerd; you have to understand that the great solar eclipse of 8 April 2024 was something I’d been counting down to my whole life. In my native Dayton, Ohio, I’d gotten to witness the strange begrimed 40-watt sunlight (1) and dappled crescent shadows of the partial solar eclipses of 10 May 1994 and 21 August 2017, after having gotten a fleeting confirmatory glance through SolarShields under welder’s goggles: the exercise was a bit like hunting basilisks or Medusa.
Another point is that I’m acutely homesick for the seasonal markers of the place where I spent 90+% of my life: the violets and wild chives and flowering crabapples, and the two equinoctial yellows of Moraine honeylocusts: neon chartreuse foliage in the spring, and in the fall flaming saffron—turning to orange piles of cornflake crunch beneath the feet. Even the lawn weeds here are unfamiliar.
Until a couple years in advance—by which time it was too late—I had not anticipated that, by the time the total solar eclipse at long last came to Dayton, I would be gone; behold the southern Gulf Coast of Florida’s experience of the Grand Portentuous Celestial Event.
( Continue. )
A walk in Thomas Hardy country
Dec. 4th, 2024 05:00 pmpuddleshark
A walk in West Dorset, in southern England, on the downs above Beaminster. I hear the views are spectacular. It's just that every time I've ever been there, it's been foggy. 😊
( Low cloud on the hills )
Squirrel Flet and Sunflower Heads
Sep. 30th, 2024 11:40 pmysabetwordsmithBranches have fallen all over the yard from recent storms. Today I started picking up some of them, and noticed that there was a fallen squirrel flet. A squirrel's nest may also be called a drey.
Also today, I started harvesting dry sunflower heads. The small to medium ones I have hung as bird food. Those with big heads or good multiflora form I am putting in the septic garden, hoping they will reseed like the 'Autumn Joy' did last year.
( Walk with me ... )
Also today, I started harvesting dry sunflower heads. The small to medium ones I have hung as bird food. Those with big heads or good multiflora form I am putting in the septic garden, hoping they will reseed like the 'Autumn Joy' did last year.
( Walk with me ... )
Tags:
spring green
Jun. 8th, 2021 12:09 amasenathwaiteA birch tree (I think), one of many that volunteered themselves in my front yard. Before I moved out of the concrete desert, I would never have guessed that trees could be so prolific.
Volunteer Paulownia
Sep. 5th, 2018 06:03 pmredbird
This paulownia tree is a volunteer, growing out of a crack between the sidewalk and a cement wall, and probably damaging both. The branches are reaching sideways for the light, and block the sidewalk, especially after a few days without rain. (I suspect this block wouldn't be wheelchair accessible even without the trees, given the slope.)
