Musings

When the morning sky looks this captivating, ya just gotta smile.

Posted at 11:09 PM | Comments Off on Even before coffee

This morning before the sun came up, the moon had a faint rosy tinge.

Posted at 9:34 PM | Comments Off on Living (hothouse) color

We did a loop drive with a lunch/afternoon destination in Athens (where we found this charming lavender in bloom). On the way over, it seemed like in every other opening to the sky we saw a vulture circling. Surprisingly, on the return leg, I only spotted one…were the others resting after a lovely lunch (as in, they had consumed all the carrion)?

Posted at 9:21 PM | Comments Off on Natural history

I went out early in the moist sunshine to see the morning humidity. I found it in the air…

…and on the vegetation.

Late morning, we went to the Swedish store of exports from Ukraine and Poland…and got the…point.

Back home, a peony was new-opened.

Posted at 7:26 PM | Comments Off on Fresh sights

Just some (invasive) honeysuckle, plain and boring compared to events of the beginning of the week.

Posted at 8:43 PM | Comments Off on Ho-hum

We did see the eclipse. We perhaps didn’t prepare our recording equipment for the event. This is taken with a “real camera,” that is, one that you can’t talk to, with eclipse glasses held in front of the lens.

Here’s the total eclipse—again, not a stellar photo, yet still a wonder. Phenom witnessed, photoed, and oohed over…so we hopped back in the car and turned south into what became a series of traffic jams. Remember, we were in southern Illinois, and we had only a few bridges near enough to get across a major river. [We heard that an academic prognosticator in Carbondale estimated at several hundred thousand folks would visit southern Illinois to eclipse-watch.]

En route, we encountered a double rainbow—with both ends on the ground! Sorry, not shown. I saw no leprechauns or pots of gold, although I had a good view of the rainbow-feet. Still, we took it as lucky…

…that we encountered the front that brought this a few miles before the hail, and, as it happened, we only had to drive through hail-on-the-ground, not plummeting hail, whew. We motored along with great care between hail-piles, and within two miles, were out of the ice and headed for our traffic-jam fate. For the record, we reached home safely at 12:45am, at about the end of my energy.

After seeing photos today of Etna’s “smoke rings,” I wonder if there’s another phenomena sighting we should put on our short list?!!—and perhaps arrange tickets???!! 🤣 Kidding.

Posted at 8:37 PM | Comments Off on Phenomena

We managed to see the total solar eclipse. I think the resolution’s been hammered and you can’t see that this is the corona, or that Jupiter is below and right of the sun/moon pairing. Stunning. Stories tomorrow….

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Corona (not virus)

We began an overnight gallivant today, first driving along the Rome bypass to avoid traffic snarls, as one would, then crossed big water (but not wide, as you can see), and we’ve stopped in Paris.

At some point the wind kicked up and we drove through a few sprinkles.

We now feel we are positioned to see the total solar eclipse tomorrow. Let’s hope the weather cooperates.

Posted at 10:23 PM | Comments Off on No Eiffel structure here

I do like outdoors falling water, both the visual and audio experiences…here amplified by sweet-smelling blooms.

Posted at 9:13 PM | Comments Off on Contemplative garden moment

Love the elegant long filaments and the warm red-orange shades of these flame azaleas…rather similar in morphology (not color) to the showy native azaleas we have in the woods in the mountains north of us. I’m not in the woods, so I’m enjoying the nursery specimens here and there I see in my neighborhood walks.

Posted at 8:54 PM | Comments Off on Location location…