Lunar Halo with Moon Dogs

My husband took this picture on Christmas. The moon was full and there was a ring around it. The ring is called a lunar halo, and the two bright spots on either side are called moon dogs. When this happens to the sun, they are called sun dogs. It was a beautiful sight on Christmas night.

Night sky timelapse over the ocean

This an amazing timelapse:

Difficult, and utterly beautiful things

Yesterday was a difficult day. We had to put two cats down. One was somewhere around 22 years old, and one was somewhere around 16. Both were much loved. Even though these things are done because you love them and don't want them to be uncomfortable, it's never easy.

And so the day was wrapped in grief and tears and recollections, and sometimes even laughter, but by the end of it, I was so incredibly tired. I went to bed with heavy eyes and a muddled head from all of the emotions and tears of the day. At a little after 11:00 my daughter came home from visiting her boyfriend (one of the cats had been his). She woke me up and said, "Come downstairs, I need to show you something." With my daughter, all bets are off when she makes these kinds of announcements. You never know what's in store.

I managed to open my eyes enough to maneuver unsteadily out of bed and down the stairs. My daughter stood by the door and said, "You have to get in the car. I have to drive you someplace." When I began to protest, she added, "You'll love it, I promise."

And so I climbed into the car in my jammies, still half asleep, and my daughter drove me down little back roads while I kept mumbling things like, "I think this must be a dream. I'm pretty sure this is just a dream." My daughter only said, "You'll love it, I promise." Finally, when we were on a small, forested road, she said, "Close your eyes."

That wasn't hard, they were mostly closed with sleep as it was. I dutifully closed my eyes and had the sensation of a small child, mostly asleep, being carried to bed, as the car slowed, made a turn, and stopped. "Okay, open your eyes and look."

I opened my eyes and said, "Ohhh..."

We were on the edge of a field of tall grasses, surrounded by forest, with a million fireflies blinking everywhere, all around. I stepped out of the car, amazed. It was like standing in the middle of a blinking, starry sky. We found a couple of large boulders to stand on so that we could look far out into the field and see how the fireflies continued on into the distance. They were everywhere, in the grasses, above the grasses, filling the air, up in the trees, and right next to us. Flashing and blinking and twinkling. We stood there for I don't know how long, mesmerized, watching a million tiny lights, glowing in quick flashes above the nighttime meadow and within the even darker night among the trees. I whispered, "Thank you, Jessica, for bringing me here." She gave me a hug. 

My daughter was right. I did love it. It was an utterly beautiful ending to an enormously difficult day. 

 And I'm still not sure it wasn't a dream. 

Spider Silk

photo from this site

The picture at right is a traditional royal Madagascar weaving done in spider silk. That's right. Spider silk. The silk was milked by hand from golden orb spiders found in the wild in Madagascar. More information about the cloth and the process that went into its creation can be found here.

This is one of the most beautiful textiles I've ever seen, and I'm doubly interested in it because in my book, Rose of Par Kluhnd: A Fairy Tale, there is an area in the Lands of Shey which produces textiles made from spider silk. In fact, Rose, from time to time in the story, wears armor made from spider silk.

Spider silk ounce, for ounce, is stronger than steel, but my use of it as armor in the story is poetic license. It turns out that spider silk is extremely elastic, so although it might be able to stop a sword or a bullet, it would stretch so much in the process that the sword or the bullet would actually go right through you anyway. For a tad more information about spider silk, visit this post in my blog.

And here is a little clip featuring this amazing, golden cloth woven from the silk of spiders:

I was looking through some old photos hoping to find enough to use in a book trailer I'm trying to make, when I came across this photo:

It was taken by my daughter a couple of years ago when on a trip to England. I just thought it was beautiful and wanted to share. You can click on the photo to see it even larger, and then click on the back arrow to return to the blog.

The full moon, deer, and Runa

Over the weekend, the moon's elliptical orbit brought it the closest to earth that it's been in 18 years.

photo by Steve Ash

My husband and I had tickets on Saturday night, the full moon night, to see the Celtic band, Runa, perform in the cozy venue of a nearby national park lodge. My husband dropped me off and went to take a few pictures of the moon. He finally joined me at intermission, so he was able to enjoy the last half of the concert, which was fabulous.

photo by Steve Ash

We came across a herd of deer grazing at the edge of a forest on our way to the lodge. We snapped a few photos of them, too.

Click on any of the pictures to see them even bigger, and then hit the back arrow to come back to the blog.

Hope your weekend was enjoyable, too. And Happy Spring!

Spring!

It's here! And serious work has begun:

Photo by my daughter, Jessica

Happy Spring!

More on Bald Eagle sightings

The other day I spotted a bald eagle while walking the dog in the neighborhood park next door. Over the weekend, my husband and I decided to go find some more. There are nesting sites nearby so we went to the eagles this time:

And we spotted some. My husband captured a few photos. This one has a mallard flying rather close to an attentive eagle:

Here is one of my favorites:

And here are a couple of pictures he took of the sunset from our back yard after the recent snowfall:

Sometimes the colors of the sunset linger for a while, subtly changing until dusk takes over. This particular sunset faded very quickly. I was glad my husband was able to capture it before it was gone:

I love the holidays!

My daughter and her boyfriend made this gingerbread Christmas tree:

The house smelled sooo good when the gingerbread was baking.

Hand-grown/made things are wonderful

Along with some other gifts, my son presented me with this wonderful-smelling bouquet for my birthday. The roses are from two of the three rose bushes which he and I planted last spring and which he has been faithfully tending all summer. They're growing gangbusters and keep producing the most beautiful flowers:

And my daughter designed and built (with some help from her boyfriend) an herb-drying rack for me. I've already put it to use with some hyssop, parsley, calendula, oregano, lemon balm, thyme, and peppermint :

This is what I've been using, rigged precariously from an old freezer rack. It's done the trick, but space has always been a problem:

Now, with this new rack, I have loads more space. I hang most of my herbs to dry in the warm, dark garage in the summer. A few I'll pop into a barely-warm oven, but most recieve the hanging treatment:

What a great day I had. It was made even more special knowing that my kids (who are both no longer 'kids', but young adults) are so thoughtful.

Fragrant herbs...

... are scenting my kitchen.

I've been gathering culinary herbs from the garden and hanging them to dry: sweet basil, sage, and sweet marjoram. As they've passed through my kitchen in the process, they've left behind their wonderful aromas.

And I have some other herbs drying in a barely-warm oven. These are medicinal herbs, but just as fragrant: tulsi (holy basil) and chamomile.

And I've begun the maceration process on two herbal tinctures, one fragrant, the other not: lavender (Provence) and plantain.

There are wonderful scents wafting around my kitchen, so sad they'll soon fade.

Salvaging a flooded garden

Today my daughter and I went out to re-plant our community garden plot. My son and I planted it first several weeks ago. Unfortunately, we had several bouts of heavy rains, the effects of which were a pond where my plot had been. Things have only just dried out.

Of the seeds we originally sowed, only carrots came up. Of the 24 seedlings started indoors and then planted (which included four varieties of heirloom tomatoes, three varieties of pepper plants, and several basil plants), only a handful of tomatoes have survived, and a few peppers. I say survived, but really, they are barely clinging to life and have not thrived at all. Well, you wouldn't either if you were trying to keep your head above water for two weeks.

We decided this time to plant everything in raised rows and mounds to raise them up out of the floodplain:

The bottom right corner is where the carrots have come up. They're still small. I'm waiting until they're bigger before I do major weeding so I don't accidentally pluck them out with the weeds:

We re-planted the Lima beans. They're a variety called Christmas Limas because the beans have read swirls in them. I started one plant at home in a small pot. We transferred it to the garden and sowed its neighbors directly into the mounded rows:

This is what the previous sowing looked like after the flooding. They never had a chance:

We have water and hoses available to us at the community gardens. But you don't always know how long it will take to untangle someone else's doings:

Here's our plot, all freshly planted. Only about half of the tomato cages on the left still have tomatoes struggling to grow within them.

After working away most of the day at the 'far-away' garden, as we've dubbed it, we came home, put the tools away, and went to enjoy the peony which is currently in bloom (The following is one of only two pictures that I took in this post. The other is the money plant picture at the end. All of the other photos were taken by my daughter.):

I just love it. The flowers are gorgeous. Click on any of the pictures to really see them up close and personal:

A pure delight:

Such beautiful colors coming together:

This little bud is so precious, dusted, I think, with pine pollen:

Ah! What more can I say?:

I am so grateful that I didn't get rid of these bushes several years ago like I had planned. They were scraggly, mixed in with a dying holly and a couple of juniper bushes. I ripped everything out and replaced them with other things, but instead of tossing the peonies, I decided to relocate them. They have thrived in their new home ever since, and I just love them. My white, frilly one will bloom any day now, and I can't wait. But for now, I'll enjoy these beauties:

And for a cool, green contrast, here's a parting shot of a back-lit money plant (aka silver dollar plant). We still have cottonwood fluff floating around and coating everything, as you can see:

Looks like snow - but isn't

We woke up to snow this morning - cottonwood snow. It's really heavy this year, I haven't ever seen quite so much accumulate:

The drifts were a couple of inches deep in our yard:

The cottony fluff gathered on our new rose bushes. Here it is on one of our Princesse de Monaco roses:

It's hard to see it against the soft, bright whiteness of our Honor rose:

It's a good thing the snow isn't real, or these strawberries would be in trouble:

The cottonwood, which is actually in the park next door, still has plenty more where that came from - it's loaded with fluff:

The downy seeds spread out with every breeze:

Our floribunda Gene Boerner isn't immune:

I love the velvety pink of the Gene Boerner:

The flowers are so pretty, even surrounded by cotton fluff:

Here's a bit nestled between the petals of an Honor bloom:

And, of course, our geranium has been catching its fair share of the cottonwood's excess:

I've been out trimming hedges today and I'm covered with the stuff, too.

A study in blueberries

This morning a fog hung over everything in the early hours until the sun rose high enough to burn it away. It left behind some beautiful droplets on our swelling blueberries (click on the pictures for a larger view, then use the back arrow to return to the blog):

The little berrylets sometimes held the drops as though they were little fairy cups:

I've come to learn that blueberry plants vary the color of their bark with the seasons. In all seasons they are a delight to look at. Their colors, aways in hues of greens and reds (and white with the blossoms), are constantly changing. I can't wait 'till I spy some blue!:

Someday this will be a nice little handful of berries:

A sip of morning dew, anyone?:

I hope we get to pick these when they're ripe, and the birds don't get to them first!:

Such beautiful colors:

A delight to look upon:

And the sunshine only makes them prettier: