Lunar Eclipse

January twentieth's total lunar eclipse, on a cold, clear night, the so called Super Blood Wolf Moon. Below zero temperature, the moon at high altitude, a clumsy tripod incapable of the angle, and an adapted, low quality Minolta 210mm zoom from the 1980s on my great Olympus EM10, all overcome to capture a couple of nearly steady images at several second exposures. If you look closely, or click on the image, you can even see a few shaky stars. Lunar eclipses reveal the moon's spherical form more than our usual moon, offering us the subtlest grasp on the depths above.

A Blue Moon

It is easy to miss what is going on in the sky, particularly if you are, like us, surrounded by trees. But this full moon, on July one, was hard to miss. In fact, it had been keeping me up at night, presenting itself in the wee hours after our nightly storms had cleared, glowing brilliantly above the southern horizon, a flashlight in my sleeping face. This July happens to have two full moons, the second of which is known as a blue moon.

If it weren't for an evening out at a friend's place in Minneapolis, I'm not sure I would have noticed the peculiar proximity of two planets fairly close to the horizon. As we sat talking about our art and possibilities, I perceived this celestial phenomenon without uttering a word. I may have missed the planets at their closest moment, but the event warranted an evening trip to the road just to our west, one that is up on the ridge and had been cleared for farming years ago.

Venus, the brightest body in the sky other than the moon and sun, is on the left and Jupiter sits to its right.

Not quite a celestial phenomenon, but the reddened light of the afternoon sun clued us in to smoke in the lower atmosphere. Originating in Canadian wildfires, the smoke arced down with the jet, creating hazy sun, sunset-like light earlier in the evening, and the low-hanging moon became an unofficial blood moon.

The Balm of Night

The other night it was warm and breezy. The most perfect balm of temperature and dew point.

We walked out through the dappled moonlit woods to watch the clouds blow by from the quiet road. Then a raccoon went crazy where the road turns, tearing up the silence of night, and we headed back to the house.

The Tread Of Time

The night is dark but for the power company's safety lamp. It is dangerously cold near, below, or well below zero. The wind blows, not a howling, but a deep woooh through the trees. The whimpering of the iron porch rocker transcends walls, its complaint in every room. If you stare into the night, nose chilled by the cold relay of a double-paned window, you will see little, if anything, but the sodium lamp's sickly orange-yellow glow cast onto the woods and snow. Turn out the lights and sleep. Only daylight brings the ghostly imprint of Disney's dark dispatch, the tread of time debossed into crystalline water, our drive the Grauman's of faunal drama.

Our porch steps a barrier -for now.