Catch of the Day

 

Quality of the picture's not great because I zoomed in with my phone but one day while I was driving, I saw a turkey vulture sunning itself on top of a tall pole. I had to turn around and turn around again so I could pull over and snap a few quick pictures. It had its wings fanned out in that position for a long time. At first it looked like a statue but there are no statues of birds on poles like that on that street.

Have I mentioned I love birds? 

Summer Solstice

Back in April, I blogged about the Spring Equinox that happened in March and an open window and the book series, Fablehaven. Go check out my blog post from April 9, 2020.
This month we knew the Summer Solstice was coming up. We looked it up in the book and found out it's the night before the Solstice to be most wary or Midsummer's Eve. So we decided to make sure the windows were closed the night before and I told the kids they needed to get in their beds and stay there until morning. As often happens, we forgot about the windows until dark when I made Nichole close all of them. Some of the kids refused to listen to me about staying in their beds. You know what? We all made it through the night. Huh. I guess we don't live on a magical preserve.

For the first day of Summer itself, the kids and I had plans to have some fun outside time together. Since people stayed up too late and got up too late, we finally got out to enjoy the sunshine around 5pm. By that time, the clouds had rolled in (it was sunny earlier in the day) and we celebrated with the overcast sky. Oh, well. It was still warm and we had some nice discussion time and acted out stories and some other things to earn Summer reading badges.

Since June 20 was also National Vanilla Milkshake Day, I made vanilla milkshakes for the family. I expressed my thoughts on plain vanilla on this blog before so I added some nutmeg and cinnamon to my milkshake.

For Tiffany

My friend, Tiffany, had her birthday today.  I told her we'd have apple pie to celebrate her birthday.  Birthday pie for Tiffany.  Unfortunately, I had a meeting tonight and we forgot about doing the pie until it was too late to do it.  The pie was also for Pi Day.  March 14.  3.14
Sorry, Tiffany.

On a lighter note, Spring is on its way here in Utah.  I took some Me Time to go to some parks to enjoy the sun. 

I went to Hill Park to watch the sunrise.  Well, most of the sunrise.  I had to leave before it reached the point I was at, but I got to watch it coming across the valley from the other side of the lake.

I went to Highland Glen Park to watch the ducks and geese on the pond, the somewhat frozen pond.  I said Spring was on its way, not that it's here yet.  We still have some bits of Winter left.

I also went to Carterville Park to enjoy the sunshine and a little walk.

I enjoyed my time out and my husband told me tonight, "I hope today for you was as easy as pie."
Wah Wah.
Happy Pi Day and Happy Tiffany's birthday.

Ring of Fire Solar Eclipse

You know I like finding reasons to celebrate.  How about a solar eclipse?

We knew that the solar eclipse was coming and that Utah would be a good place to watch it (though not directly as that can damage your eyes).  While talking with some friends' about it, they invited us to dinner at their house.  When we got there we found out they were as excited about the eclipse as we.  Dinner was in the backyard anyway, so they poked a small hole in a big bucket/tub/crate so we could see the sunlight shine through and the moon's shadow covering part of the light.

Click on the pictures to see them larger.

Every few minutes we would go back to see how it was progressing. 

At the main part of the eclipse, the moon was supposed to be in front of the sun but small enough that you'd still see the sun behind it, kind of like this

to make a "ring of fire."  Isn't that cool (the ring of fire, not my illustration)?   

One of the neighbors brought over special glasses so we could look in the sun's direction with protection. 

It looked so cool.  Pictures didn't turn out through the glasses, though.  Too bad.  We didn't have time to keep adjusting the settings to get it just right.

Though blurry, this is a picture of the eclipse through a welding mask with adjusted shutter speed.

Unfortunately, it got too cloudy, so we missed the main part of the eclipse.  Sigh.  Oh, well.  The company more than made up for it.

The sun came out at the end, so we were able to see the moon's shadow on the other side of the light shining through the hole.

It was a good evening.  It was fun to see part of the eclipse, and thanks to the neighbor, we were able to see it more directly than we thought we would.  But the best part of the evening was being with friends.

And friendship is definitely a reason to celebrate.