Spring 2014

Spring is off and on as usual, some days sunny and warm, others windy and rain but however changeable the weather, it is still fine to be out.  The apple tree over the dog run bloomed nicely,

and bees showed up despite the news about hive collapse.

Cherry blossomed. Pussy willow came and went.  Deer ate the tulips, left nothing but stems. Daffodils sprang up in the old apple orchard next to the house.

The mallard pair returned and scarfed down cob I scatter

and the geese don't seem to mind.

They spend more time fussing at me than at the ducks.

The chickens have started laying again.  A nice day's haul is five or six eggs from the eight hens.  They are getting old, three or four years, so occasionally produce a freak, extra small or large.

The Anna's Hummingbirds drain their feeder every couple of days and mostly ignore me and the camera but catching the male showing off his plumage is a tricky coup─a play of light and angle.

Usually all the camera catches is the dark side, but one day I caught him flicking his tongue, even rarer than catching color.

Not exactly part of the local scene, flowers at Pike Street Market are particularly lovely this time of year.

Locally, camas are back.

While out feeding, I discovered deer at the end of the back pasture, first one,

then another, five in all.

And then there's Bugsy the porch kitty, a year-round delight, looking for his lunch: "Feed me!  Feed me now!  Please?"

Blood Moon

April 14, an eclipse of the moon would be visible on the West Coast if clouds stayed out to sea.  In 2013, Texas televangelist John Hagee published a book that called this eclipse the "Blood Moon."  Hagee stated that it was prophesied in Acts 2:19-20 "...the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood," a sign, Hagee felt, of "End Times."  (Earlier he claimed Katrina was God's punishment for America's sinful ways.)  Before his book, the term "Blood Moon" was an alternate name for October's "Hunter's Moon."  However, television commentators picked up Hagee's name and the hype was on.

I went into the backyard about 10 and set the big Leica on a tripod and snapped the first photo.  Clouds surrounded the moon but for the moment it was clear with no sign of penumbra or blood.

At 11, I went out again.  The show was beginning.  At about 11:30, light from the moon was cut enough that the star Spica was visible.

So began the first of a tetrad─four consecutive lunar eclipses at approximately six-month intervals with no partial eclipses in between.  In the years 2001-2100, there will be eight tetrads.  From the first century CE through the 21st, there have been only 62.  The last one occurred in 2003-2004, and the next will be in 2032-2033.  In the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, there were none at all.

At about midnight, the moon started turning reddish, but hardly blood red.  At about 12:05, the hype seemed inadequate.

The next show will be in October.