It was one of those white winter nights: nearly a full moon against a cover of snow. You could read a book by its dazzling light!
Of course, it was bitter cold. And it remaines cold all day today. I may have been tempted to stay under a quilt for a long time, but Ed had a nibble on his Craigslist "for sale" posting and the guy was supposed to come over to look at said item, so rather reluctantly, I throw back the covers and go downstairs to fix breakfast. In sunshine!
What Ed had posted was actually a rerun of an ad he had run this past summer. There was only one interested taker then, but he never showed up, and eventually Ed forgot about the whole thing. Until yesterday. He reposted and boom! He has a taker.
How much do you want for it? -- this from a very happy Zach (the taker).
Actually, nothing. When you make stuff out of it, you can give us one of the items. A bowl, or a cheese board... That's Ed's response.
The item up for sale is a tree. Ed had cut down a couple of box elders last summer and noticed then that they had an unusual coloring to it. It struck him as artistically significant. Something a wood worker would appreciate. He had sawed the trees into logs large enough to work with, but small enough to haul onto a truck.
Zach was bedazzled by this find. He wanted to take at least some of the logs home right away and so the two of them set to work in 0F (-18C), to load the logs onto the truck.
Hey, at least it's sunny!
After several loads, Zach bails. I'll return for the rest another time!
You sure? This from the big old guy who may sleep away good chunks of the day, but when put to the test -- has the stamina of a marathon man.
That sunshine -- it can push aside thoughts of how really cold it is. It lures you outside. Ed asks me -- do you want to go skiing? We glance at the thermometer (3F, or -16C) and he answers for me, for the both of us -- maybe it's too cold to fuss with skis.
I suggest a walk. He picks the Arboretum. We head out.
And in fact, you could fool yourself into thinking that it's not so bad! If you walk in the direction of the sun, you begin to feel energized and strong. Full of Vitamin D again!
We don't push it though. I'm just reemerging from couch hibernation.
And Ed? Well, you never know if he is emerging or just testing the waters of a new normal. For all the predictability in our day to day, my once occasional travel companion and now stay forever in the farmhouse guy is in some ways very unpredictable.
In the evening, the young family is here for dinner. Mom just got back from her trip, dad surely is happy to share the load. Forget the bugs, viruses, pesky winter aggravations! The kids are thriving. Life is so good.
(Mommy's lap!)
(my, what a funny chinny chin chin you have....)
(if you sit at a table together, all's good with this world...)
(Snowdrop will tell you so...)
Late. So late. Did you know that there was a Super Blood Moon eclipse tonight? It would be a good time to test a new camera. But it's cold! So very cold! Still, imagine, a moon so bright, so orange, so beautiful, moving into a crescent shape before your eyes!
I take a picture of it with my Fuji camera. I'm not even sure if I used the proper settings. The camera is new, the technology is unfamiliar. Indeed, Ed and I spend fifty hours trying to understand the software that would allow me to download the picture into my photo folder. At midnight, we are laughing too hard at the impossibility of this small task. No dazzling moon photo for you today. Who knows, maybe in a day, a month, a year, we will have figured it out!
P. S. Sometime after midnight, Ed and I have a breakthrough moment and finally, as if finally liberated, the photos from the new Fuji begin to download into my Lightroom photo work space. I go outside to try a new camera setting. By now, the moon is fully in the process of cycling through its eclipse. I could not possibly capture that bit of dazzling magic with my little lens, but I'll at least post this much -- a moon that a few minutes ago was brilliantly full, suddenly appearing as just a sliver of its former self. Click. Download. Crop. Post. Magic!
And now -- goodnight!
Of course, it was bitter cold. And it remaines cold all day today. I may have been tempted to stay under a quilt for a long time, but Ed had a nibble on his Craigslist "for sale" posting and the guy was supposed to come over to look at said item, so rather reluctantly, I throw back the covers and go downstairs to fix breakfast. In sunshine!
What Ed had posted was actually a rerun of an ad he had run this past summer. There was only one interested taker then, but he never showed up, and eventually Ed forgot about the whole thing. Until yesterday. He reposted and boom! He has a taker.
How much do you want for it? -- this from a very happy Zach (the taker).
Actually, nothing. When you make stuff out of it, you can give us one of the items. A bowl, or a cheese board... That's Ed's response.
The item up for sale is a tree. Ed had cut down a couple of box elders last summer and noticed then that they had an unusual coloring to it. It struck him as artistically significant. Something a wood worker would appreciate. He had sawed the trees into logs large enough to work with, but small enough to haul onto a truck.
Zach was bedazzled by this find. He wanted to take at least some of the logs home right away and so the two of them set to work in 0F (-18C), to load the logs onto the truck.
Hey, at least it's sunny!
After several loads, Zach bails. I'll return for the rest another time!
You sure? This from the big old guy who may sleep away good chunks of the day, but when put to the test -- has the stamina of a marathon man.
That sunshine -- it can push aside thoughts of how really cold it is. It lures you outside. Ed asks me -- do you want to go skiing? We glance at the thermometer (3F, or -16C) and he answers for me, for the both of us -- maybe it's too cold to fuss with skis.
I suggest a walk. He picks the Arboretum. We head out.
And in fact, you could fool yourself into thinking that it's not so bad! If you walk in the direction of the sun, you begin to feel energized and strong. Full of Vitamin D again!
We don't push it though. I'm just reemerging from couch hibernation.
And Ed? Well, you never know if he is emerging or just testing the waters of a new normal. For all the predictability in our day to day, my once occasional travel companion and now stay forever in the farmhouse guy is in some ways very unpredictable.
In the evening, the young family is here for dinner. Mom just got back from her trip, dad surely is happy to share the load. Forget the bugs, viruses, pesky winter aggravations! The kids are thriving. Life is so good.
(Mommy's lap!)
(my, what a funny chinny chin chin you have....)
(if you sit at a table together, all's good with this world...)
(Snowdrop will tell you so...)
Late. So late. Did you know that there was a Super Blood Moon eclipse tonight? It would be a good time to test a new camera. But it's cold! So very cold! Still, imagine, a moon so bright, so orange, so beautiful, moving into a crescent shape before your eyes!
I take a picture of it with my Fuji camera. I'm not even sure if I used the proper settings. The camera is new, the technology is unfamiliar. Indeed, Ed and I spend fifty hours trying to understand the software that would allow me to download the picture into my photo folder. At midnight, we are laughing too hard at the impossibility of this small task. No dazzling moon photo for you today. Who knows, maybe in a day, a month, a year, we will have figured it out!
P. S. Sometime after midnight, Ed and I have a breakthrough moment and finally, as if finally liberated, the photos from the new Fuji begin to download into my Lightroom photo work space. I go outside to try a new camera setting. By now, the moon is fully in the process of cycling through its eclipse. I could not possibly capture that bit of dazzling magic with my little lens, but I'll at least post this much -- a moon that a few minutes ago was brilliantly full, suddenly appearing as just a sliver of its former self. Click. Download. Crop. Post. Magic!
And now -- goodnight!
The Blood Moon was spectacular! When the eclipse was nearly full, the rim was a well defined orange. You can imagine how frightening it would have been to primitive man. Until some elders began to recognize a pattern and hand down that reassuring knowledge.
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