Howlin' at the Moon

At 4 pm, the sky outside is clear blue, the sun low. The air is crisp, (euphemism for COLD). It's perfect weather for moon viewing, and tonight's is supposed to be special. The moon will not only be full, but super-sized! Tonight is a full perigee moon -- a full moon that coincides with the point in the moon's elliptical orbit when it is closest to the earth. This proximity will make the moon appear to be 14% larger and 30% brighter than any other full moon this year... Happy viewing!

Snap

Well, the cold is back... and it's worse than before. At least, it seems worse. I think our weekend of warmth got us all wimpy and unaccustomed. Now that it's back down to the single digits, it seems unbearable for some reason. (And cold is more tolerable when there's snow -- which there is not right now. Just very treacherous ice in some spots.)

Yesterday in one of my classes, I had a student in a tank top. I mentioned that it was, you know, cold out, and she said, "Well, I'm ready for summer and this makes me think it's coming." OK... I'm ready for summer, too, but I'm still realistic enough to dress for the weather we have now. I suppose if that kid doesn't get pneumonia or something, it's a nice optimistic attitude. Or something.

Happy Birthday!

Over the weekend, this blog turned 1 year old. I have now spent one entire trip around the sun internet-recording nature... one full cycle of leaves emerging, growing, photosynthesizing, turning colors, falling, and leaving branches bare... one full cycle of waking or arriving, mating, hibernating or leaving... there were insects come and gone, flashes of color as flowers bloomed and died...

Now it's time to decide where I'm going. I will keep on with the same thing -- I want to have accurate records, for one thing -- but I may add a bit more of Naomi's philosophizing. Not that I completely refrained before, but I have stayed away at times because of the purported purview of my blog. I might change that. (For one thing, it will give me something to write about -- if I have the time -- around now, when, let's be honest... not a lot is going on, phenologically. Although the temperature difference between yesterday and today is quite extreme. It's below freezing out there today!)

I'm not sure. Something to think about as time continues to march on.

But for now, Happy Birthday Nature Nerd Blog!!!

Rain, Rain, Go Away.

Rain. I'm watching the raindrops fall into puddles out the window. It's hypnotic. Rain, in the middle of January. It's supposed to be nearly 50 today. Crazy. All the remaining snow is melting. (And then get cold tomorrow and freeze.)

Whooo's Out There?

Last night we went out looking for owls. We didn't see any, which is no great surprise given that "we" were a group of about 40 people -- students and parents. No matter how quiet you are, a group that big is going to scare off the wildlife.

We didn't scare off the heavens, though, and our evening walk was well worth our while in terms of astronomy. To the west, a waxing crescent moon was setting. The cloudless sky was populated with the creatures of legend... Orion the hunter and Sirius, his faithful dog. Taurus and the Pleiades, the princess Andromeda and her hero Perseus. Bears large and small. Auriga, the charioteer, which always reminds me not of a driver, but of a kitten of the same name with whom I once lived.

A lovely night...

One-Sided Beauty

I awoke to a thick fog this morning -- whiteness outside the bedroom window. It left behind this lovely hoarfrost as the vapor in the air hit and froze upon whatever it ran into.

J-thaw

We are in the midst of what we used to call, in Minnesota, a J-thaw. Back in college, we used to love these week-long January thaws that came about once a year, when we would all unzip our coats as we walked across campus... feeling the warmth of the sun on our faces, even though it was still below 40 degrees... compared to how it had been for the past 2 months, that seemed positively balmy, and I truly remember feeling the warmth on my cheeks as surely as I now feel it that first warm week in April. Closing my eyes and turning my face skyward to feel the rays...

Now, I don't particularly like the J-thaws. For one thing, we get a whole lot more of them here. (We have a D-thaw, and a J-thaw, and an F-thaw. Sometimes more than one. And they last a long time. The end of this current one isn't in the forecast yet.) For another thing, we never know if we're going to get more snow after the thaw finally ends. Will we have to spend the next month and a half in the cold without the fun and prettiness of snow? When it's just brown and dirty and icky? Not cool.

Ah, well. For today there's still snow and I have prepare for my classes so I can take advantage of it (by Tuesday, I doubt I'll be able to!)