Snow!

I shared some of these photos on my other blog, Leaf and Line, but I will add them here, too.

The weather conditions were just right this morning for beautiful types of snow crystals. According to a chart I found in Ken Libbrecht's Field Guide to Snowflakes, our temperature and humidity were perfect.

This is a sectored plate:

And this is a stellar dendrite:

When I pushed the snow back to photograph these, I think I saw fernlike dendrites in the mix, but they broke apart and I could not tell for sure. Even with these photos, I was essentially photographing blind. I could not tell what the finished image would look like, because I was not using a DSLR. I probably took at least a hundred photos, and these are the best. Looking through them all, though, was like being on a treasure hunt.

Cicadas!!!

There was a familiar sound in the maple trees last week, as temperatures were beastly hot... cicadas!

To hear them is to dive deep into the water of summer. Cicadas, fireflies, heat, humidity, and flowers... they are all claiming their place again in the cycle of the year.

Yesterday, we had a spectacular thunderstorm. I am glad we did not see the tornadoes that others saw. Here, we had constant rumbles of thunder and flashes of lightning. Afterward, the sky continued to put on a show, as I looked out and saw a rainbow arching across the sky, all of the colors clearly visible.

I'm working on getting a photo of that rainbow on here. Stay tuned!

HOT

100 degrees tomorrow. In June.

Everything seems to be wilting: I'm not seeing as many wildflowers this month as I did last year, except thistle. Nothing can defeat thistle.

This picture is from a previous year: it's too hot to venture out for wildflower photography. I'd prefer a closeup, but this was all I had in my files.

We did have a bit of rain last night, though, and waking to that sound was comforting. Next week looks better, temperature-wise. I'm hoping to add to my wildflower photo files then.

Spectacular Moon

If you haven't already seen it, go outside and see the moon tonight! The technical term is a waxing crescent, with 6% of the disk illuminated, according to the USNO website. I tried to get a photo, but am having trouble. Maybe I will have one by tomorrow!

Also saw an Eastern Bluebird at Fontenelle Forest today. That always makes my day!

Turkey Tracks and an Expected Storm

We went walking last weekend, while the sun was shining. There were a lot of tracks visible in the snow, but these were big enough to photograph:

Turkeys! Interestingly, one of my fellow walkers observed that there is a passing resemblance to the dinosaur footprints we saw in Colorado.

My mind is slipping into hibernation mode this evening. A big storm is predicted to come through tonight and tomorrow. It is overcast, and my dog has not shown any interest in moving around this afternoon.

At least fresh snow will mean fresh tracks to identify.

Snow and sunshine

After four inches of snow last week, and a bit more yesterday, the sun coming out this afternoon was lovely.

I want to stand outside and soak up the rays, even though it is still very cold.

Until it warms up again, I am enjoying the play of sunlight across the walls inside the house.

Later this week looks better, at least to my Nebraska-adjusted vision. Back in Louisiana, 49 degrees is too cold to go outside! The humidity would make that temperature bitterly cold. Here, it sounds like a warmup!

Winter!

After dealing with a foot sprain for the better part of a month, I was finally able to get back outside this weekend. This is the kind of thing that entices me!

And this is the beautiful play of shadows on the snow that met me as I went a little way down the trail:

 This was at Schramm State Park. The lovely blue shadows remind me of Pissaro's snow paintings. He is still my favorite artist.





And this reminded me that spring will come soon.

Juncos

Yesterday, a flock of juncos moved through my yard. I startled a couple of them as I stepped off the deck.

Another sure sign of fall. I have seen a few here and there over the past few weeks, but this was a small flock.

They are so small. Their beaks are impossibly tiny. And these were more sooty colored than black and white. I had to look closely to see where the grey ended, and the black began.

Planetary Conjunctions

One of the things that I love about teaching astronomy this year is that it forces me to stay up late or get up early and see the astronomical events for each month in our area. My students have been watching the "dance of the planets" in the eastern sky each morning this month.

In this photo, you can see Venus, with Jupiter below it to the left. Mars is there, too, but it was too faint to show up in this picture. I saw Mercury last week, but have not been able to see it since then.

Time got away from me. I also wanted to post this picture from the lunar eclipse:

Lots of extraneous light bouncing around there. I have a really basic telescope, and just held the camera up to the eyepiece.

Cicadas again

Just a few notes this evening: the cicadas are back. The temperature has climbed back into the upper 80s, and I hear them again in the maples. Summer has a couple of weeks to go, after all!

This morning, Venus shone very brightly in the Eastern sky. The Summer Triangle is still overhead.

Sunflowers and thistles are flowering on the roadsides. Their cheerful colors have been around for a couple of months now, so I find myself taking them for granted, until I think about how things will look in winter. That is incentive enough to delight in the intense yellows and purples.

Enjoy the last weeks of summer!

Weather changes

This morning, a definite chill was in the air. Orion has begun its climb in the Eastern sky. And this evening, something is missing.

The cicadas have gone silent.

I heard them again, briefly, this afternoon when the sun warmed the air. But it is strangely quiet this evening, with only the buzz of crickets in the air. For months now, we have heard a constant, loud chorus in the maple trees in the yard.

The seasons are changing again. I saw chrysanthemums at the garden center today, and pumpkins at the grocery store. Football dominates television. It seems too early for it all, but I miss the cicadas already.

Cicada Killer Wasp

I was having a very nice chat with my neighbor this weekend when something buzzed by us. I saw clear wings and a large insect, and thought of a hummingbird moth, which was common in other places I've lived. My neighbor, though, knew it was a cicada killer wasp.

A few minutes later, it flew by again, buzzing by his head like a dirigible that was speeding out of control toward the ground. It had a cicada in its legs and proceeded to drag it under ground. This is where it went.

How the wasp was able to fly while carrying a cicada is beyond me. It surely didn't seem to fly well with such a heavy load.

The cicadas have been very loud the past few days. The summer insect symphony continues.

Gumbo Weather

Did you feel the hint of fall earlier this week?

Fall stirs such mixed emotions in me. As a Louisiana native, I feel a vague sense of panic, living this far north, and realizing that winter is coming. I love cold weather, but here in Nebraska, winter itself is something to endure.

At the same time, fall is my favorite season. I love the colors, the crispness of the air, the sweetness of freshly picked apples. I love Thanksgiving. And pumpkins! We will not mention football. It all depends on how our favorite team is doing.

Also, as a Louisiana native, that first cool snap gets me thinking about making the first gumbo. Had the cool weather hung on a few more days, I definitely would have honored this urge, and made a huge, steaming pot of gumbo. It is in my blood.

That first gumbo day is coming. I can see it in the browning of the seeds of my wildflowers. Fall stars are peeking over the horizon at dawn. Birds are migrating. Days are getting shorter. And the weather is changing. I am not ready for it, yet, but it is almost here.

Fireball

Light pollution has new meaning for me! I hadn't realized how spoiled I have been in the past couple of places we've lived, which were rural. It was difficult to see the meteors last night.

But... I saw a pretty substantial fireball last night! Wow. I need to learn more about astrophotography. I did record it in my astronomy journal, though. I'll post some pages from that book on my other blog.

Although last night was the peak, you should still be able to see some meteors tonight, so if you missed it, go outside tonight and look up!

Tree time: the Ginkgo

Yesterday, we went to the Nebraska State Museum in Lincoln. The geology and paleontology exhibits were wonderful, and well worth the trip. Down the walk from the Morrill building was a familiar, beautiful tree: a ginkgo!

I love the fan-shaped leaves. And it was a female tree. You don't often see the female trees, because some people object to the strong smell of the seeds after they drop. In fact, my old forestry textbook (Textbook of Dendrology, by Harlow, Harrar, and White) refers to the fleshy seed coating as being "exceedingly malodorous." It then describes the smell as being like rancid butter, and recommends only planting male trees.  But I love the big clusters of seeds that look a little like the wild plums I saw at Fontenelle last week, and I guess I inherited my grandfather's sense of smell. It's legendary in our family that Limburger cheese didn't bother him, and the ripe, fallen seeds of this tree do not bother me.

Many trees had signs to identify them, so I guess this was part of an on-campus arboretum.

All in all, it was a wonderful day.

Meteor Shower

Just a reminder that the Perseid Meteor Shower is about to peak! Get extra sleep tonight, if you can, and check the sky Wednesday night. The meteor shower occurs as the Earth passes through the debris trail of the Swift-Tuttle comet.

This page has a good explanation of the meteor shower, and where and when to look:

NASA's Perseid info page

The best time to see the most meteors is, apparently, 4am. However, I have been much lazier and looked up around midnight in years past, and still saw quite a few. This is my favorite meteor shower. You're almost guaranteed to see at least one, and are likely to see a lot more- this year's estimate is around 100/hour. Also in this year's favor: we have a new moon, so viewing will be easier, without competing moonlight.

Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven

Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.

                              -Longfellow,  Evangeline

Summer heat

For the past week, the birdbath has been the most popular feature of our yard, as the heat index has consistently been over 100 degrees. I counted twelve young robins in the yard at one point, waiting to bathe. Sometimes they seem to wait patiently, at other times they seem like squabbling siblings jockeying for position.

We've had to refill it at least three times a day. They splash with abandon, sending a spray of droplets all over the lawn around the birdbath. Some of the robins walk around underneath, fluffing out their feathers in the wet grass. There is almost always one sitting on my statue of St. Francis's head, waiting for a turn. I don't think he'd mind.

The evenings have been spent watching fireflies and bats. These days the sun doesn't go down until almost 9pm. The days seem to go on forever. In spite of the heat, I'm treasuring these moments with the young birds, the fireflies, and the cicadas. Fall will be here all too soon.

To make a prairie...

The poet in me loved this:

My Wildflower!

With the help of some very nice folks at the Fontanelle Nature Center, and Neale Woods, I found my flower!

This is the flower I've been looking for: the purple prairie clover. More on that later!

It was a beautiful morning out at Neale Woods, but it quickly got very, very hot in the sun.

I was able to see many flowers today. Flowers like this one, which I know as claret cup, and the local guidebooks call purple poppy mallow:

And these mixed prairie flowers:

There were bees everywhere, sulphur butterflies, a monarch, and what looked like skippers. I also saw a bird that appeared to be a summer tanager in the woods, but I am not sure.

I saw where a deer or another large animal spent the night:

All in all, it was a beautiful morning. I took 150+ photos out there. Time to rest!

Pluto and New Horizons

The images coming from New Horizons of Pluto and its moons are so incredibly exciting. I think a lot of us had forgotten how wonderful it is to see a new world for the first time. I was a little girl when we landed on the moon, but I still remember sitting in front of the tv, amazed. Now, I'm sitting in front of a computer screen, but the same joy and excitement are there!

 New Horizons home page

We, humanity, are still searching and discovering things. We are still exploring. How beautiful and exciting is that?

And the heart image on Pluto... oh, my. I use the heart theme often in my art work. It is personally meaningful to me. I can't wait to do a painting of Pluto from Charon. Space art is a new interest of mine. I'm still developing a style in that genre, but I love it... it is so much fun.

We had rain yesterday, but I can't complain. We had heat indices over 100 degrees, and now it is cooler. Once the sky clears of clouds, it will be time to stargaze again.

Thank you for visiting, and don't miss those images of Pluto!