When the Moon Eats the Sun

 

Hopefully those of you who live in the path of totality could see the solar eclipse today - and those of you who live close to it could make it to a location within the path of totality because that is the only place where you can actually see the total eclipse. Did you see it?

During my lifetime I have seen several partial eclipses, one annular eclipse and two total solar eclipses. Not to forget several lunar eclipses which are fascinating as well.

On May 20, 2012 there was an annular eclipse over Northern California. We drove up to Redding for that, a four hour drive one way - and so worth it.

I wrote about it here.

Five years later, on August 21, 2017, a total solar eclipse could be seen on the West Coast, but the path of totality didn't even touch California. We were determined to see it and were on the road for almost four days in total. We never regretted this crazy trip. You can read about it here. 

What I liked about both events despite the show in the sky were the shadow crescents that were everywhere - including on my camping mug which is my ticket to this week's T Tuesday, so generously hosted by Bleubeard and Elizabeth.

Today's solar eclipse was only a partial one in California - I think 35% or so. Nevertheless, I took out my trusted eclipse glasses that we had bought back in Germany for our first total eclipse - the good ones from Zeiss. I was able to look into the sun and see the moon creeping up, eating parts of it - and then go on her way again.

This will never cease to fascinate me.

The 366 Project: March

 

Despite having surgery and not being able to move around a lot for a couple days I continued my 366 project, taking a photo every day. Sometimes the photos are not particularly interesting - especially day 8 to day 11 since I spent most of the time on the couch and inside the house. Here are all 31 days:

Some enlarged photos plus a couple more from my garden in March. It was a very rainy month (so grateful for that), but we also had some beautiful sunny days and the garden was just happy.

Last year I planted Pacific Bleeding Heart (Dicentra formosa), a native that is different from the "normal" Bleeding Heart that I knew from home since this one can withstand a certain amount of drought and some heat - it just goes dormant in the summer and reappears in the fall/winter. I had planted it in filtered shade and this spring it came back in abundance, having spread silently over the months. This is the first time that I have been successful with Pacific Bleeding Heart; every time I tried to grow it before I eventually killed it.

In the middle of March I saw beautiful buds of my French Lilac "Pocahontas" and by the end of the month is was in full bloom. Oh, the fragrance!

Growing tulips in our climate is not easy and most of the time they don't come back after the first spring or just as "empty leaves". This spring, however, because of the wet and cool winter, almost all of my tulips came back and also some that I don't remember having planted. A nice surprise.

Orange van Eijk

Dordogne

Marguerite Daisies are such happy little flowers. I was surprised that it did so much better in a pot than in the ground (another failure a few years ago).

Spanish Lavender, of all the lavenders I have, is always the first one to bloom. I didn't plant this one, it just appeared in my garden. Its "parent" died a couple years back.

The ephemeral beauty of dandelion - what is not to love?

This is what a small and relatively new part of my garden looked like just a couple days ago on a rainy morning:

Wolf spiders have become very active, carrying their egg sac around. This one is a wolf spider with a turquoise egg sac, however, I saw more of them with a white egg sac. To all who say "eek" now - spiders are big helpers in the garden. I welcome them because they eat the insects that I don't want to have in my plants like aphids and mosquitoes (raise your hand if you like mosquitoes). No need for insecticids in my organic garden.

Today I don't exactly have a drink for Bleubeard and Elizabeth's T Tuesday, but I want to show you these two mugs that serve as containers for my watercolor brushes and charcoal and graphite pencils. My daughter bought these during her internship in Cape Town, South Africa, as well as the little fabric elephant. The photo of the coyote that you can see behind the elephant was taken by my husband in the Island in the Sky district of Canyonlands National Park in Utah. It is one of my favorite images.