I finally did it.

I finally got wireless.  Watch out world, now I can post more often.   I'll start with an aurora image from November 14, 2012.

Found some more Foxfire

It's that time of year again for the Great Canadian Pasttime:  gathering firewood for the winter.  I've been cutting most of our supply by myself, Dad just turned 88 years old and can't quite run up and down these rocky hills like he used to.  The one bright side to last July's drought was the drying out of one of our swamps, I was able to get in there and cut a bunch of fallen dead maples and ash trees and throw the lengths onto a rocky outcrop where they could be retrieved later when the rains returned and refilled the swamp.  Easier said than done, it's a long walk up and down the woodland path to the road.  Even so, I've got a respectable pile already gathered for the winter.  My legs and shoulders are sore this morning.

Some of the smaller and more decayed pieces are being used here at the summer residence.  Several small ash trees had died and fallen over, pulling up the root ends with them.  I had brought one of these back to the house and cut it up, and put the pieces in the woodbox last night.  When I shut the lights off the box was glowing lime  green from one of the butts that we had split in two, got some lovely foxfire again this year.

Took some pictures and have tried to upload, but this old slow dialup is proving to be a major pain in the hind end.

How hot and dry is it?

It's hot and drive enough to drive out a poor old hairy tail mole out into the open to look for some moisture.  Dad had watered the grass and some plants by the side of the house and garage and came and me to see "some creature in the grass".  I ran for the camera and then slipped up to it, literally got nose to nose with it as it worked its way through the wet grass.  It looked as if it were licking the grass, so I asked Dad to bring me some water.  He brought some in a plastic drinking glass, and I lay the glass in front of the mole.  The mole sniffed around and then headed straight for the water and drank its fill.  It then meandered around a bit as if disoriented, after a few minutes it acted more decisive in its movements and headed for the tall grasses and weeds and disappeared.

I'm wondering about the effects this drought will have on many of the shrews, chipmunks, mice and other small creatures of the forest.  The seed crop will no doubt be affected and the food supply will be limited for the winter.  Lack of mice and other rodents may affect the food chain on up.  Sometimes these little creatures are far more resilient than we realize, certainly in the case of mice, who are so prolific, their numbers can go from low to high in a short time.  They demonstrate this on a regular basis when invading my house.

It's hot.

Hot, hot, hot.  And dry.  Scary dry, we're in the midst of a drought.  There's the promise of a 60% chance of rain this afternoon with risk of a thunderstorm, keep fingers crossed we get it, we need it badly.  The only bright side is that the skies have been clear at night, good for astronomy.  Haven't had time to lug out my big telescope, but I have gone out where there were predictions of auroras and managed to get some good pictures.  Saturday night's show was the best, took some 30 second exposures that brought out the colours.  I'm not a fan of using bug sprays, but thank goodness for that can of Off, the mosquitoes came out in hordes where I jammed the boat in along the shore.  Someone had discarded one of those nice gravity chairs, one of the bolts had broken off the arm support.  Didn't take me long to fix that.  The chair fits nicely over the seat in the boat, I can sit comfortably while taking pictures, and only restricts the rowing a bit. 

At least the heat has warmed up the lake, the older I get the warmer I want the water.  I'm getting in there every chance I get, when I stand on the dock in November I'd like to think that I didn't waste my swimming time.  Nights have mostly been calm, which is good for the photography, you get the stars and auroras reflected in the water.

Orion, Jupiter, Venus, and the new moon

Along with Venus and Jupiter, the new moon is joining the show. Went out to the lake last night and got a few images of the sky.

Orion and the Zodiacal Light

We've enjoyed a week of summer temps. Literally. The hot weather dried up the laneway in to the lake, so I was able to get out and shoot the night sky while Orion is still high overhead. Jupiter and Venus are still in close proximity, and the no-moon dark sky made the stars shine like we never see near the city. I set up the barndoor tracker and took a few long exposures, I didn't see the zodiacal light with the naked eye but it shows up in some of the pics. It was great to be back out in "dark sky" country while listening to spring peepers, coyotes, and a pair of barred owls that set off into a frenzy of hooting when I imitated their call a couple of times. Sounded like I had disturbed a troupe of howler monkeys. The beaver wanted to come ashore but soon discovered I was there, and swam back and forth, slapping his tail to show his displeasure at my presence. So much for the peaceful woodlands. The most enjoyable part of this outing was the warm temperatures...and no mosquitoes! I would have stayed there half the night had I not needed to skedaddle on back home. It's unfortunate that a big system of cloudy weather has moved in upon us, I would have liked to have photographed the new moon with this scene, near Venus and Jupiter. The moon will soon outshine the stars, so I'll have to wait a couple weeks until the back side of the full moon before I get dark skies again.

Specs: ISO 400, f 4.0, Sigma 10-200mm lens at 10mm, 241 seconds, Canon Rebel XT 350D. Shot in RAW, minimal "tweaking" for exposure, cloned out a few hot pixel spots. Definitely want to get this one printed and hung on my wall.

Venus and Jupiter

Venus and Jupiter are coming close together in the night sky during their orbits 'round the sun, a lovely bright pairing in the western evening sky. Looks the eyes of some big cat staring back down out of the sky. From upper right in this shot: Orion, Taurus, Pleiades cluster, and Jupite and Venus lower left.

Auroras and Coyotes

Last night around 9:00 p.m. I realized that the sky was clear, and the temps were mild, so I decided to take the camera and tracker out to try to get some general shots of the winter night sky and constellations for my little astronomy project. I had checked SpaceWeather for auroras, but there were no predictions of a storm this far south. However, when I got out in the field out back of the cemetary, lo and behold there was a lovely green glow to the north! We were having an unexpected outburst of northern lights, and much to my delight I was able to take many shots. While I was setting up a coyote started yipping in the field just the west of me, and a group of coyotes just down to the south of the big field joined in the chorus. Sounded like about 5 of them, hard to tell exactly how many when they're all yipping and yowling. When their song ended I could hear one of them prowling along the fencerow about 100 feet away, it found something of interest and was scratching and digging in the snow and ice. As I was taking long exposures of the auroras it must have heard me cursing (ballhead doesn't hold tight, keeps slipping, too many lights on buildings nearby) and came closer to investigate. The field next to me has been unmowed and is covered in tall dead weeds, I could the rustling as it prowled back and forth. I wanted to shine a light on it but the stupid batteries in the flashlight were failing. Note to self: carry some backup lights!

Moonset pillar

The BigWetNose had me out of bed at 6:20 a.m. this fine morning, and while outside I noticed that the setting moon in the clouds was throwing up a pillar. I got bundled up, grabbed the camera and tripod, and trotted out to the cemetary field to try to get some shots. I am definitely NOT a "morning person", had quite the time trying to focus the lens, and not entirely successfully. Nonetheless I managed a few shots, a couple of them here.