A Quick Review

I finished Three Years Of her Life by C.E Robinson. Below is a quick review:

When Christine started posting snippets from her book Three Years OF her Life on her blog, Before Sundown, I was intrigued yet apprehensive. The last “slice of life” book I read covered 200 years of family life in over 600 pages. It was long and boring and it just didn’t do it for me. Christine had three years of “her” life in 451 pages. What was I in for? Surprisingly, Christine made three years of Elizabeth becoming a nurse, romancing a doctor (or a doctor romancing her), and pursuing her musical interests while discovering family secrets in the early 1960s into an accessible, easy-to-read, entertaining book.

She offers the reader a fascinating journey that includes the mundane, the most beautiful, and the ugliest aspects of the human condition. Elizabeth is a very smart and attractive young woman. Still, she is plagued by manifold emotions from growing up in a broken home and under the care of her abusive grandmother. No matter how hard she works, or how well she does, there’s always doubt about herself and her success. She’s constantly worried that the men who made their way into her life would leave her. She had good reason to worry; her sample was one hundred percent.

Elizabeth persists, and while romance and her musical interests get a little dicey, it’s the end of the book that really grabbed my attention. The reality of the cold war hit home, and the consequences were grave. By the end of the book, I wanted the story to continue to see what happened with her family life, nursing career, and musical interests. Christine said there is a second underway.

The night sky looking north and south. A half-moon is in the clouds in the southern sky.

The night sky looking east and west.

Happy Birthday G&G

Gwendolyn

Happy 4th of July. Today is Glenda’s and Gwendolyn’s birthday. They are two years old.

Glenda

Happy 4rth of July. This is as close to getting fireworks as I’m going to get tonight.

The moon manage to shine through the cloud cover last night. No moon tonight.

There Unseen

4:17 am in the falling rain. There’s a planetary alignment behind those clouds.

I looked to the west and saw Wile E. Coyote laughing at me.

4:45 am. I can see the moon, Mars and Jupiter.

The alignment if there were no mountains, trees or clouds.

Esatern sky at 4:51 am, 5:07 am, and 6:30 am.

A Shasta Daisy Galaxy

A bored Buddy in a meeting this morning.

Water like chocolate in the acequia madre.

Dry & Night

Plowed earth lies barren
Fertile ground parched and thirsty
Spilled seeds will not grow

Moon tunnel lights night sky
Portal to the other side
Hallucinations sleeping souls
Keeper of our dreams

Jupiter sits on Sandia Crest
Saturn basks in a golden glow
Stars still hang in space

Midnight rainbow hangs at two
Stars peek through smokey hues
Brushstrokes blotches arcs
Orange, greens, magenta, blues

Jupiter rising into blue
Saturn sees the moon at two

Two O’Clock Shadow

Moon shadow at 2:00 am

I went to bed before the moon rose last night. However, I woke up at 2:00 am and walked out with the moon and the stars. The moon was so bright it was casting very sharp shadows. My moon exposures were major to say the least.

The sky at 2:00 am illuminated by a super Strawberry moon.

Super Strawberry moon, 99.9% full, at 2:00 am. My exposure was 1/2500 of a second, ƒ/7.1 at 100 ISO. I believe that is the first time I have gotten that much detail in a supermoon.

Blue grosbeak

We have not seen Peter, Paul, and Mary for the past three nights. They probably flew further south in search of food. However, we did see three beavers feasting on willows.

Bullfrog, a female Wood duck in the Clearwater ditch, and a male Wood duck in the Rio Grande.

Moon And Darkness

Dawn

Last night’s clouds. Do you see a face?

The moon finally made it through the clouds last night.

Last night’s moon at 92.4% full.

Paul is on the left and Peter is on the center-right.

We got out to the owls later than normal last night. At first, we could only find Peter and Paul. Mary finally showed up when it was too dark to focus. She’s in the last two photos with Peter.

The fading colors of dusk from last night.

Tonight’s moon finally rose above the clouds.

Tonight’s moon at 97.6% full.

Sunset tonight with rain that evaporates before it hits the ground.

Skies & Roses

Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are among the stars at 3:30 am.

Jupiter with a couple of moons at 3:30 am

Saturn at 3:30 am

Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn at 4:45 am.

Sunset last night

Cloudy conditions this afternoon.

I got home late, so I got the sunset tonight.

The moon was still covered by clouds at dusk.

Dragonflies & Roses

Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn starting to line up as they shine through the thin cloudcover.

Sunrise

Dragonflies

Sasha was checking out the temperature. “Hey, Paparazzo! It’s upside down!”

Rio Samba, Abraham Darby, and Altissimo

Moon in the clouds

Crescent moon at 34.4% full

Dancing With The Stars

Out at 4:00 am dancing with the stars and planets and La Llorona and Chupacraba

Since I got home late tonight, I didn’t do any redneck roofing. Instead, I went out to check on the owls. We had not seen any sign of the owls for the past 3 days. I think part of it was the fire department was running their super noisy airboat up and down the river all weekend watching for fires in the bosque. On Thursday, 30 acres of bosque burned south of Montaño Blvd., about 8 miles south of us. All was quiet tonight. The first bird I encountered looked like a juvenile Western Blue Bird. Then Daddy Owl came swooping through the property and landed on Susan’s tree. I thought he was going to get a squirrel squirreling around up ahead of me, but he didn’t go for it. But then our bunny came running out and he showed interest in the bunny. Laurie bravely stood between Daddy Owl and the bunny as we told Daddy Owl to leave our bunny be. We told him he can get all the squirrels and gophers he wants, but we draw the line when it comes to our bunny.

As we were heading to where the owlets hang out, a Cooper’s Hawk buzzed us and landed on a nearby tree for a few seconds. When I got up to the Tangle Heart Tree, Mama owl was just taking off to go shopping. The owlets were there peeping like crazy wanting Mama and Daddy to bring them food. A few minutes later Mama Owl returned and gave Mary whatever she caught. When I looked at what Mary had in her beak in the photo, it looks like a cicada, but I can’t say for sure. Mama, flew back to Wowlmart, as Shey calls it, but it was getting dark, so we didn’t stick around to see if she or Daddy Owl came back with anything interesting.

Mars and Jupiter

Western Bluebird

Daddy Owl on Susan’s tree eyeing our bunny. He gave up after we told him no.

Cooper’s Hawk

Mama Owl flying off to Wowlmart.

Smokey sunset.

Sliver moon