All of the blood moon photos were shot between 4:30 am and 5:04 am. I changed my exposure allowing the non-eclipsed portion of the moon to washout. When there is no cloud cover it easier to keep the non-eclipsed portions of the moon from washing out. The bright parts of the moon cast a glow off of the thin cloud cover that turned into heavier clouds as the moon sank toward the horizon. After the moon slipped behind the tree I walked up the road to where I could barely see the white sliver of the moon through the haze. After that it disappeared. The full eclipse was at 5:18 am, but it had slipped behind the clouds and out of sight.
More flowers and roses for the Super Flower Blood Moon.
All three owlets have flown into the bosque. They are near the Tangle Heart Tree. Can you find them in the above photo? I’m not sure you can see Mona Lisa from the photo. I believe she is blocked by a branch. This is a higher resolution image than I normally upload, so you can click on it to see the full image and enlarge the image to help find the owlets.
First two photos are of Major Tom Peepers. The second two photos are Mona Lisa in the foliage behind Major Tom. The third pair of photos is Sleepy on a branch to the left of Major Tom Peepers.
A super-wide view of the area the owlets are in with the Tangle Heart Tree on the right.
Contrails when I got home.
Wild sky of the Sandias and Rio Grande.
More wild skies. The last shot was sunset tonight.
The western clouds were beautiful, but not promising for a clear sky in the wee hours of the morning when the Super Flower Moon gets bloody. I’ll get up a 3:00am and check the sky.
The Super Flower Moon Rise.
Super Flower Moon
Super-wide-angle view of the Super Flower Moon rising over the Sandias and Rio Grande.
Super Flower Moon in the clouds.
Can you find Venus?
You should be able to see Venus in the above photo.
There was nice color in the west, but I missed most of it photographing the moon.
At 5:18 am Wednesday morning, I should be able to see and photograph the Super Flower Blood Moon, which will be a full lunar eclipse. We have had two days and one night of crystal clear skies. The forecast is for clear skies tomorrow, but clouds on Wednesday. The big question is will the sky be clear between 2:47 am when the eclipse begins, and 6:02 am when the moon sets on Wednesday morning? We’ll see. In the meantime, I present you with our first fully bloomed Peony and the moon at 97.7% full.
I finished recording a new original song on Sunday. Gabriela at Short Prose Blog, asked me if I was going to send her a poem, so I sent here Canonical Day, and told I had been working on the music. She wanted the song also, but didn’t say for what reason in her replies. Now that I have the computer I use for recording back, I checked to see where I was on the song. I had gotten the “Ticktock” sound for the clock created and that was it. I spent most of Sunday recording and assembling tracks. Tonight I added a little bit of synth to the recording after Marina mentioned she would probably add synthesizer. I had done a lead guitar track, but decided it detracted too much and took it out. The synth I added is subtle and it seems to work.
In case you don’t know what a Canonical Day is, it’s the liturgical hours of the day defined as follows:
Vigil – eighth hour of night: 2 a.m. Matins – a later portion of Vigil, from 3 a.m. to dawn. Lauds – dawn; approximately 5 a.m., but varies seasonally. Prime – early morning, the first hour of daylight, approximately 6 a.m. Terce – third hour, 9 a.m. Sext – sixth hour, noon. Nones – ninth hour, 3 p.m. Vespers – sunset, approximately 6 p.m. Compline – end of the day before retiring, approximately 7 p.m.
The poem came to me while I was listening to a lecture on theology. I was thinking, while monks get up at Vigil or Matins to pray, I get up at Matins to pee in a nightly Vigil after the kitties have stomped across my bladder. That gave me the idea to write a poem using the Canonical Hours based on a general day in a life. The poem has one or two Canonical Hours per verse, or perverse, depending on how one wants to look at it. After I got the verses down, I decided to add choruses and make a song out it.
I’m happy I took the time to record the song on Sunday as Gabriela has good intentions for both the poem and the song.
Canonical Day By Timothy Price
Bombed at Vigil kitties in the night Matins listens Owls Hoot under moon’s light
Lauds wakens Dawn Throw off covers Spread colors Reds, pinks, yellows Tugs on sun lights blue skies
Primetime rise Face another day Lost in ironic phases Teeth comb hair Sad and pretty faces
[Chorus] Sacred routines never fail Hundreds, ten, thousand times Begins each day a blessed right Immortality of the whole
[RAP] Terce it all coffee’s cold Virtual whistles blow Tap on keys, boxes packed, Phone music Plays on hold
Sext at last Satisfies Food fantasy Peanut butter tofu chicken Thirty minutes of ecstasy
Nones dear coffee’s cold Eyelids weigh a tonne Ninth hour sleepy time For Heaven’s sake stay awake
[Chorus] Sacred ways never fail Hundreds, ten, thousand times As each day goes by some insane Immortality of the whole
Vapors rise at vespers Dinners hot-cold served Debates circles tables World made right For an instance
Compline pulls on covers Sun tucked in welcomes night Bedtime lost videos play Medianoche greets another day
[Chorus] Sacred darkness never fails Hundreds, ten, thousand times Conjures spirits Ether Immortality of the whole
Spunk @ Compline
As a dry and dusty storm blew in this afternoon, the temperature dropped from 82ºF to 59ºF from one hour to the next. The sun managed to throw a slight bit of red on the clouds at the horizon as a last hurrah before slipping into to its sunny slumber.
The moon got a sepia tone from the thin layer of clouds catching what color they could from the setting sun.
I got water for my first irrigation tonight. It’s so dry the land soaks up the water for a long time before it keeps flowing. Furthermore, the water level in the acequia madre keeps fluctuating, which changes the water pressure. Between bone dry land and changing water pressure, it’s going to take a long time to get everything watered tonight. I may not get everything watered tonight.
That little fuzzy head in the darkness is Mama Owl’s and Daddy Owl’s new owlet sticking its head up for the first time to say “Hello world!” I was talking to Jim between calling the owlet and taking photos, and Jim asked “Why don’t they stick their heads up when it’s light?” I told him that owls like darkness.
Mama Owl and Daddy Owl in a cottonwood in the bosque looking for Junior’s dinner.
If anyone has suggestions for names for Junior, I’m open.
“¡Hola Mundo!”
The left fork in the Y in my irrigation ditch flows through a culvert where Scrappy Skunk was sleeping. Poor Scrappy was rudely awakened by the water and he came out one end of the pipe but got offended that I was videotaping him. He crawled back in the culvert, came out the other side, went back in, and stayed in the culvert until the water got too high and finally forced him out. He was an embarrassed wet skunk when he finally climbed out of the ditch and ran off. You can watch Scrappy Skunk in all his wet glory in the video below.
Off Center & Not Even 