Total Solar Eclipse 2024

 

On April 8, 2024 we witnessed the total solar eclipse. Since that time I have watched video accounts of other people's total solar eclipse experiences. 

Each time I watch one of these videos I am brought back, in my mind, to that place of awe and wonder induced by standing in the Moon's shadow. 

The awe and wonder of gazing into the black hole where the Sun should be and seeing the ethereal glowing halo of the Sun's corona. 

The awe and wonder of feeling so small in God's giant universe.

The awe and wonder that I felt standing in the eerie darkness, yet beautiful light.

And I feel loved, so loved, by God as he displays his greatness in the heavens.

And I think, "The Almighty God cares for tiny, tiny me. He pays attention to me. He takes care of me. He wants fellowship with me. He loves me!" 

And the tears roll down my cheeks. It was so beautiful! The eclipse was so beautiful. The fact the God wants to show us this stunning display and has orchestrated it for our viewing is also a thing of beauty. 

We had a wonderful eclipse day. We were at a very large park complex in West Frankfort, IL. There were nice playgrounds, mature shade trees, a fishing pond, several baseball diamonds, and some big open fields and a marshy wild life area bordered by woods.

We set up our grill, picnic table, and chairs in a secluded section in the back of the park. We put our tent up, too, just to have a place to relax for some of the children.

The weather was perfect: sunny and 76°F. We played on the playground equipment before the eclipse started. We rushed back over to our camp to witness first contact. It as so exciting. The eclipse was happening! We watched the shadows change. Mr. In the Midwest grilled our pork steaks. We lay on our picnic blanket and observed the Sun shrinking away through our solar filter glasses. 

 Slowly, slowly the Moon over took the Sun. The Sun looked like a golden cookie that someone had taken a bite out of. Then the Sun looked like a packman. Then the Sun looked like a crescent, then a banana, and then a tiny sliver. When the Sun was down to only about 5% showing the anticipation really became intense. The light was dim and bright at the same time. The air was cooler. The evening birds started to make their calls. A planet appeared.

And then everything went dark. Off came our glasses! We had 4 minutes and 7-8 glorious seconds to witness the beautiful corona and look around at the 360° sunset at the horizon. There were shouts and whistles and laughter. The diamond ring was my favorite part. My two year old didn't care for the Sun going out. He said, "Go home." He meant that he wanted to go home. I held him, pointing to the shimmering ring in the sky and said, "Isn't it pretty?" 

And just like that, it was over. The first hair of Sun slipped out and we had to put our solar filter glasses back on.

We ate our lunch and had a happy time watching the Moon edge it's way off of the Sun. It seemed to go a lot faster getting off of the Sun than it had gone covering the Sun.

I am left with overwhelming gratitude. God is so good to me!

Psalms 97:6 

The heavens declare his righteousness, 

and all the people see his glory.

You can read about my 2017 total solar eclipse experience HERE. I wrote a lengthy journal style post for that eclipse.

Spring Woods!

We went for a walk in the woods at a nature preserve yesterday. This nature preserve is special because of the expansive carpet of blue bells on the forest floor in early spring. This was my first time visiting this preserve. The blue bells were like nothing I had ever seen before. They were everywhere!

There were a few other flowers blooming, too.

Spring Beauty 

Flox

Woodland Violet

Creeping Buttercup

I, also, saw a bunch of Prairie Trillium (the ones with burgundy petals and mottled leaves), and one early White Trout Lilly. Mayapples had popped up already. It was a little early yet for Toothwart, Hepatica, Wild Geranium, Yellow Trout Lilly, and Great White Trillium.

I saw some Red Admiral butterflies, a tiny copper butterfly, and a few sulfur butterflies. We heard some very loud tree frogs. The oak trees were all bare still. The buckeye trees were leafing out. There was a flowering tree that I will have to look up. It has five petaled white flowers in clusters. It was growing in the under canopy. It had reddish brown bark and the trunks and branches were delicate in character and finely featured.

We had a wonderful day in a beautiful place with delightful weather! I hope you are having a wonderful day, too. :)

Violet...…...Jelly?

Last Saturday, my children and I started picking all the violets that we could find. There are so many this time of year. Initially I thought we should add the violets to a salad for color. We just kept picking more and more violets. Pretty soon we had far too many violets for a salad.

I told my children that violets could be made into jelly and one time in my youth a friend of mine had given me a violet jelly recipe. I had followed the recipe and made violet jelly once. The really neat thing I had remembered about making violet jelly was how the violets made a purple tea that turned pink when the lemon juice was added. In fact, I still had the recipe.

That story pretty much sealed the deal for what to do with all our violets. My children wanted to see what violet jelly was like. We just had to make some.

Well, the jelly was a big failure. I tried to make it without pectin. I cooked it too long. It cooled into a solid mass of hard candy. I re-melted the mass, added water, jarred it again. Now it is the consistency and color of honey. All the beautiful violet color cooked out. It really does taste like honey, too. 

So, I guess what we actually made is bee-less honey.

Not bad. We will enjoy it on toast. And we had fun during the process. It's a win!

Now what I want to try is making pink lemonade out of violet tea. Wouldn't that be cool!

Jonquil by Henry Beer |Poem

 

Look what Mr. in the Mid-west brought me
last week! :)

The Jonquil

The Jonquil is a charming flower

Which blooms in April's sun and shower;

It blooms quite early in the spring

When blossoms burst, and songbirds sing.

Few flowers share with it in fame;

It has such sweet and varied names;

In former days, as well as ours,

The folks called them Easter flowers.

But Jonquil is the polished name,

By men of higher rank and fame.

The common people call it still

The lovely, cheerful Daffodil.

Then, when recedes the winter's cold,

We see them break the frosty mold

And raise their heads to welcome spring,

While birds their springtime carols sing.

Their blossoms, trumpetlike, proclaim

The glory due that worthy Name,

Who at the time the Jonquils bloom

Arose triumphant from the tomb.

The Jonquil blossoms fill the air

With fragrance sweet, yet mild and rare;

Where'er they bloom, it is a thrill

To see the golden Daffodils.

They take their place in Nature's plan

When in the spring they bloom again.

By Henry Beer

My Garden of Verse

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