Slaughtered Lamb

Given last night's full moon I thought you should all know that Last Exit to Nowhere has put their Slaughtered Lamb merchandise on it's End of Line list. So, given that it is my last chance it's now or never. So I ordered one...yes, I have finally ordered myself a Slaughtered Lamb shirt.

You see, it was my blog post about American Werewolf in London that led me to discover Last Exit. But didn't you order one back then? Nope. Got other things (inspired by Blade Runner, Big Trouble in Little China, Indiana Jones, etc.) so this is really the time...

Next on the wish list is The Goonies!

Source

My shirt arrived in very quick turn-around time!! And the shipping was really reasonable. I can't wait to wear it to my next work shift!

By the light of the silvery moon...

This might be a good time to mention that last week they made pot legal here in Canada. And being the furthest east in the country it happened here in Newfoundland first. Some dispensaries opened at midnight...and people were lined up and waiting to get in! Apparently, it only took about 3 days for most dispensaries to run out of product.

Beautiful and Dangerous Nature

Hey everyone! It's been a while since I've been blogging, because it finally thawed out around here and I have to be outside! Can you believe we had snow in late April and today we had over 80° weather? Because I haven't been checking in here much, I've ended up with a number of things to share. So this is going to be one of those Justine's favorites kind of blog posts.

Something I wanted to be sure and share with you guys was a display from last month's Art in Bloom at the Milwaukee Art Museum. You might remember Art in Bloom from past years. If not, it's a wonderful show of flower arrangements that are interpretations of the art.

This arrangement was in the Haitian gallery space. Check out that skull!

This display had a lot of exotic looking plants in it. I actually took a photo of the plant list, because some of these were new to me. I was especially interested in the spidery or octopus looking one in front. This one:

After googling pics of every plant on this list, I didn't find it. So if any of you know what that plant is, please let me know! Here's the flower list:

This is the painting that goes with the floral display, Baron Le Croix (Bawon Lakwa) by André Pierre. If you read the "Designer Statement" at the bottom of the flower list, you'll understand a little bit about the painting and the symbolism. Although, I'm pretty sure you guys had a general idea of what's going on here.

It's worth reading this brief paragraph about Baron La Croix:

Baron La Croix Wiki Page

"The ultimate suave and sophisticated spirit of death" How about that?

Speaking of new and spooky flowers, I saw these little cuties in the woods a few days ago. I was told that these are Bloodroot, and from a google search it would appear that's correct. They don't look like they'd be called Bloodroot, do they? But from what I just read, the juice from this plant is both red and poisonous. And the flowers look so innocent!

If you'd like to read more: Bloodroot Wiki Page

If you read down to the "Toxicity" section on that page, you'll learn why you shouldn't mess with this plant! What I read here is actually pretty scary. To put it simply, do not apply this to your skin because it will destroy your tissue. Don't ingest this or you might vomit or pass out. And you might want to check your mouthwash for "sanguinaria" (another name for Bloodroot) because it could lead to oral cancer down the road. Wow! Nature can be pretty powerful and not always in the best of ways.

Another find in the park was this "Tree Bracket Fungus". I would have called it Seashell Fungus. Don't these look like shells?

From what I've been reading, some of these are not super healthy for trees, but people have turned this bracket or shelf fungi into art. Evidently, it's super hard and makes a good painting surface. If you google "Tree Bracket Fungus Art" you'll see some pretty cool examples.

In other nature news, some of you may have seen this little zebra spider when I shared it on Twitter.

I blogged about these once before. Some fun trivia about zebra spiders is that they don't make webs. Instead, they sneak up and pounce on their little insect victims like a cat! By the way, these spiders are much smaller than this one appears! They're like half the size of a normal ant. Ah, the magic of cropping.

This next picture was scary for me only because I didn't see more than one deer with my eyes before taking it. Then I looked at my camera screen in surprise! There were six deer that I could see, standing out in the open. But those behind this obvious deer totally blended in to the trees. Deer aren't exactly scary, but not realizing there are extra eyes upon you is!

Now that I'm studying this photo, I don't even know if I'm seeing more eyes in the woods! I think I may have just spotted a fifth head back there. I ended up seeing a good 10 in this herd, but who knows how many were actually there.

Onto a view of the outdoors at night. These are pics of the last two full moons we've had. They appeared very differently!

March 31 ~ The Sap Moon:

April 29 ~ The Pink Moon:

It's worth reading this page: Full Moon Names if you'd like to learn why each full moon has the name it does. I hope you guys enjoyed seeing my past month or so in little pieces. I'm finding it fun to write this way, with a little of this and a little of that. Let me know if you guys are seeing any new and interesting plants or insects. Everything is popping out now!

British Ghost Stories Under Tonight's Thunder Moon

I was so fortunate to get some photos of tonight's full moon! It looked like it was going to be too overcast out there to get a shot of it.

I was all prepared to show a pic I took of the nearly full moon last night. But tonight's moon popped out for maybe 30 seconds tops, and then went back under a cloud. I was lucky to have my camera ready.

Going...

Going...

Gone!

I took those photos in succession. Click, click, click. So that shows how fast the moon was being covered!

July's full moon is called the "Thunder Moon". If you're wondering, this moon got its name because there are more frequent thunderstorms in July than in other months. For those who'd like to get into the nitty gritty of what else is going on in the sky alongside that moon, space.com has an informative page: July Full Moon 2017: When to See the 'Thunder Moon'

Because I didn't think I was going to get a photo of the moon tonight, I took a number of photos of the neighborhood. That way, I thought I'd have something to share. I'll still include two of my favorites here. I love the look of this yard at night. It's like a happy little campground or festival with those lights. And the silhouette of the fence and trees frames the light so perfectly. There's something so old fashioned about it.

So, onto those ghost stories! I discovered a few new ghost shows on YouTube recently. New to me, anyway. I think they'd been filmed sometime back. I was searching on there for "haunted pubs" because sometimes I'm in the mood for British ghost shows. First I found this one:

Most haunted pubs & Inns in Britain With Richard Felix

It just occurred to me that this is the same Richard Felix who is on the Most Haunted TV series.

After watching that show, I read a conversation in the comment section where people were talking about a man named Chris Halton who made similar videos. So I looked him up and enjoyed this episode of his show very much. Here it is:

England's Most Haunted Villages: A Day and Night Investigation of Pluckley, Kent

For those who get my blog posts in email form, I know the videos don't come through. So here are some links to them:

Most haunted pubs & Inns Britain With Richard Felix

England's Most Haunted Villages: A Day and Night Investigation of Pluckley, Kent

These are like "ghost show comfort food", because you're not going to get scared. It's more like someone is giving you a tour around town, teaching you history, and sharing a few local stories. There are some interviews too. It's pleasant ghost show viewing. It's dare I say, relaxing viewing. So enjoy these ghost stories. It's a perfect night to watch them with that full moon out there!

Say Hello to the Strawberry Moon

Hey everyone! It's been a while since I've been blogging or on social media at all, really. It's a busy time of year for me with gardening and a lot of cleaning/organizing. Anyway, I'm back with a quick post about tonight's full moon. This moon looks almost like a harvest moon, which is surprising for June.

June's full moon is known as the "Strawberry Moon" and will be the smallest moon of 2017. In fact, I saw some people referring to it as a "minimoon".

I like this photo, because it looks like the moon is wearing a little garland of leaves around its head. (That's a tree branch)

There are other names for June's full moon. I'm not sure why, but it's also called the "Oak Moon", "Cold Moon", and "Long Night's Moon". Those last two make no sense to me, because the nights aren't cold and long in June. Actually, I feel like I heard one of the full moons in the winter called a "Cold Moon".

If you're wondering why June's full moon is known commonly as the "Strawberry Moon" that's because Algonquin tribes knew this as a time to gather fruit. (That's according to the Farmer's Almanac.) The Almanac also lists this as the "Full Rose Moon" and "Honey Moon". Those names I can figure out. It seems this moon has lots of names, but then June is a time with lots of moon naming inspiration. The Farmer's Almanac page is worth reading:

The Mini Strawberry Moon

If you get a chance, it's worth looking in the sky tonight! The color of this full moon will give you a feeling of autumn a few months early.

Tomorrow's Snow Moon Eclipse and Comet

Get ready for a lot of action in the skies tomorrow night! In the past few days, the moon has already been looking dramatic.

I took this photo three days ago. It's in what I like to call the "cat's eye phase" Can't you imagine this as a cat's eye, if it had a pupil?

After taking this photo, I wondered how close we were to a full moon. So I looked online to see when the next full moon is. Well, it's this Friday and not only will there be a full moon, but there will also be an eclipse and a comet!

I learned that forecast from The Farmer's Almanac web site. Here's a link to the article I read:

Farmer's Almanac ~ Full moon, Eclipse, and a Comet

It's worth reading! I also learned from that article, that tomorrow's moon is called "The Full Snow Moon" because usually the heaviest snows fall in February.

I went out around 5:00 pm this evening to get some photos of the nearly full moon in that subtle, almost translucent stage. You know, when the moon is starting to appear on one side of the sky and the sun is setting on the other.

About a half hour later, things looked different. I don't think I've ever captured the moon quite like this. It looks like the sun out at night.

And then a little darker:

Of course I plan on going out tomorrow night to look for the moon, try and catch the eclipse, and maybe even see that comet. Hopefully the sky will be clear. It's been so incredibly cold here and clear skies seem to accompany those low temps. As far as the eclipse goes, I hear it's going to be subtle. So maybe I'll look for a slight shadow. I don't really know if it will be possible to see the comet or how close it will be.

According to several sources, we should look for the eclipse more or less between 5:32 and 9:55 pm, EST. You're most likely to see a peak change around 7:43 pm. That sounds a lot more doable than the 3 am Saturday morning time we can expect to see the comet. Maybe it could swing by a little early so I could catch a look? They say this is the closest a comet has come to earth since 1983!

Let me know if any of you see any of this tomorrow night! I'll update this blog post with any photos I get of tomorrow's action.

*UPDATE*

OK, It's now Friday, February 10th. The lunar eclipse has finished. I went outside off and on tonight during the eclipse. The sky was very hazy tonight, but it eventually cleared up. Maybe it was hazy or less bright because the moon was shadowed.

This picture was taken at 6:00 my time (central). The moon looks bluish, doesn't it? And you can see that it wasn't crystal clear. I was lucky to have it peek out of the clouds for me, because it soon disappeared.

This one is from the peak time of the eclipse (6:43 for me). This is seriously the clearest I could get it to look. This fuzziness isn't from me wavering around or something. It actually looked like this!

Then a little after 8:00, I went out to see this unusual, diagonal cloud crossing the moon:

I've never seen anything like this, have you? It looks like a tree branch, but I assure you it's not. It seems skinny for a cloud. By around 8:30 it was gone. 

I went out at that point to see a really spooky sky. The moon was more clearly visible and there was a bright halo directly around it. Surrounding that was a light cloudy ring and a rusty colored ring.

I went out once more, when the eclipse was scheduled to end. That was near 9:00 my time. What I saw was so spooky, I couldn't help using the fisheye lens:

Look at that almost rainbow halo effect. I wonder what caused that? You can see it even more in this one:

Tonight was bitterly cold. The wind was whipping around me and  I could hear dogs howling in several directions. I kid you not! That added something.

I'd really like to know what you guys saw out there tonight! Was the sky hazy where you are? Did you see any rusty rings around the moon or did it show up as blue? I didn't see anything too shadowy in the sky, aside from that one diagonal line across the moon, but the eclipse was supposed to be a subtle one. What I did see was a surprising amount of change in the sky over a two hour period. That was an interesting experiment, checking back to see how things had changed. Who would think that the sky would look so dramatically different every half hour or so?

I also want to hear from you night owls who are up around the time that comet shoots by!

My Pictures of the Super Blood Moon Eclipse

Last Sunday, September 27th, there was something amazing in the sky. Many of you were probably aware that there was a full moon that night. It was also a super moon, a blood moon, and featured a lunar eclipse! This was a pretty big deal because these events have not occurred since 1982. We won't see this moon action in the sky again until 2033!

I was fortunate enough to witness the eclipse. The weather was good and the skies were clear. The eclipse happened a lot faster than I expected. Not to say that the shadow whooshed across the moon, but there was steady movement over the course of an hour. If you took, say a five minute break from looking up, you'd see a definite difference in the moon.

Something cool and almost eerie was the red cast to the shadow once it had nearly covered the moon. At times it looked purple too. I had to laugh at one point because I heard a dog howl. I swear, in the darkness someone's dog howled! How perfect is that?

So of course I had to take a ton of photos through the moon's process of eclipsing. Here they are now, from the bright beginning to the dark end.

And then it started getting red... Funny enough, this is how it looked to my eye, but I could only capture the red from far away. When I closed in, it looked more like a fade from yellow to purple to red.

I cropped in to show you better.

After the eclipse, the shadow across the moon faded back the other way. It was sort of bright from the bottom too. Then it was its normal self again. I had some fun with my fisheye lens for the next two shots. Quite a dramatic sky.

Pretty amazing, hey? I was sure glad to have the opportunity to see this full/super/blood moon with an eclipse! Did any of you see this?