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.

A dark, dramatic sky and a new project

This is last night's moon. Aren't the clouds dramatic? They look painted. This was right after the Strawberry Moon on the 20th. What's neat is that this Strawberry Moon fell on the same date as the summer solstice. I read that this is so rare, that the last time it happened was 1948!

The wind and the clouds were moving fast, which made things even more dramatic.

Eventually, the clouds covered the moon entirely which led to my favorite shot of the night:

Doesn't that look just a bit like a jack-o-lantern face?

To my surprise, my camera zoomed to 80x. I thought it would only go to 39x for some reason, so I was thrilled that it kept going and I got this one:

You can really see those craters on the right side of it.

I had been working on a blog post after a recent trip to the museum, but that isn't entirely done yet. Hopefully it will be soon. I photographed some cool and spooky old African artifacts there, but researching them is taking some time. I'd like to be able to actually tell you guys about them!

Besides researching those artifacts, I also haven't been blogging much because most my online time has been going toward other things like playing around with recording my voice and learning about making videos. It has been my goal for a long time now to do some recordings and get them on YouTube and after a few months of research, I'm finally getting around to figuring this all out!

Anyway, I thought I'd check in with a quicker post than what I'd been planning just to make sure I made an appearance! It's been a long time since I've been blogging and I didn't want to drop off the face of the earth.

I'd like to chat with anyone who has some tips or ideas before I go into doing the recordings/videos. I might have some questions for those of you who already have YouTube channels.

I'm thinking right now of an old time radio theme. Something like the spooky old shows and stories from the 40s that I enjoy listening to. Any suggestions of what you might like to hear?