Chocolate, carrots and mother spiders

Will Write For Chocolate has been updated. Actually, it was updated last week but I forgot to post about it. It's been an unusually busy summer (hence the dearth of Blatherings).

Also forgot to post about my first vegetable harvest of the year! I've mentioned before that I planted some tomatoes and baby carrots in addition to herbs in my patio planters. The squirrels dug up most of my carrot seeds, but here's one that survived:



There was a big squirrel hole right beside it. Note the nibbled-off leaves on two of the stalks.

I ate it, of course. And it was the BEST CARROT I'VE EVER TASTED.



Above: spider with egg sac at the cottage. I felt sorry for the poor mother spider, lugging along this huge (in comparison to her own body) egg sac, trying to find a safe place to put it. Couldn't help but think of Charlotte's Web.

Am I correct in assuming this is a dock spider? Anyway, I ended up taking her to a hollowed-out log at the edge of the forest.



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Lunar Eclipse

Toronto couldn't have asked for a better sky for the lunar eclipse last night. I sat outside for more than an hour, watching the Earth's shadow move slowly across the moon.

I took some photos with my Rebel XTI using a Canon 70-300 telephoto lens, but found that it was way too cold to do much fiddling with the settings - I had to keep putting my hands back in my mittens. In the end, I decided I'd far rather do more watching than photographing. Jeff brought out some hot chocolate for me partway through and joined me; and several of our neighbours came out as well. Jeff set up his telescope and we not only watched the moon's eclipse but also checked out some planets and nebulae.

I've been enjoying browsing through lunar eclipse photos on Flickr...not just to see how everyone's photos turned out but at the thought of so many people around the world were looking at the same thing in the sky, filled with the same wonder.

I mean, think about it. This is something that happens TOTALLY out of our control, it only happens every 3-5 years, and it's an event that's been going on long before any of us were around and will continue long after we're gone. I find it humbling and inspiring and comforting all at the same time.



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Lunar eclipse survey

Who else out there is going to be outside tonight, watching the lunar eclipse? Happily, the skies are supposed to relatively clear tonight, at least in the Greater Toronto Area.

For those in the GTA: the moon should appear high in the southern sky when the eclipse begins at 8:42 pm, as the Earth's shadow crosses the moon's surface from left to right. The total eclipse is supposed to last from 10 pm to 10:51 pm.

More info in this USA Today article and TheStar.com.






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