Monday was the day of the great eclipse. We’d planned to drive to Dunkirk, New York, to watch it, but when we checked the weather that morning, it looked like it would be cloudy and raining there, so we changed our plans. After looking at several weather maps, we settled on meeting at a park in the small town of Saegertown, in Crawford County, on the western edge of the state. It was a three hour drive from our house. Miriam, Hannah, and Rachel drove over from Sarah’s house in Toledo. It also took them three hours to get there. We met at the park at 1:00. Several families from the Thayn’s ward also drove up from the Pittsburgh area to be there.
The little park was very nice. It had equipment for the children to play on, several ball diamonds, and two pavilions. We set up in one of the pavilions. Our first order of business was Florence’s birthday. She wanted a picnic birthday and we had all the fixings for a picnic lunch – sandwiches, chips, drinks. Miriam, Hannah, and Rachel brought a picnic themed cake and cupcakes that they made with Sarah over the weekend. Florence was so happy.
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| Setting up for the eclipse/birthday event. |
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| Florence's picnic birthday. |
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| A picnic birthday cake and cupcakes. |
As we waited, the sky was sunny with just some high wispy clouds, but as the eclipse began, thicker clouds rolled in. We started to worry that we would not see the full eclipse. As the moon moved into place, the sky grew darker and darker. We all had eclipse glasses on as we watched the sun shrink to a bright crescent. Around 3:15 the streetlights came on as we entered twilight. Then we reached totality. It was amazing to see. There were clouds, but the sun’s corona was fully visible, a glowing halo of light surrounding the dark disk of the moon. We had to take our dark glasses off to look at it. It was one of the most spectacular celestial events I’ve ever seen. The air grew cold. The birds went to roost. The sky on the horizon glowed with sunset colors. We even saw a bright prominence protruding on the lower left side of the corona. For three minutes the full eclipse lingered and then the bright edge of the sun emerged as the moon moved away. As the light began to grow again, we packed up, said good-bye, and headed for home. We encountered no huge crowds of people, none of the massive traffic jams that occurred in other places. We arrived home at 7:00. The Thayns, heading to Pittsburgh, did encounter bad traffic. It took them an extra hour and half to get home. I’m so glad we were able to see the eclipse. I tried to take some pictures, but they do not capture the magic of it at all.
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| June and Mabel watching the eclipse. |
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| Watching as the sun disappears. |
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| This was totality, but not a good photo of it. |
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| The eclipse party gang. |
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| The Thayn's drive home. |
Tuesday was a perfect spring day. It started off a bit frosty, but that’s normal for April here. As soon as the sun came up, the temperature began to climb. By noon we were at 73°. I spent the whole day doing garden work. First, while waiting for the frost to melt, I planted two more seed trays in the woodshed, one of flowers, the other of vegetables. Once the frost was gone, I went out to the big garden. I cleaned out the strawberry beds and prepared them to plant more. Kurt came out to work with me. He mowed up the debris from the strawberries and dumped it in the compost. We tilled a bed for onions. Kurt tilled other beds. Later, Miriam came out and helped me plant onions and then strawberries. Kurt hooked up the roller to the mower and rolled his lawn and my front lawn. Then he rolled down last year’s dry corn stalks. It felt great to be out in the warm sunshine working, accomplishing so many tasks. By chore time I was pretty tired. Despite there being a few more hours of daylight left, after dinner I called it a day. I took off my shoes, put up my feet, and took it easy until bedtime.
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| The newly tilled big garden. |
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| Hyacinths in the weedy long border. |
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| Corydalis in the long border. |
With the warm weather, the peepers, which for days before had been a feeble night noise, became a mighty chorus. They sing from dusk to dawn now and are so loud we can hear them inside the house. These tiny frogs (Pseudacris crucifer) peep at 90 decibels, which is about as loud as a lawn mower or a hair dryer. Multiply that 90 decibels by a thousand tiny throats singing from the beaver pond and Goodenough’s pond across the way, and you can imagine the impressive noise they make. I love to hear them. It’s the joyous noise of a warm spring night, a sign that winter has lost its grip at last and the time of flowers is come.
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| A spring peeper (not my photo). |
Wednesday was a rainy day, which was just as well. The rain was good for all the newly planted onions and strawberries. And it was good for me to rest my sore muscles. I did some easy garden work in the woodshed, planting pots of crocosmia and peacock gladiolus (Acidanthera bicolor). I brought my potted angel trumpet (Brugmansia aurea) up from the cellar where it had been hibernating. It already has a few leaves sprouting and is ready to grow. Later in the afternoon, the rain stopped for a half hour. I went out and did a little light work setting wire cages over the peonies. I usually forget to do that until they’ve grown big and it’s too late and they flop over. I did it early this year. They are just sending up their first little shoots. My order of seed potatoes arrived in the mail that afternoon and I set them to chit on the back porch. I won’t plant potatoes for a few more weeks. The rain came back right at chore time. That seems to be the pattern lately. If it’s going to rain hard, it waits until I need to walk down to the barn. Oh well.
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| Setting seed potatoes to chit. |
Very early on Thursday morning everyone left. Stacey, Miriam, and Hannah drove up to Buffalo to fly to Arizona to spend five days with family there. Stacey caught her flight, but Miriam and Hannah were flying standby and after waiting all day, could not get seats on any flight. So they came home again. Stacey went on and spent the weekend with her sister Roxann and other family. From what I hear, she had a great time.
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| Stacey with her sisters, Audrey and Roxann, at the Mesa Temple. |
So after a change in plans, I didn’t have to spend five days at home by myself. I’m sorry the girls plans were ruined, but I was glad for their company. That morning, when I thought that I’d be here by myself, I spent two hours cleaning the house, which for some reason, is always my first reaction when I’m alone. Then I spent the day, a dreary, rainy day, milling around the house. I read a bit. I went on a little Debussy binge. I hadn’t listened to his music in a long time. He’s always been in my top ten composers list. I watched some TV. For dinner I finished off all the leftovers in the fridge and was glad I wouldn’t be cooking for myself for the next five days after all. I subsist on cheese omelets when I have to fend for myself, and that gets old fast. Miriam and Hannah didn’t know where Stacey had parked the car at the airport and spent an hour looking for it. They finally arrived home at 9:00, a little disheartened, but I was glad to see them home again.
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| A sunset last week. |
After the beautiful weather on Tuesday, it rained the rest of the week. Those famous April showers again. On Friday morning a cold front moved in with stormy winds and heavy rain. I felt the house shift and heard the trees groan as the first winds slammed into us. The winds kept up all that day, through the night, and into Saturday. That night, as it got colder, the rain turned into snow. It wasn’t much and the little bit that did stick didn’t last long, but it still irked me. I know from looking back through photographs I’ve taken over the years, that snow in April is common here. It’s the uncommon snow-less April that I hope for every year. We haven’t had one of those since 2014. And some years the snow skips April and waits until May to plague us one last time.
I’ve been watching my fruit trees carefully, monitoring the progress of their buds. They are still tight enough that I have hopes they will stay closed and not bloom until May. The longer they wait to open, the better our chances for fruit becomes. We need apples this year. We’ve gone two years without a harvest. That’s two years without pressing cider. We’re running out of canned applesauce and we’re on our last jug of vinegar. Every time I inspect the orchard, I pray and ask a blessing that the trees will bear fruit for us this year.
Saturday, with the wind howling and rain and sometimes snow flying, I spent a couple of hours tending to my orchids. Once a week, usually on Saturday, I soak their pots in a weak fertilizer solution. I read a long time ago that orchids like to be fed weekly and weakly and I’ve followed that advice with good results. I have ten orchids and soaking each one for twelve minutes takes two hours. None of them are blooming right now, but one has a new flower stem emerging. It does my heart good to tend to them, especially when I can’t be outdoors working. They reward my attentions with exotic flowers.
This Sabbath morning dawned clear and calm and bright, a happy change after two days of wet, windy weather. While we were in church, a thunderstorm rolled through. It didn’t last long and when it left, the air was warm and soft. Church went well. Lunch was good. It is sunny and lovely out now and I’m thinking it’s been a long time since I last walked up to the woods. I wonder if the spring beauties are blooming and if the wild leeks are up. I think I need to take a long walk.
The week ahead looks hopeful, pleasant and sunny at least through midweek before the April showers descend on us again. I’ll be in school for the first three days, but I can work in the garden in the afternoons. Stacey will be home tomorrow and things will be happy and normal at home with her return. Despite the turmoil, violence, and unrest I see in the news reports, I look around me and I see the world greening and trees in bud and flowers springing from the earth and I thank God for the fragile peace that I enjoy and I pray it lasts a while longer.
