April 9th, 2024
How was your full solar eclipse experience today? I hope it was fun. A lot of Americans traveled long distances to be within the path of the full eclipse, which stretched across America for a couple hours. Though the actual full eclipse itself was just a couple minutes. My friend Jim drove all the way to Ohio from central PA to see the full eclipse, and yet his attention fell prey to a myriad of beautiful 1960s muscle cars lined up by car-and-eclipse enthusiasts. We men are so weak, so easily distracted. It’s great.
This morning I traveled a couple hours to the Pennsylvania-New York border for a business meeting, after which I drove a few minutes north and crossed into New York State. Right on the edge of the full eclipse. For two hours I did my best to enjoy the event, which was greatly hampered by heavy clouds. Like a tornado hunter there on the PA-NY border, I drove around and took up various positions along paved and dirt roads, a cemetery, a bar parking lot, a cow pasture, trying to beat the clouds or at least find a big wide open space that would give me an idea of when the clouds would open up and give a rewarding, clear view.
Was it seven years ago that we had another solar eclipse? That one we watched with friends at Cherry Springs State Park, and handed around our two welding helmets among our gang and also to other gawkers who asked to borrow them for a moment. That was a memorable day, most especially because it was summertime and the sky was blue. Boy was the eclipse perfectly visible on that day.
Gotta say, the welding helmet, turned up to 13, really saved the day today. The memento “Full Solar Eclipse 4/08/2024” glasses given to me by Chuck (thank you very much) were difficult to see through, and impossible to take photos through. The clouds were often heavy, and blocked the sun completely, forget the eclipse. Welding helmets have a pretty big screen, that is also adjustable, and a camera can be held up to it for a properly filtered picture. So not only was I often able to see the eclipse through the clouds with the helmet, some of my best photos came from light cloud cover.
What a miraculous and fabulous universe we inhabit. And no, we can’t blame this eclipse on “climate change.” Nice try, though.
Jim Eisenhart, Jr. may have been easily distracted by the pretty 1960s muscle cars today, but he did capture the best amateur full eclipse picture I saw
The best part of this photo is the little bit of ominous dark sky at the top. The eclipse turned daytime into a weird glow, a sideways light, not something that normally shines down. These signs lacked shadows, despite the bright sunlight (not sunshine) on them
February 11th, 2014
Snow is magic, pretty, enchanting, a pain to drive in, a pain to shovel, and a huge boon to hunters.
Snow helps hunters (animals and humans alike) see prey better, because it creates stark contrasts. When a prey animal is moving, a hunter can much more quickly spot it. Tracks reveal where animals have been, and where they might be again.
Today was the last day to harvest a bobcat, and while I did not try to bag one real hard, I still feel a little disappointed. Our traps went out after the bobcat trapping season, and I did not get up to our northcentral PA honeyhole spot, so I can’t say I tried hard. But still, if you read enough hunting reports, you know that all it takes is that “one amazing moment” when the cat silently appears after you’ve been calling. I had hoped for that moment.
Kind of like that other hopey-changey stuff, my own hope was misplaced.
But I did take a lot of pretty photos with snowy backdrops. The white barn, dune-like ripples in the snow across a big field, dead foxtail grass waving in the deep snow…kind of like grass waving in the dunes at the sea shore. An old loop of barbed wire sticking up through the snow, with rabbit tracks hopping by on the right. Ice sheets across the stream, or nearly across, with deer tracks testing it up til its edge, and then backing away to find another route.
As I was snuck inside a field corner woods, blowing on the dying rabbit call, a giant snowy owl erupted from the other side of the hedgerow 150 yards away. One swoop over me, and it lit out for Canada. Not even camo fools those eyes. The last snowy owl I saw was 36 years ago, while I was out hunting alone in Centre County, walking along a field edge. Raucous crows alerted me to something special about to happen, and then it appeared, a majestic white owl, soaring ahead of the cawing mass. That owl just kept on going, leaving me mesmerized.
A black weasel came darting to the call inside a small wash, while I was perched on a stump and log way above. My mind first identified it as a black squirrel, then as a mink, and then as the weasel it was, as I watched it crouched under a fallen log, watching me with glittery eyes. I have a weasel mounted with the wood duck I shot with John Plowman nearly 20 years ago, out on the Susquehanna. The weasel is from Centre County, and is brown with a black-tipped tail. This is the first all-black weasel I have seen, although I have seen both an all-black fisher (in the ADKs in November) and a mink this year. Kind of like a three-of-a kind poker hand; the fourth must be a seal…
Nature is so simply magical. How people do drugs, I do not understand. The sun on the snow today was enough of a “drug” for me to last all day and night and into tomorrow. And so yet another hunt passed, without a kill, and yet, so fulfilling, nonetheless.
By Josh • Posted in
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