Eclipse Day

A lot of people I know were expecting different results when the solar eclipse happened in our area yesterday.  There were complaints about it not getting dark, wasn't it supposed to get dark?  At the peak, the sun here was about 86% covered.  The sun's light is a powerful thing though, and even though only a small percentage of the light was getting past the moon, it was only slightly dimmer than normal.  

We had forgotten about the eclipse, and when we remembered, it was already underway.  The first thing I noticed as being 'different' were the shadows on the deck of the leaves of the ornamental cherry tree.

I took a picture of the sun with my phone, just to see if anything was different.  The sun looked like usual, but when I looked again, the camera had somehow picked up an reversed reflection of the partially covered sun.

The picture was taken at 10:08, and the peak was at 10:21, so the sun is only about half covered.  Maybe that's a planet off to one side of the crescent sun.

We took the dogs for a walk right at the peak.  The light was definitely different, definitely dimmer, and the shade down the trail was darker too of course.  The biggest thing that we noticed though, was the temperature drop.  I was in shorts and a t-shirt, and the sunlight hitting my body was not producing any heat.  I was cold and the hair was standing up on my arms, and probably the hair on my legs that I had missed was standing up too! 😉

The sunflowers were still doing their thing though.

I think the sky was a darker blue.  

The Fall raspberries are starting to ripen.

A baby cantaloupe.  I sure hope there's time for the them to ripen.

Some of the tomato plants have reached the top of their strings.  Last week I started cutting the top shoots off.  No new flower branches to be pollinated.  I need them to ripen what tomatoes are there.  Today I got more brutal with them and trimmed a lot of leaves off to let some light into the green tomatoes.  I've never had such vigorous plants.  I was constantly pinching or cutting out shoots sprouting from the leave axils.

Sweet 100 is living up to it's name.

Tiny scallopini or pattypan squash, getting ready to flower.  First time growing them.

Another first.  Straight eight cucumbers.  Boy are they good. Crunchy and juicy.

And pumpkins, 12 pretty decent sized ones.

I planted a bunch of squash seeds in the side of the manure pile.  I HAD planned on thinning the plants out, but like many things I PLAN on doing......

We have loads and loads of these.  At first I thought/hoped they were going to be Butternut squash, and then decided they were just some weird hybrid, and then all of a sudden one day the shape had changed just a bit and I realized they are Red Kuri squash.  The red part is still to come, but they are the right shape.

Also on that pile are a ton of spaghetti squash.  I'm pretty excited about all these squash!

And then last night we took the dogs down to the river for a swim.  They get their morning walk and an evening one, and get to hang out with us all day if they want, but I feel like they haven't had much exciting added to their daily regimen for a while, so it was nice to do something slightly different with them.

This was at Poplar Bar, one of the parks along the Fraser River near us.  Not as dark as the photo appears, but the setting sun makes it look darker.

After wet games of fetch, we took a walk through the trails.  By that point we were the last ones at the park, so we left them off leash.  We passed a massive cottonwood tree, at least 6' in diameter.  Maybe there was an eagle's nest in the top, but we couldn't see from our vantage point.  Eagle feathers had been placed into the tree.

(and this picture is lighter than it really was.  It was starting to dim at this point.  

When we got to the end of the trail, we decided to walk back by the road, as it was getting pretty dark in the trees.  I was starting to think that maybe the park get would get locked before we got back to our car, but we were fine.  The sign said 10pm, and there were actually two more cars in there when we got back.  It was about 8:30.  We have already lost an hour of daylight in the evening, and probably the same in the morning.  The only time I notice the mornings is on Sundays, when I have to get up at 5 to finish prepping for the market. 

Those Sundays seem to roll around way too fast.