Patrick

Comet chasing

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Comet NEOWISE

I went out to see if I could get any pho­tos of C/2022 E3 (ZTF) tonight, but the moon is far, far too bright. It was kind of a relief, hon­est­ly; it’s ridicu­lous­ly cold tonight (like, push­ing ‑30°C before the wind gets fac­tored in). I snapped a cou­ple pho­tos, but I could­n’t see any­thing resem­bling a comet in them. 

It was­n’t near­ly as suc­cess­ful an attempt as the last time I went comet chas­ing.

Comet NEOWISE
Comet NEOWISE (tak­en in 2020)

Sunrise; frost

Posted on by Patrick
Sunrise: the clouds are all orange and pink, and the branches are very dark against the sky

Mon­day’s sun­rise was pret­ty, well, pret­ty.

Sunrise: the clouds are all orange and pink, and the branches are very dark against the sky

And today, after a misty morn­ing, there was some hoar­frost[1]Fine, rime ice. on the branches.

Rime ice (often called hoarfrost) on a branch

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
↑1 Fine, rime ice.

It appears winter has arrived

Posted on by Patrick
Snow-covered evergreens

We got a whole bunch of snow over the last few days. Today was the first day in what feels like a long time that the sky was blue and the sun was out.

We noticed some sun­dogs while head­ed home from gro­cery shop­ping, so I grabbed my cam­era and head­ed south of town for some pho­tos. By the time I got there the ‘dogs were fad­ing, but I got one before they vanished.

I also appre­ci­at­ed the way the trees looked at the edge of a field, so I pulled over to the side of the road and snapped a few pho­tos of them, too.

Snow-covered evergreens
Snow-covered evergreens

Mars photobombing the full moon

Posted on by Patrick
The full moon seen through the branches of a tree

The moon tonight is very full and very bright, and there’s a tiny lit­tle speck of light juu­u­u­u­ust about touch­ing it. I checked and it turns out it’s Mars.

(I real­ize I kind of gave it away in the title. So it goes.)

The full moon. An inset shows the very small, slightly reddish dot that is Mars.
That tiny red­dish dot in the 4×original size inset? That’s a planet.

[Edit] I just real­ized it’s also the 50th anniver­sary today of the launch of Apol­lo 17, the last crewed mis­sion to the moon. Here’s to the con­tin­ued suc­cess of the Artemis project and the return of humans to the lunar surface.

Hoss in his winter colours

Posted on by Patrick
A rabbit with white and grey fur

I star­tled our bud­dy Hoss[1]Short for “Hasenpf­ef­fer”, a nick­name Kath­leen bestowed upon any rab­bit in our sight. yes­ter­day as I head­ed out to get bread. He stopped next to the garage and wait­ed, watch­ful. I grabbed my cam­era and snapped the pho­to above.

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
↑1 Short for “Hasenpf­ef­fer”, a nick­name Kath­leen bestowed upon any rab­bit in our sight.

Writing Goals: November 2022

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fountain pen on notepad

I’m doing NaNoW­riMo this year, sort of. Instead of push­ing hard for 50,000 words in a brand-new project, I’m going to use the month to try and fin­ish the first draft of Dried Flow­ers. My aim is at least 300 words each and every day. So far today I’m at 307 words, and I think I’m going to do a bit more after I fin­ish this post.

I’ll try to make sure to post update here every so often (let’s say week­ly, so I’m not bor­ing you).

Wish me luck!

Hollow Bean 2022: The Costumes

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List of Halloween costumes, 2022

This year’s light­ly-anno­tat­ed list of Hal­lowe’en costumes:

  • Li’l tiny kit­ten (She was 3, maybe 4 at the out­side. Rang the bell, very clear­ly said “Trick or treat”, thanked me for the can­dy. Her mom, from the side­walk, said “You did it all by your­self! I’m so proud of you!” So was I.)
  • Li’l pur­ple dragon
  • Grim Reaper
  • Flap­per
  • Trav­el­er (or what we might, in less enlight­ened times, have called a “gyp­sy”)
  • 2 box­es of Nerds (one was grape, I could­n’t make out the oth­er; both had the Nutri­tion­al Infor­ma­tion print­ed on the backs of their costumes)
  • Angel
  • Bear
  • Beard­ed dad (The angel and bear both asked if we had gluten-free bars, which—turns out—apparently Aero fits the bill. I gave their dad a Cof­fin Crisp because a) the kids were super polite about it and b) he seemed real­ly patient.)
  • Great Pump­kin
  • San­ta Claus

We shut the light off at 9 pm, hav­ing watched the Knock Knock Ghost episode where they explore the Diefen­bunker, among oth­er spooky specials.