Hurricane Harvey

We are far enough inland that we will not be caught in the path of Harvey's wrath, even though we will be getting some rain in the next few days.

Here's keeping all those affected in our thoughts and prayers.

The Great American Eclipse 2017

We were not in the path of totality, but were close enough to get about a 72% eclipse.

Being a homeschool mom also automatically put me into some sort of "what can we learn from this" mode when I first found out about the eclipse.

Honestly though, I hadn't realised the gravity of the event until I had gone online to do research so that I could share what I had learned with the little boy.

Thankfully, there was an abundance of information and educational videos out there.

A couple of days before the eclipse, the little boy and I did some activities and watched some of the videos I had previewed.

The night before the eclipse, I tried to make sure we got all our stuff together and that we would be as ready as we could be.

We had purchased our booklet and solar eclipse viewing glasses from Walmart well over a month ago,

and made sure to check they were actually legit before we used them.

I wasn't too concerned about getting any passable photographs of the eclipse, leaving that to the experts.

I was more interested in making it a fun and educational experience for the little boy.

We tried various ways of viewing the eclipse.

First, there was the look-straight-into-the-sun-CAREFULLY-with-your-ISO-CERTIFIED-eclipse-glasses method. :P

Then, we tried a very rough pinhole eclipse viewer using a cardboard box like the ones kids used to use way back when.

Next, we experimented with our metal steamer/colander.  It produced pretty magnificent images.

Here's the image that we got at the beginning of the eclipse,

and here's the image we got at the peak.

Next, we tried some other methods of creating pinholes, like using a piece of cardstock paper,

and through interlaced fingers.

We also discovered that our hands made cool shadows that looked like we had webs between our fingers or at least, some lumpity bumps.

Last but not least, we checked out the crescent shaped shadows the leaves were casting :)

We *heart* care packages from home

*smiles*

How Eggstraordinary ;D

I could include quite a few more puns, but my Dad the punster just about had me ( in my brain, at least ), rolling my eyeballs every time he made one, so I think I'll leave well enough alone.

I was making dinner when one of the eggs I cracked open was a double yolker!

Maybe I'll be in for some Eggscellent luck? :)

Photography

I haven't really taken the time that I should to take some nice photos with my lovely camera.  Most of the photos I take are with my cell phone, of the little boy, and most of the blog posts are over at HIS blog.

However, I HAVE taken it out, dusted it off, and started using it more, though. :)

A Self Portrait

Cats on a Hot Tin Roof

A Bouquet in Pastels

Of Flora and Fauna

One of our potted plants was getting a little wonky and not in a position to get enough sun throughout the day, so I decided to shift it a little.

Lo and behold, a pretty dry looking frog/toad that had been keeping damp under the flower pot.
He didn't move a muscle the whole time I was messing with the pot, and I didn't disturb him either.

I did, however, flick this critter below off our bougainvilla plant with my fingers, dang grasshopper.
Praise the Lord we haven't seen quite the numbers from the Great Plague of a few years ago, which actually lasted a few MORE years! Ugh

We haven't had many wild sunflowers this year.  Maybe it's because all the seeds got eaten by the birds, and whatever seeds that fell on the ground got carried away by the dang rats.

I AM thankful though, that the RAT SCOURGE seems to be over, and we have had several families of stray cats hanging around this year to see to that.