Annular Eclipse

October 15, 2023

Hello again,

Well, we had a big solar eclipse out here this week.  It was not a total solar eclipse, but rather an annular solar eclipse and it occurred just this Saturday.  Both types of eclipses occur when the moon passes in between the earth and the sun, but since the moon's orbit is elliptical, and not a perfect circle, sometimes the moon can be closer or farther away from the earth.  When the moon is closer, you get a total eclipse and the sun is completely hidden by the moon's shadow(this happens at any given spot on earth about once every 375 years).  When the moon is farther away from the earth, the moon's shadow can't completely cover the sun in the sky and what is left over is a mostly blotted out sun, with just its outer edge still visible.  This is the annular eclipse, coming from the Latin word for ring,annulus, so the idea is that there is still a ring of light left around the moon.  The moon passes in between the earth and the sun once a month, on what we call new moon, but the moon's shadow typically just falls off into space and doesn't reach the earth.  Another thought to ponder is that the moon is moving away from the earth at the rate of about one inch every year, so at some point, solar eclipses won't occur at all...in another few hundred million years!  Some more crazy thoughts to ponder on this very subject: the sun is 100 times larger than the earth and the earth is 4 times larger than the moon, making the sun 400 times larger than the moon; at the same time, the sun is 400 times farther away from earth than the moon is, which is why they appear the same size in the sky!  So, only a small sliver of the country got to see the totality of the annular eclipse, which touched our borders over Oregon and proceeded in a southeasterly direction over Nevada, Utah and then directly over New Mexico.  Here on the ranch we were within the 98-99% band of totality, so we were able to see it very clearly.  We did our normal trip to the hot springs in the morning, but then boogied on back home quickly thereafter so as not to miss the beginning of the eclipse.  The whole event took about three hours to unfold, but the moment of totality(or, in our case, near-totality) only lasted about three minutes.  The sky took on a very strange hue and you could feel the air dip down in temperature, especially the nearer we got to totality.  Our boss got us a handy little guide that came with safe-viewing glasses, so we were totally prepared to observe everything.  To get an even better view of things(and better photos), our boss drove down to Albuquerque and into the midst of the Balloon Fiesta to see it within the band of 100% totality.

On other fronts, it has been pretty sunny this week, with not too much wind.  Temperatures are still rising up into the 70s quite easily, even pushing 80 here and there, but the nights, while somewhat chilly, are definitely still above freezing and usually even above 40 degrees.  I'm keeping an eye on the barn as I know that at some point in the next month we'll be getting another tractor trailer load of hay.  This time it will be wrapped alfalfa forage that is cultured, baled 'wet,' if you will.  These then come by the pallet with multiple layers of plastic wrap, so, although I want them all in the barn, they will be able to sit outside until I can pull that feat off.  We just got a delivery of regular grass and alfalfa hay last month, topping our inventory of about 200 bales at that time with another 400 bales.  We use 3-4 bales a day, of everything in total, so with just the passage of a few weeks you can see that some space will be created inside of the barn.  Still, if my information is correct, we have 860 bales(28 pallets of 30) coming that I will need to squeeze inside.  It's 2/3 the cost of the regular hay, so I talked the boss into getting a whole tractor trailer load.  Now, I have to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak, and find a way to fit 1250+ bales of hay in there.  My record thus far has been just about 800 bales, so I'm really going to have to work my magic to make all of this stuff fit.  Still, after 30 years in a feed mill, I'm quite confident that I can make it work.  And, while hand trucks, pallet jacks and forklifts are wonderful, another thing that I learned from my time in the feed business is that sometimes you just have to take one bag at a time and stack them all the way up to the ceiling. By hand.  But, that is weeks away, if not a month or more, so, in the meantime, I'll keep watching our inventory dwindle down each day while I try and figure out what I'm going to stack where and then, most importantly, how high it will need to go.  I must say, I really kind of enjoy the challenge of it all!

So, here goes another round of pictures from the ranch this week.  First up, three digital manipulations of some of my photos during the eclipse: first, the scene by the pergola where we watched if from; then, one that slightly shows the sun being cut into by the moon; and, a second that shows just a sliver of the same.  Then, another five shots from our viewing party: first, Willow and Erin with her glasses on; then, Zia hanging with us in the tree during the height of it; next, three shots of the strangely-colored sky, one showing the cats scurrying around everywhere, very much energized by the event.  Next, two birds that died from striking the windows this week near the bird feeders: first, a Pinyon Jay, or Blue Crow; then, a Sharp-Shinned Hawk.  Then, two shots of a really cool flower that I found: a Rocky Mountain Bee Plant.  And, last, but not least, a series of four shots showing the horses coming in to eat, after they heard me go by in the feed buggy.

Be good!