Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Solar Flares


It's snowing here today, but this is something to make everyone think warm thoughts...solar flares. I had never heard of these but apparently they are happening often...explosions of magnetic energy from the solar atmosphere. We went to the planetarium recently and saw some images such as these of the sun. Really never thought much about what the sun looks like on its surface or within (that's right, they showed us inside the sun too.) This will make you think with a different point of view. I appreciate the simple joy of feeling warmth from the sun, now I understand more of where this comes from. This is also what makes it possible to see the northern lights if you are in the northern parts of the world to view this colorful light show of nature. If you want to learn more, you can view the sun with NASA at http://sdo.gfsc.nasa.gov or read about space weather at http://www.spaceweather.com. There are more great images at http://www.space.com.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Thankful Thursday

So many things to be thankful for today...thinking of a warm home in this freezing weather. You wonder how anything can survive in these conditions, but still it's wonderful to see the beauty in nature all around us.

Something that makes me smile on such days as today...a poem by my daughter based on the poem "Trees" by Joyce Kilmer

I think I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

When I go outside,
I hope you don't mind,
for when I see a tree,
please, let me be.

Then I climb to the top,
so far up I can't hear the horse's clip-clop.

Then, sadly, when I have to come down,
I fall quickly with a bound
on something round.


Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Winter Blues on Saturday


Winter blues are pretty common right around this time of year, and I look forward to days like this one, when winter blues takes on new meanings. Always good to see things from a new point of view. This photo is what I saw when I opened my door today...the neighbor's dog already came by for a visit and you can see his tracks didn't sink down very far for a big dog. This is new snow that fell this morning, underneath is mostly ice packed snow, and it's different to be able to walk on top of the snow. I couldn't get a photo of what it looked like when we had the blizzard this week, the snow was all the way up on the door so I couldn't even open the door. Taking a walk around the park today, enjoying the simple joys of these winter blue skies and winter fun, makes the snow sparkle and my heart sing.