An astronomy highlight tonight. I bagged a crescent moon that was younger than twenty four hours old.
I don't understand quite yet how it is that the spring and fall are best for catching this event, but I do know that many seasoned veterans of the game are challenged to add this to their lists. If the whole thing wasn't so unexpectedly spectacular I don't think I'd be so quick to admit to not having to try too hard.
It was like looking at an eclipse. I was surprised to find it a bowl where it's leading brilliant edge was facing directly at the sun that had just set. Weeks ago I had danced my way through the RASC handbook and taken all the numbers that would account for my latitude and longitude to come up with reasonably accurate time for the setting sun and then the setting moon.
Our local time is CDT and -6 of UT. Sunset was at 2:09 UT I believe. The moon would be set at 21:33 UT. After the hour it too me to believe I'd proofed the math and instructions out sufficiently I thought that there must be an online calculator to do this stuff. Surprises of surprises, I'd just wasted an hour of my life again. I say that in jest. I still like to work my brain now and again, especially with numbers. My numbers looked good against theirs so it was doubly good for me.
It was a day of wood hauling and splitting. Manon and Kyle helped pull limbs away and clean up the broken bits from three trees I felled yesterday. I hauled the stove lengths out to the pile and they joined me until it was done.
The day was grey but bright, +5 with a breezy +20km wind north west. Even still, once I got up to speed with the axe I was down to a short sleeved tee shirt, jeans, work gloves and toque rolled up twice. It was more like a beenie by that time, but a warm one for my bald pate.
The air was incredibly fresh. The only down side is that there is a lot of mold showing as the snow retreats and Manon and I are suffering from the interference. Fortunately we both had enough energy to make a day of our efforts and the pile grows. I've never done the whole job before. Felling, limbing, cleaning up and stacking the refuse, bucking up the logs, hauling it to a pile and then biting in to spilt the big stuff with wedges, and axes for the smaller stuff. I love my axe. It was a
Lee Valley purchase early on. My customer number is a point of pride for me on a good day. (#132) On a bad day I see a lot of useless stuff in there. But when you want a real wood tool with no shortcuts in manufacturing and generations of evolution into it's design so it's honed in use and sharpness to a razors edge, that is my beacon of quality is Lee Valley Tools.
It's an
Iltis Oxhead Splitting Axe - 31" and it has split a lot of wood in it's time. I've also never had a regret about coughing up the coins for it.
I have a
spiral wedge, an eight pound sledge hammer and a BFS limbing axe all in good shape with secure handles so everyone got into the act. All the ugly huge butt ends of the biggest of the trees got broken down today. What a great feeling to know those aren't waiting for me. Kyle was a real sport about it, but he still wears his emotional armour around us no matter how many laughs are going on.
I'm doing a lot of administration on the MHS site now. You might say I'm doing everything. It takes time, but we're getting there. I think I have some educated types that can write well without too much blood letting that are going to help create some new contend. I've a couple of young kids that are keener's that will be fun to have on board too. Hopefully we can do it all on line. I do not need more meetings. One tomorrow for runners, and then again on Wednesday with that same crew. We're going to see "Spirit of the Marathon." Big surprise? Not.
