No Looking
The songs of night insects were the biggest change during the eclipse of August 2017. For a good ten minutes of so the crickets sung and the birds went quiet. We were way too far North to see anything but a partial cover of the suns surface viewed through a dirty welding helmet but close enough to affect the most primal of the farmys inhabitants.
Just so you know that was a welding helmet being modeled by Alissa my farm hand. 
The clouds literally parted only minutes before the eclipse began, giving us a wonderful view through the trees. Though without the helmet there was very little to see.
Alissa said I should clean the welding helmet then maybe I could see better but I quite liked the grubby effect. It made for much more interesting photos. The internet is flooded with perfect renditions of an eclipse- I am quite happy with my more abstract images of loose light.
It did not go dark here of course – we were too far North but the light did fade down an F stop and weirdly at the zentith of the partial eclipse, that we witnessed sitting in our work clothes on the front lawn, it went eerily still and quiet and the chickens began to sing their preparing for night song.
The breeze dropped and the trees were still and I found myself also drifting into a dream like zone or maybe it was the funky quality of the air in the welding helmet. 
The cats and dogs and cows and pigs were deeply underwhelmed. 
Being under the helmet certainly was a different world.
But soon the light began to rise again and I looked around realising that I had not finished cleaning the calf’s night pen and then thinking I had better hang the washing on the line before it started to grow in the washing basket and what were we going to have for dinner. 
Then working invisibly the moon fingers cast off those threaded moorings and I had drifted away and gone back to work.
I hope you have a lovely day.
Love celi
Weather: Still raining. The night before last the house was hit twice by lightening and it fried the internet box. So we were without internet for the whole day until the nice man from Maxwire brought us new equipment.
Tuesday 08/22 60% / 0.11 in Partly to mostly cloudy skies with scattered thunderstorms in the morning. High 77F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%.
c
40 Comments on “No Looking”
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You saw more than I did in BG….we saw it on TV but its not very exciting when you are not actually there. Is that Marmalade cat I spy in the last pic sitting on top of the roof…..
Sent: Tuesday, August 22, 2017 at 2:27 PM
We noticed too in our part of Canada the crickets started singing. The temperature dropped a few degrees too. Couldn’t find my husbands welding glasses so we made a pinhole camera. Looks like we saw about as much as you did.
Take care!
This is one time I wish that there was a “love” button on WordPress.
Yes!
I love the welding mask images, it’s filtered view made that eclipse story real for me.
Thank you.
Happy to go to sleep now.
Such neat pictures! Thanks for sharing as we didn’t see anything where I live!
We had a 75% coverage in Texas. It did dim, the temperature was wonderfully comfortable. What I noticed was a pressure headache growing then fading with the coverage. Must be all that ‘snot’ that I have in my head right now. 😉 During the summer I tend to walk around with a tissue hanging out each nostril as my drip is more like a faucet. (Okay TMI….)
We had the same amount of coverage ‘way up here in Ontario as you did down there in Texas Pat; and no, it wasn’t just your imagination about the pressure headache thing; )
We had cloud cover up here as well, but, strangers shared their nifty, fifty sun spotter glasses and there it was, the eclipse.
laugh .. here I was sitting in SA at 7pm watching perfect pictures being relayed by NASA televised by SKY news (UK) of a total eclipse in the USA! All well and good but lacking the atmospherics. I was wondering how you were all experiencing it. Your abstract images of loose light are wonderful, and the most original posted today 🙂 Laura
I was fortunate enough to see totality. And it was spectacular! Awe-inspiring. Words and photos don’t do it justice. It was worth getting up at 4 to drive to a spot an hour south of town and find a spot to hang out. I love your photos!
We were super fortunate to be out on a friend’s pontoon boat on the lake with other friends and got to see 93% coverage! What a fabulous experience!
Just love the pic of the ‘cat on a hot truck roof’!!! xo
I like the filtered pictures of the eclipse. We had heavy cloud cover over Winnipeg. I did notice an increase in swallows hunting flying insects, so maybe the mosquitos thought it was dusk. It was a relief when the mood lightened with the passing of the eclipse. Have a sunshine day.
It’s a good job the animals didn’t march to the barn and go to sleep 😉
Hadn’t seen so many of our students out on the lawn looking at a star since Pres. Obama visited our campus! It was only 80% here in Pittsburgh, but it was very exciting to experience through our “eclipse shades”.
Nothing but fog here in Santa Cruz.
We were to have a 70% eclipse here in Toronto, and the skies were clear… but I didn’t have viewing glasses so I didn’t look up. I was out though and it appeared to be a non-event among pedestrians in the city here. I was surprised and thought I’d see everyone viewing it… not so, at least where I was. Your photos are wonderful. Hope you have a lovely day too. ~ Mame 🙂
Excellent photos! We had a slight partial here.
Celi you expressed that so beautifully with words.
where we live the sun was only a mere fingernail….a fragment of itself. Not dark, just a bit shadowy and colder. Interesting.
Of course I only got a shadowing here in southern Ontario but the air felt different. I’ve read of animal reactions in the past. Almost spooky.
Yes, it felt ‘heavy’ didn’t it, Chris? Uncomfortable somehow…
I didn’t notice the animals, but the sky did go sort of weird in my area of Canada.
We watched the coverage of the eclipse on TV and Internet. Did you know Ce we can expect an eclipse in Dunedin in 2028 according to those who know.
Really!? That would be cool – and so far away! c
Love the green/ yellow helmet pics!
Great images! I was in Cornwall, South West England when we had our eclipse here about 15 years ago and it was an amazing and eerie experience. Complete darkness, cold, everything went quiet…quite incredible and very memorable.
I know you don’t visit me often, and I don’t mind a bit – but you might get a giggle at my Irish version of the eclipse yesterday 😎
Coming over right this minute, my lovely. I may not go out often but i always come when called!!
What a delightful description, with delightful imperfect pictures! That quiet is so interesting.
The only totality we got was total darkness – the middle of the night Down Under! Nothing to see here, folks, move along… But I did enjoy the TV coverage of thousands wearing their eclipse specs and gazing at the sky. It was like a scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind 🙂
Oh, thru’ the ‘magic’ of modern media our news broadcasts here in Australia sure dwelled quite lengthily on the eclipse right across the States: we must have seen it developing and undeveloping a good half-dozen times. Thank God the Powers-that-are did not stay as long on a certain ‘speech’ given in the same area . . . .
I simply LOVE this… Then working invisibly the moon fingers cast off those threaded moorings and I had drifted away and gone back to work.
It didn’t get dark here either right in the path of totality. Unless you were wearing the glasses, you wouldn’t know the moon passed in front of the sun other than it got a bit hazy and felt a bit eerie. I used the special glasses but watched it just a little. My son used a welding helmet too. 🙂 It was probably as clean as yours. 🙂
It seemed like pretty close to darkness here just west and south of St.Louis., but it was a thick darkening, like looking through extra strong sunglasses, which made it harder to focus your eyes on plants and trees in the yard– they seemed more like sculpture than living forms (maybe an event like this affects the brain more than eyesight?), and it came and went so fast–not at all like the way evening descends and dawn arrives almost unnoticeaby. Up and down the block neighbors were sitting on porches or standing quite still. Nobody talked. No cars drove by. No dogs barked. A slowed down dream. Only the cicadas starting and stopping in strange irregular half-hearted fashion. As I recall, I even stopped thinking, and I didn’t have to work at it, or or chant om. Later My Dear reminded me that the Cahokia mounds across the river maybe got their start from days like this, although the solstices no doubt were the influential in their regular occurrences. Those mounds in Illinois, and the park that preserves and explains them (as far as it is possible), can provide similar intense experiences if you visit at dawn, especially solstice days.
Wow – this is tremendous – you have explained that weird still disconnected feeling so well – wonderful comment – thank you Albert
I didn’t have the recommended eclipse glasses. We tried the paper plates trick: a pin hole in one held well above the other, which was placed on the ground, showed the whole thing, though in miniature. But now that I think of it, I wish I had an old welding helmit, so I could walk stiffly down the street staring straight ahead. I know at least one neighbor who would have reported an alien sighting.
You are a wild thing Our Albert!
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Lovely Image… Greetings from a new blogger from Philippines
HUllo Jac from the Philippines – thank you so much for the greetings! Greetings to you too
I traveled solo to Nebraska to help family that week… and watched the eclipse on the center line of the path for 2 minutes and 29 seconds. I still get goosebumps thinking about the experience! I have got to find time to write about that week… in segments. GAH!! But the work I came back to….