Eclipse

This morning, we woke up at 3:45 am. Not to travel to a show, or help a sheep birthing or any one of the other things that usually pulls us out of bed at that hour. We got up to watch the most incredible total eclipse of the moon!

I dragged my big wooden rocking chair out into the clearing by the power pole and settled in to watch. It was cool enough that I was wearing (and needed!) a sweat shirt and long pants. Shawn stood off to the side for a while, then he pulled a bucket over to sit on. The view was stunning.

Now, I couldn't find the tripod for my camera, so posting pictures is really silly, because they all look like this, but here's one anyway. This is after the total coverage and the moon is coming out of the earth's shadow.

It started with the moon crystal clear and brilliant bright. The night was clear, the frogs and bugs were signing and I could hear all the sheep and goats peacefully chewing their cud.

The edge of the earth's shadow drifted like a mist over the top of the moon. Then it took a solid bite out of the top. As the shadow drifted down, the moon's light became redder and redder. The moon grew darker and the stars began to sparkle with full intensity. Orion's belt showed a strip through the pine trees behind us.

As we sat, we talked quietly of hopes, dreams, fears and a few funny puns. After about 15 minutes the goats drifted over to see what we were doing outside at night. Bea rested her head on my knee and Erie claimed my other hand. Yampa stood next to Shawn and accepted his attention. Beth stood close, but doesn't rank high enough in the flock to claim space. When the angoras came up and sniffed my foot Erie BAWLED loudly at them and made it clear that the humans belonged to the dairy goats.

Shawn went back to bed after the moon began to come out of the earth's shadow and the light started returning to white. The goats returned to their night nests in the dirt at the base of the trees and I stayed a wee bit longer, just watching the moon, listening to the night's concert and basking in the utter beauty of it all.