Night sights

This week we were arriving home at about 9:00 pm, it was fully dark at that time, and we found these two scenes right in our backyard.

The first is the view of a full moon, in the eastern sky, taken from our parking lot facing east.

The second is from the same spot, pivoting 180 degrees, facing west, across Troupe Road where there was night time burning of the trees and brush being cleared for the so-called Events Center.

And speaking of a full moon and other celestial matters, all here is in full speed ahead mode for the solar eclipse which will be seen here next Monday from 2:15-4:15 pm . If you google the eclipse's path you will see that Erie is right in the middle of it. 

Schools are closing, as are some businesses, hotels are booked solid and, the best one I've heard so far, the medical community has a boat that will travel from Presque Isle State Park, across the bay directly to UPMC Hamot Hospital for serious medical needs. Although there will be a first aid type station on the peninsula, they figure they would never be able to get an ambulance off the expected crowded peninsula in a timely fashion...so they will bring any person in serious need right across the water, as Hamot is located right on the Bay.

March-Women's History Art Show

The annual Art Show for Women's History Month is up. It is just lovely as usual. Congrats and thanks to Peggy P. and Jo C. for their work on making Chapter 57 and this show just beautiful.

Here are a few pieces.

March 15th memories

Very fond memories last Friday on the anniversary of the deaths of two quite special women/community members. One was Benedicta Riepp herself, the young German woman who led the first group of Benedictine women to the USA in the 1850s. She only lived 10 years in the "new world." Her gravesite is well worth visiting---it's at St. Benedict Monastery in St. Joseph, Minnesota, about 60 or so miles west of Minneapolis.

The other is Mary David Callahan, musician extraordinaire, whose songs and hymns are with us daily in the form of the opening hymn or the Benedictus or the Magnificat every day. She died on March 15,  2005.

Here she is caught at rehearsal with one of her many choirs.

The Appalachian Effect

Once again the Appalachian Mountains, that follow the diagonal from SW to NE through Pennsylvania, have put us out of the path of a storm. On your phone's weather channel radar, these storm paths seem to start in the SW USA or near the Gulf of Mexico and travel as a long green "slash" to the Northeast. So many of them lately have come up the east coast, hitting all those major cities along the Atlantic, but sparing all of us on the other side of the "slash"...or Appalachian Mountains. 

Admittedly some of the towns in central PA get more of these storms' effects either as rain or more than 3" of snow! State College, home of Penn State, is a shining example.

For the storm that was all over the news this weekend...here is a photo of our predicted 1-3" of snow---instead, bringing spring rain (albeit a bit cold) to our first primroses. 

Our unusual world

This weekend I sent in my February snow report to the NWS in Cleveland. The total for the month that I recorded was 0.8" And this is in an area where the average February snow is 20". A second anomaly this week was the emergence of flowers on our Lenten Rose plant in the backyard.

Also last week we set an all time high for one day: 68 degrees. Tomorow it is forecast to reach 63! So, as you can tell from these events, we are having very unusual late winter days.

Through all of this Lent continues on, with its rather serious nature. But I will admit that the readings and songs lose some of their somber meaning when the sun is brightly gleaming and we can venture outside with only a jacket--distracted by the 6" high daffodil shoots everywhere.

However, even amidst this "strange" Lenten weather we have much to pray for during this time: way too many civil wars in our world and enough pain and suffering of its own closer to home, as well. Let us pray for peace--tolerance--and mutal care and compassion among all peoples--beginning with ourselves.