We were not in the totality of the eclipse yesterday but we did make the most of the 93% experience in our neck of the woods. It was last minute chaos-as-usual, not for lack of preparation. My party food ingredients, purchased on Friday, were consumed in bits and pieces throughout the weekend. After shopping I had spent the weekend looking up serial numbers on the backs of our glasses and determining how many seconds of direct exposure were required for irreversible retina damage, how permanent retina damage presents itself, and devising various ways for affixing said glasses onto my kids' heads. I am nothing if not spontaneously fun lol.
Monday morning I sent the boys to replace the party food they had eaten that was missing. The three youngest worked on their pinhole viewers. That whole thing was pretty darned fascinating. If you still have yours lying around, or you are into photography, you might want to check out this link for more information about the camera obscura.
teaser from the article…
Here is Dad explaining how to embed the paper glasses onto your face so your mother doesn't freak out.
….as much
Here is what 93% shadows look like….
That part was amazing to me. The next image shows about what it looked like around us at its peak. Mostly the sky dimmed considerably and the shadows deepened. Our temperature dropped and the crickets began to sing. Birds started to fuss about the trees.
When it began to pass we celebrated with our eclipse lunch. Corny I know. But hey, learning should be a blast right? I am a sucker for a great theme.
That right there is my baby girl whose computer and phone and icloud all crashed or deleted just before the eclipse (unrelated, just bad timing) and who lost a great deal of data and personal memories. This is her who, having wiped her tears, said, "Mom I'm really, really upset but let's not ruin the party. We will go look at it after." These are the moon pie esclipses she made for the littles. THAT is more self control and goodwill than I am usually capable of in the midst of heartache.
(follow up is today after many tears and prayers she was able to recover most though not all of her data. Heading to the Genius Bar tomorrow. Say a prayer, y'all.)
In usual form, we reserved these books which look promising and will be read retrospectively:
How was your eclipse day? Did you read any fabulous books or do projects you'd recommend? Do let us know! We will be exploring for a while yet.
Starry Sky Journal 