Before I left for Utah, we got a surprise hailstorm while working in the garden. My husband found it so humorous that I was out there fighting Mother Nature (in skinny jeans*, no less), he ran for the camera. At one point, though he missed the photo op, I umbrella-ed myself over the baby bok choi plants while my son ran for the plastic.

I covered the strawberries in the hopes of protecting all their lovely blossoms, but let the celery fend for itself.

What say ye? Totally crazy? Do you let nature take its course in the garden or do you try to help and assist?

* I’m reading Anna Hibiscus to Miss K. and it is so cute, I can’t even tell you. Set in Africa, the second chapter finds the family awaiting the return of Auntie Comfort who has been living in America. Anna’s granddaddy is worried Auntie will have forgotten all the traditional African ways and might even be wearing “tight-tight-jean.” Such a sweet book, highly recommend!

I’m down in Utah at my sister’s house. She just gave birth to a bouncing baby boy this morning at 8:11. He’s adorable and I’m busy snacking on his cheeks. I posted more photos at MandaGirl… go give her some congratulations!

* Oh spring. Two days ago it was in the 80s and we filled up the kiddie pool. We all got pink noses and shoulders working out in the garden. Yesterday and today we have 30 mph winds filling our eyes and ears with dust while we doggedly put in the watering system for the corn patch.

* I’m organizing a pile of notes on our homeschool curriculum and sorting out how to post kind of a how-to. I’ve been so reluctant to do so since the internet is filled with so many options already, but I keep getting asked so… I only have Preschool – 4th grade since that’s all we’ve done so far. But maybe y’all can pitch in with some of your ideas. I’ve got so many neighbors who are going to start homeschooling next year, it’s rather astounding. Gone are the days of the lone reeds choosing the weird path all alone. Cool beans.

* Toes in the grass photo up there was shot by the lovely Mr. B. who had a haircut yesterday and now looks like a grown up little man instead of the tiny baby 3 year old he should be.

* My dishwasher has sounded absolutely terrible off and on for months. It’s a high pitched grinding noise, yet still it cleans. I think it keeps functioning on our sheer willpower alone.

* I am FIGHTING with my new blog design. I thought it was ready the other day and put this space under maintenance mode, but ah. No. So… some things will still look funky until I can get the new theme to play nice.

* I’ve been going through my old Sideblog category archive and pinning all those fun links to Pinterest. This feels really important, but I know it isn’t. I can get a bit obsessive about organizing, heh.

* Waiting for my sister to pop! Wondering how it’ll all work out if she goes into labor when we’re at swim camp and whether or not I’ll be able to make it down in time. Her due date was Sunday the 20th, but she usually goes late.

* My children hardly ever talk back (I really don’t know how I managed that), but today Miss K. gave me a whole face full of snottiness when I asked her to take the couch cushions back downstairs. She’s currently in her room howling about what a rotten person I am. I have a bag full of goodies for her from Once Upon a Child (kind of like Kid to Kid) and now feel like I can’t give them to her until she quits being such a toady little smart mouth. Where has this come from? She’s usually such a sweetie.

* I’m going to battle the mini tornado and go out to the greenhouse to stake some of the tipping-over tomato plants and sort out what to do with the peppermint and celery that need repotting. Maybe when I come back in K. will magically be lovely again. Here’s hoping.

Have a lovely Wednesday! (What’s left of it… what happened to my early morning postings?)

The image was tiny, but really clear and in focus (I have a sticker over the side viewing window since we didn’t use it):

My husband decided to try making a longer pinhole viewer to get a larger image, even though we knew it would blur the image a little.

Definitely larger, but far less crisp. (Do you like his thumbnail injury? His drill slipped when he was working on the supports for the watering system in the garden boxes. Ow.)

Thankfully we’ve got a neighbor who is a major astronomy buff. He invited us (and the rest of the neighborhood) over to view the eclipse through his super cool telescope fitted out with a solar filter.

Talk about an awesome view! You could even see the sunspots! He had a camera adapter so we hooked my camera up to the lens. I couldn’t zoom out at all, so I couldn’t capture the whole image, but I still think these turned out great. In the telescope you could see the texture of the moon and watch it slowly creep across the sun.

This image was near the beginning (that sunspot is larger than the earth! Oh, and telescopes show upside down images):

At the peak of the eclipse:

And this one at the end while it was waning. This one I took without the adapter, with my camera lens still attached, just using manual focus to view through the regular eye piece. I love how you can see the clouds in the line of vision:

Our neighbor also rigged up this set up with a pair of binoculars, a pizza box, and two tripods. Way better image than the pinhole boxes; you could even see the sunspots this way.

He also had plenty of eclipse glasses for everyone to use, and these might have been my favorite things ever. Special glasses to look directly at the sun? Rad cakes! (You could use them safely for 3 minutes.)

Yay for astronomy!