At peak magnitude, seek out the goddess of love planet in a clear blue sky in the west-southwest during daylight hours, being extremely careful to keep eyes diverted from the sun.
The first porcupine in a string of winter squatters and the first to enter right beside the doorstep to my home, this entitled individual even tread onto and then sidled sideways off the edge of the lowest steppingstone to my front door to reach the crawlspace.
The shortest days, longest nights of the year continue from this first day of winter in the northern hemisphere. Only seconds are gained until the end of December.
In the garden, when a melon harvest was complete at the end of August and potatoes dug in early September, the bare ground was sown to cover crops of peas and oats.
"The Voyager 1 spacecraft took 35 years to leave the sun’s magnetic influence. It’s traveling one million miles each day. At that speed, it will take 300 years to reach the inner layer of the Oort Cloud. Then, it will take 30,000 years to get through it all. It’s that thick! This is where some comets come from."
While concerned about the swallowtails, I am heartened by a few Monarch butterflies sailing over the landscape and am reminded to look for a chrysalis where I recently observed a monarch caterpillar.
The Perseid Meteor Shower, the most anticipated and prolific meteor event of the year, is predicted to peak the night of August 11 into dawn August 12.