This evening Larry picked an overflowing basket of peppers--lilac, chocolate, green and banana peppers to be precise. I needed to cut them up for freezing; I wanted to visit my son who lives about 20 minutes away. Between his traveling schedule and my recent craziness we haven't seen much of each other since July 4th. But there was this basket of peppers demanding attention.
So we packed up peppers, knives, freezer bags and a cutting board and went visiting. Not quite the usual activity for a visit, but you know we got those peppers chopped up and packed up in an hour. Doing it alone would have taken me three hours! Even better, we got to visit while we chopped.
When the peppers were done Ben, who is eight, came running in to tell us that there was a LOT of lightning outside. Of course we had to go see. Ben was right--the lightning was stunning. A huge thunderhead about 20 miles away was sending streaks of lightning into the air and the cloud itself was lighting up from within with pink and yellow lights. It was like a fireworks show. We pulled up chairs and ooohed and aaahed at each successive burst of light. It was eerie because there was no thunder, only gorgeous light displays. We wondered about the people where the storm is hitting; it has to be pretty bad, I think, because the cloud did not seem to be moving and we watched for over an hour. The lightning was still flashing even when we got home. That is one big storm.
As we reluctantly picked up our chairs to head back to the house, a large, glowing meteor streaked across the sky. This encore light show lasted long enough for me to say, "Oh my gosh, look at that! It's amazing! It's a meteor!" So maybe five seconds or more? It was the biggest meteor I think I've ever seen and its tail was visible for a long way behind it.
And that reminded me that the Perseid meteor showers peak tonight! so if it's clear where you are, get outside and find a good place to view the sky. It's a moonless night so far and here on the ridge the Milky Way is stark in the sky; there are thousands of stars visible, a truly perfect night for stargazing. I'm tempted to get back out there myself.
Best showtimes are around 3:00 am. See you then?
Well as usual I'm here too late to catch the meteor shower. Oh well.
ReplyDeleteI think sitting around visiting with something to do seems to make the visit so much sweeter.
Your evening sounds like a match to ours. I picked a bunch of peppers but didn't get them all cut up. We also headed outdoors to the swing last night to watch the lightning. It wasn't anywhere near here but the cloud was lighting up just as you described.
ReplyDeleteJust before we headed in we saw a shooting star and oohhed and aahed about it with the kids.
I forgot about the meteor shower. I'm gonna have to go back out tonight to see what we can see.
There were a few more tonight, Jessica, although not as many as last night. Granddaughters and I were up on the hill for an hour watching for them.
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