clocks tick as the strawberry moon emerges...

what time is it where you live? check out this nifty little real-time clock! click on it, choose among the clock styles, pick the time zone where you are, and in a few short steps, you can display one on your web page, too (for free!):

night has fallen, and the solstice sky is clear this evening, so i remembered to look up, and admire what bathtubmary called an "astoundingly gorgeous" full moon in her entry today. well, BTM isn't imagining things when she says that this particular lunar cycle stands out, and let me explain why (no, the reason isn't based on my own subjective opinion!): i'll share some astronomy trivia w/ y'all:

is it nighttime, and are the skies clear where you live? if so, look out and up at the sky for a minute. ok? ok, good. if so, did the moon look amazing? june's full moon is called the "strawberry moon", according to the farmer's almanac. in the almanac, every month's full moon has a name, thanks to native american tribes in the northern & eastern US. it just so happens that the algonquin tribe christened the early summer (june) full moon as the strawberry moon b/c it corresponded to the strawberry harvesting season. europeans coined it the "rose moon". (but ha, i prefer strawberry moon)!

so now that you know all that, why is the strawberry moon so phenomenally fabulous? well that's b/c of it's position in the sky. what distinguishes june's full moon each year is that it hangs lower in the sky in the northern hemisphere than any other month's full moon. that makes it look bigger, closer, and more vivid. {and for you science geeks: what i'm sayin' is that the current full moon is at a mere 25-degree angle above the horizon...oh, and for anyone in the southern hemisphere: well, er, i don't know what's goin' on down there. sorry}.

in other news, i survived--and actually enjoyed--last night's lake swim session! it went pretty well, esp. for a novice like myself. great coach, too! (update to come soon). signing off for now...