A Christmas walk on a quiet night

We're nearly to Christmas, and I realize that I have not blogged all through December! It has been a very busy month for me. That's not to say that I've been going too many places, since I haven't. But preparing for Christmas and learning some new things has kept me busy as usual. 

I do have some photos to share from a night time trip to my local village. This is the same village you saw in my Halloween blog post with the jack-o-lantern display. Now you'll get to see it dressed up for Christmas. 

I definitely did not have to worry about a crowd during my walk! In fact, the scenery was bordering on eerie for me. I'm one of those people who doesn't mind wandering alone outdoors one bit and enjoys the quietness of night, but there were a few moments for me on this outing that were a bit spooky!

These carolers are usually part of the spookiness, because in the past they've been uplit by green lights. I guess they were alright this time. 

I thought this scene was pretty. The festive party lights looked neat with the Christmas decorations. You can see a bit of that Santa statue from behind. He's just taking in the view.

The Village Hall:

Remember that Norman Rockwell sculpture? It looks like someone found him a holiday hat.

You might remember that shop with the kites and yard spinners. They had some cute ones out for Christmas. I just now noticed the lantern with the pinecone on top! There are a lot of details going on this one.

I really liked the candy cane effect someone made by wrapping these pillars in what I assume is red tape.

More of those fun string lights! I'm looking at this photo and feeling like there should be some sort of party happening under those lights, but I was very much alone. It was a festive atmosphere, anyway.

I peeked into some of the closed shops to check out their displays. 

I remember this collection being donated or at least temporarily loaned by someone in town. I recognize this Christmas village from when it was displayed in the Village Hall. I wonder if they ran out of room for it. I think you're seeing it in the Historical Society here.

This is some collection, hey?

You guys will probably remember this gazebo. The last time you saw it, there were rows of lit up jack-o-lanterns on bleachers in front of it.

Well, this time there was a whole "forest" of cut trees lining the walkway to the gazebo. They were for sale, although there was no one there to sell them. I was surprised to find myself completely alone in a fairly unlit area.

As I walked the path to the gazebo, I found myself looking left to right checking if anyone was hiding between the trees. They totally could have been and that would have given me a scare! A wicked little part of my brain even thought for a second about how easy it would be to step between the trees and scare the heck out of the next person who walked that path. But even if I had wanted to waste my night freezing my butt off and waiting for some poor person to walk by, well... it would have been a long wait. No one was there. 

Looking up:

Once I made it to the gazebo, I stood there feeling quite peaceful. It really was serene in that quiet winter way. Eventually, I had to turn around and walk that tree-lined path again. 

I even considered for a moment that a raccoon or squirrel could be hiding between those trees. That would be bad enough. It might sound funny, but during these boring times I actually enjoyed feeling mildly spooked (Especially since nothing came of it). Isn't that the best kind of thrill? When there's some small sense of adventure without any real consequences. ;)

Before heading home, I took one last pic of the gazebo's weathervane. I'm not sure how much I ever noticed it, but I thought it looked good half-lit at night. The lighting probably made me notice it. That shadowy tree added something too.

Well, I wish you all a Merry Christmas! I haven't been online much to see how everyone is doing, but I hope you are all doing well. Maybe you've even done something more exciting than walking around in the dark of winter hoping a raccoon doesn't jump out at you! 

A Full Snow Moon that is living up to its name

Tonight's full moon is called The Full Snow Moon. That seems like a pretty appropriate name, especially with the view I have out the window. We had a hardy snowfall today. It's beautiful out there, but we have the kind of night sky that generally goes with snow. It's kind of fuzzy and milky so I don't see the moon now.

I did take a photo of the moon last night, and I actually think it qualified as full at that time. From what I've been reading, the full moon rose last night and reached its full peak tonight.

I've been learning a lot about the stages of the moon lately, in part from this web site:

MoonSign.Today

I think all of you would enjoy at least casually browsing through this site. I especially like the Moon Calendar which shows you the percentage of the moon that is showing.

For those who are into astrology, you will also notice that there is an indication for which sign the moon is in for several days. I've been reading some books about Moon Signs lately and have been interested in the information about the signs the moon transitions through. The books I've been reading describe how you could expect different emotional reactions from yourself and others, depending on which sign the moon is in. This got me thinking about how it might be good to have a head's up about that sort of information, and that led me to this Moon Sign site.

My spooky tree shot. It looks like the moon is in a basket.

I have another recommendation for astrology buffs. It's a book titled The Moon in Your Life: Being a Lunar Type in a Solar World, by Donna Cunningham. I like Donna Cunningham. She's one of those writers where you feel like a friend is talking to you while you're reading her words. Her work is really accessible. Even if you don't know much about what she's writing about, she'll easily clue you in in a friendly way.

Another web site I really like for moon information is the Farmer's Almanac site. Actually, I like the Farmer's Almanac in general. I keep running into information about planting in relation to moon cycles, and I plan to keep that in mind in the future. Anyway, here is a specific page the Farmer's Almanac put up about tonight's moon:

Full Moon for February 2020

I got a kick out of the art there. It's like the moon is some kind of ice cream treat. :) It says here that tonight's moon is called The Snow Moon because February is typically the month where the most snow falls in the United States. That seems right to me.

Have any of you gone outside to see the moon over the past few nights? If you're like me, you got cold and quickly hopped back inside after taking a look. :)

You've met Krampus and Belsnickel, now meet...

One of the Perchten!

Last weekend, my mom and I went to German Fest in Milwaukee. We had a lot of fun. There were many sights to see, but one thing stood out as prime blog material!

This figure is one of the Perchten. His fur is blowing in the wind. A little girl who seemed strangely unafraid walked up and started petting the fur.

So here's the full Perchten standing in front of his creator's work area. I took one of the sculptor's business cards, so I could give you guys his information and a link to his online gallery of work: Bryan T. Berenson, Master Sculptor

www.btbsculptor.com

Check out his "gallery" link to see some of the awesome masks he has carved.

The artist at work:

So, who are the Perchten? Well, this brief article with some information was sitting near the figure. So I took a photo of it. There was no way I was going to remember this creature's name if I didn't take a pic of it!

The "Perchtenlauf" is the procession the Perchten walk in. There is a folk custom in the Tyrol region of Central Europe called Perchtenlaufen. (If you follow that link, you'll read some wild stuff.)

The Perchten appear in December to banish away winter and any evil spirits hanging around at that time. These creatures look almost scary enough to intimidate an entire season. The Perchten are the entourage of Perchta.

Perchta is a goddess in German folklore. She can look pretty (this gif is the image that came to my mind) or really creepy and craggy. I'm not going to get into too much here, but she's worth reading about. You can read a little about how the Perchten are connected to her in the "related beings" section:

Perchta's Wikipedia Page

It's worth visiting that page, if only to see the picture of another Perchten mask. That's one of the scariest yet!

These parading Perchten are similar to some other German creatures that come out in groups, wearing bells and carrying sticks, clubs, or in this picture, some kind of wooden farm tool. Hairy, menacing creatures.

So, of course I wanted to see a modern celebration of people in these costumes. There were plenty of videos to choose from on YouTube. I managed to find one without blinky strobe lights and flames or intense Metal music. This video shows a parade with many kids in the audience. The Perchten here are shaking hands or posing for photos. That's different from the other videos I watched where they were more or less attacking or chasing people. This is the tamest I could find:

There are also what appear to be interviews with the mask makers/sellers in this video. I don't know, it's all in German. I couldn't help noticing that some of the masks in the beginning of this video very strongly resemble the head witch in that 1990 movie The Witches. Do you remember that one? Angelica Houston is in it. And that movie has a strong German vibe. Just listen to Angelica here. So... someone was influenced character design-wise. Here's a clip of what I'm talking about (warning: big time spoilers and ickiness)

It's funny, how in so many of the comments under this movie clip people are saying how they were "traumatized" by watching The Witches, and yet I just watched a bunch of little kids at that Perchtenlauf event acting totally calm. And they were face to face with these things! I think culture plays a role here...

Speaking of witches, we saw one at German Fest. This was more of the Kitchen Witch variety! It was funny walking behind this witch, watching even the grumpiest of faces start smiling when they looked at her.

I'd been spotted!

The witch then (grossly enough) starting twanging this booger looking thing on a spring next to her nose. This was probably a photo op she was trying to provide for me, but I was too busy laughing to take a picture.

It turns out this witch was quite masculine, complete with a full mustache. I saw him later in the day sitting at a bar with his mask off. 😁

The rocks have teeth!

On first glance these icicles look like sharp teeth, and on second glance this looks like a large alligator's head.

If you click on the photo and make it larger, you'll even see his little eye peering over at you.

Today was a cold day as you can guess from the icicles in that photo, and being by the lake made it feel even colder. All that chilly air was blowing off Lake Michigan. At least it was a pretty day.

Cool clouds, hey? I didn't doctor the color of that sky; it really was that intense blue. You can still see a tiny bit of snow on the sand. Not surprisingly, this was not a busy day at the beach. Funny, how no one wants to lounge around on the beach in 20° weather. This is pretty much the only creature who didn't mind the cold (as far as I could tell).

I don't think I've seen a light brown, speckled seagull before.

I had to think about the "Polar Bear Plunge" that happens in Lake Michigan every New Year's Day. That's when brave souls run into this very area of the lake. I wasn't even comfortable in a winter coat today!

Brrr.... That just looks cold.

Walking along this beach today, I couldn't help thinking of The Fog. Those of you who've seen the movie might remember the part where the little boy is walking along the beach and finds a piece of wood. The wood is from an old ship wreak.

I ended up having to take some photos of my computer screen as the movie played to get these two pics. Funny enough, no one bothered to put stills of this part of the movie online.

Well, what should I happen to see while walking along the beach today?

Ooh spooky... You know what else is spooky? That dark piece of rotten wood next to it that looks like some old leg bone. No, I didn't take the piece of wood home so I could get haunted like that kid in the movie. Well, actually it's his mom who gets haunted.

As I said above, I was playing the movie online. I actually found The Fog in its entirety on YouTube. The catch is it's in Italian. You won't need to know Italian to understand what's going on in these parts, though. If you skip to the 23:54 mark, you'll see where the kid discovers the old piece of wood on the beach. And if you skip to the 43:05 mark, you'll see what happens when his mom brings it to work.

Now you see why The Fog crossed my mind as I looked at that piece of wood on the beach!

Tomorrow's Snow Moon Eclipse and Comet

Get ready for a lot of action in the skies tomorrow night! In the past few days, the moon has already been looking dramatic.

I took this photo three days ago. It's in what I like to call the "cat's eye phase" Can't you imagine this as a cat's eye, if it had a pupil?

After taking this photo, I wondered how close we were to a full moon. So I looked online to see when the next full moon is. Well, it's this Friday and not only will there be a full moon, but there will also be an eclipse and a comet!

I learned that forecast from The Farmer's Almanac web site. Here's a link to the article I read:

Farmer's Almanac ~ Full moon, Eclipse, and a Comet

It's worth reading! I also learned from that article, that tomorrow's moon is called "The Full Snow Moon" because usually the heaviest snows fall in February.

I went out around 5:00 pm this evening to get some photos of the nearly full moon in that subtle, almost translucent stage. You know, when the moon is starting to appear on one side of the sky and the sun is setting on the other.

About a half hour later, things looked different. I don't think I've ever captured the moon quite like this. It looks like the sun out at night.

And then a little darker:

Of course I plan on going out tomorrow night to look for the moon, try and catch the eclipse, and maybe even see that comet. Hopefully the sky will be clear. It's been so incredibly cold here and clear skies seem to accompany those low temps. As far as the eclipse goes, I hear it's going to be subtle. So maybe I'll look for a slight shadow. I don't really know if it will be possible to see the comet or how close it will be.

According to several sources, we should look for the eclipse more or less between 5:32 and 9:55 pm, EST. You're most likely to see a peak change around 7:43 pm. That sounds a lot more doable than the 3 am Saturday morning time we can expect to see the comet. Maybe it could swing by a little early so I could catch a look? They say this is the closest a comet has come to earth since 1983!

Let me know if any of you see any of this tomorrow night! I'll update this blog post with any photos I get of tomorrow's action.

*UPDATE*

OK, It's now Friday, February 10th. The lunar eclipse has finished. I went outside off and on tonight during the eclipse. The sky was very hazy tonight, but it eventually cleared up. Maybe it was hazy or less bright because the moon was shadowed.

This picture was taken at 6:00 my time (central). The moon looks bluish, doesn't it? And you can see that it wasn't crystal clear. I was lucky to have it peek out of the clouds for me, because it soon disappeared.

This one is from the peak time of the eclipse (6:43 for me). This is seriously the clearest I could get it to look. This fuzziness isn't from me wavering around or something. It actually looked like this!

Then a little after 8:00, I went out to see this unusual, diagonal cloud crossing the moon:

I've never seen anything like this, have you? It looks like a tree branch, but I assure you it's not. It seems skinny for a cloud. By around 8:30 it was gone. 

I went out at that point to see a really spooky sky. The moon was more clearly visible and there was a bright halo directly around it. Surrounding that was a light cloudy ring and a rusty colored ring.

I went out once more, when the eclipse was scheduled to end. That was near 9:00 my time. What I saw was so spooky, I couldn't help using the fisheye lens:

Look at that almost rainbow halo effect. I wonder what caused that? You can see it even more in this one:

Tonight was bitterly cold. The wind was whipping around me and  I could hear dogs howling in several directions. I kid you not! That added something.

I'd really like to know what you guys saw out there tonight! Was the sky hazy where you are? Did you see any rusty rings around the moon or did it show up as blue? I didn't see anything too shadowy in the sky, aside from that one diagonal line across the moon, but the eclipse was supposed to be a subtle one. What I did see was a surprising amount of change in the sky over a two hour period. That was an interesting experiment, checking back to see how things had changed. Who would think that the sky would look so dramatically different every half hour or so?

I also want to hear from you night owls who are up around the time that comet shoots by!