Harvest Moon

 A not quite full Harvest Moon, taken September 15, 2024 (95% full) from my backyard. So named because the bright moonlight would help farmers harvest their summer-grown crops. What caught my eye, and required me to grab my camera, was the way the moon and clouds were competing with each other for center stage!

Thanks for stopping by, and happy skywatching!

Linking with Skywatch Friday.

On This Day...

 I'm at a bit of a crossroads. This blog has always been about desert photography (well, mostly) and a place to document my hikes. I want to stay true to that purpose. However, I don't get out to the desert nearly as much as I used to, which means I either need to post less often, or post from the archives. Going forward, I will probably do a little of both. We will see...

I have a program on my laptop called Microsoft OneDrive. I was using it to back up my photos and other files to the cloud. In theory, it would keep me from losing any files in the event of a laptop meltdown. Unfortunately, OneDrive was an abysmal failure. It would take too long to go into details, but trust me, it's bad. About the only good thing I can say about OneDrive is it sends me a daily email titled "On This Day." If I click the link, it shows me all the photos I've taken over the years on that day. Pretty cool! I have many thousands of photos on my hard drive, so it's always fun to review photos taken over the years. Today's post is just a couple favorites from September 12 (give or take a day or two). 
 

"Get out of the way, Grandpa!!" Lilly was 5 when I took this photo. Before long, she'll be driving for real!😟

 

Out by Stirrup Tank in Joshua Tree National Park, and one of the most dynamic skies I've seen. There were curtains of rain on the horizon, all lit up in yellow from the setting sun.
 

A little later in the afternoon on the same day at Stirrup Tank, the curtain of rain had moved a little east and was losing its yellow color and picking up some pink color. I was so lucky to have the silhouette up on the rock to give perspective to the photo. A very memorable afternoon!
 

I'm curious what people are using (if anything) to back up files? I no longer subscribe to OneDrive, so just doing it the old fashioned way (backing up to an external drive when I can remember to do it). The weak link in this approach is me remembering to do it!

 

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Cholla Milky Way

 So it turns out I'm still alive. We DID survive the dreaded jumping cholla and scorching temperatures while stumbling around in the dark trying to photograph the Milky Way. I did have to pull out a few barbed cholla harpoons during the course of the evening, but I guess that's to be expected. It's really a small price to pay in exchange for the opportunity to be out in the desert under the sparkle of Milky Way stars!

In my "Milky Way a month" attempt, this is my August entry. I had my doubts about using cholla cactus as a foreground subject for the Milky Way, but pretty happy with the way this one came out. I just finished up a trip to the desert for the September Milky Way, and will post that soon. Not sure about October yet. At some point, the Galactic Center will drop below the horizon and MW season will be officially over. It's been a fun challenge, and I'm looking forward to sharing all my 2024 Milky Way photos in a single post.
 

Thanks for stopping by!!

Linking with Skywatch Friday.

Cholla Cactus Garden

 Cholla are probably the most bad-ass cactus in Joshua Tree National Park. The cholla species found at the Cholla Cactus Garden is Cylindropuntia bigelovii, also called teddybear cholla or jumping cholla, and it's particularly nasty. And so that you don't sound like a tourist, you should know the Ls are silent. Jumping cholla is the perfect name (teddybear cholla not so much): You can be walking along minding your own business and somehow these cholla mange to jump and stick to you! The spines are needle sharp and barbed at the end. They hurt like heck going in, and they hurt even more coming out. It's hard and painful to pull them out of your skin because of the back-angled barbs.

These nasty needle balls litter the ground around the cholla plants and are what jump on you when you're not looking. This one literally jumped on to the side of my shoe. Lucky I had some plyers with me, anticipating that these little buggers were going to give me trouble. I managed to pull the ball off my shoe (with difficulty), but a bunch of spines were left behind with their little harpoons sticking into my shoe. After about 10-15 minutes I was able to pull out most (but not all) of the barbs.

 

This poor guy seems to have come in contact with a cholla. Kind of looks like a golf bag on the left. It would have been very bad judgement to go after a golf ball under a cholla bush! Not my photo, and not sure who to give credit to, but it's a good photo to illustrate the consequences of bumping into a cholla, and good luck pulling out all the barbed spines!!

 

Photo credit: Katiewanders.com

 

So when Mitch suggested the Cholla Cactus Garden as a location for our next nighttime Milky Way photo shoot, I had serious doubts. I had visions of the guy in the photo. Even with a head lamp, I figured we would end up being human pin cushions! 

 

The Cholla Cactus Garden is an amazing place. In most parts of the park, they grow as solitary plants or sometimes in small clumps. Here they are like a thick forest, so dense in some areas that it's impossible to walk through them, and you'd be stupid to try. It's a wonderful location for sunrise photography, but sunsets aren't too bad either.

 

Some cholla grow 8-10' in height.

 

 

Cholla Garden sunset.

 

Mitch, trying to stay cool, contemplating the cholla, and waiting for the Milky Way.

 

A pretty sky over the Cholla Cactus Garden.

 

Now we have time to kill while we wait for the sky to get dark and the Milky Way to rise.

Join me next week to see if we get jumped by the cholla and survive the dreaded cholla spines, while trying to get a photo of the Milky Way!

 

Linking with Skywatch Friday.