Stared at the sun for 20 minutes through binoculars this afternoon… 
It wasn’t bad…skies were clear when it happened…just got a little darkened here…not dark dark…but enough that you noticed… I was watching the weather obs and the temp dropped 5F from 12:20 to 1:15…then went back up a few degrees after…not sure if all of that was attributed to that eclipse.
Total here, the clouds cooperated and saw an unbelievable umbra. I couldn’t get a good picture of it. The darkness turned on street lights, birds roosted, and bats came out. There’re were weird waves of light just before and after the umbra. I have a video of it but can’t post it. Here is a picture of near totality.
Well, I look at all the eclipse pics and vids with a sense of what could have been. We live in NE Kentucky, and our location was to see a 90% obscuration. Since we had never seen a total eclipse, I wanted to drive down to the KY/TN (Franklin,KY) border to catch it. Afterwards we were going to go to Reed Valley orchard on the way back home as they were celebrating the big day by staying open late (7:30) and only charging a $1 per pound on all their PYO apples, pears and blackberries. What a day we had planned.
We figured on wanting to be in place by 1:30 Eastern, so we’d see the pre-eclipse and the totality and leave by 3:00. It’s about a 250mi drive, so it’d take about 4 hours. So we left the house at about 8, and had to stop at a local store to get some gas, and hit the road. Half a mile out of the parking lot our check engine light on our '02 Jeep Liberty decided to come on and there was a noticeable hesitation. We had no choice but to go back home (4mi) and pull the codes.
We also have a 03 Honda Accord that runs fine, but the AC isn’t working, which on a 90°+ day forecast, and a 600mi round trip ahead of us in a car with black leather, was not an option. I might, and that’s a big might, have been able to handle it, but my wife isn’t as cold natured as I am, so there no way that was happening. In hindsight I was glad we didn’t try it.
By the time we got home, and the code pulled, it was close to 9, and our time was running tight. The code showed a bad throttle position sensor, which I don’t have a spare one of, plus I didn’t have a code reader to clear the codes. So, with steam issuing from my ears, I knew we couldn’t make the trip to Franklin, and a trip to the orchard was looking unlikely as well. She said she could go to town in the car, and get the sensor and a code reader along with some groceries. I told her to try to get back before the max part of the eclipse hit us, at 2:30. I stayed behind to work on the Jeep some more and watch some coverage of the eclipse. By then it was about 11.
She left, and at about 1:15, they were showing the totality from Oregon. I just sat there watching in both wonder and disgust as I wished we were in Franklin by now. Here the partial started about that time, so I watched the effects outside, and tracked it thru my binoculars turned backwards towards the sun and the image projecting onto the wood deck. At about 2:15, the light had an eerie twilight look to it, it was very odd to see. I watched my animals to see how they responded to it, and didn’t see anything unusual with them.
My wife got back home at about 2:25, about 7 minutes from the max eclipse. We watched it with the binoc projection. Also took some interesting pics, which I’ll post later. After watching a bit longer, I figured I needed to get the sensor swapped out to see if it’d work or not. It took me about half an hour to get the sensor changed, just two star headed screws to remove off the top of the throttle. I cleared the codes with the scanner and fired up the engine and voila, no check engine light. About 8 hours too late…
I took it around for a brief road test and came back, by then it was about 4:30, and I asked her if she still wanted to go the orchard, and she said she was up for it, and I was too, I didn’t want to see the whole day wasted. We had about a 2hr drive ahead of us, so had to hoof it. The Jeep ran fine all the way there and back.
We got to the orchard about 6:30, so we had an hour to get what we came for. She wanted a bunch of Maxine pears, Honeycrisp apples and blackberries. We split up, took separate wagons and headed out. She went to the berry patch and I’d hit the HC rows and Maxine row. A lot of the HC were on the ground, but there were quite a few still in the trees, so I picked about 10lb and then went over to get some pears, and picked about 12-15lb when she came by with her berries. They had been picked over pretty bad, and a lot of them were past peak, getting soft, and going to seed. She was only able to get about a lb and a half. I wanted to get some Jonagold and Sweet 16 apples, so I told her to take what we picked to the store and pay for them, while I got the other apples. I got about 6lb of both varieties, and got back to the store about 7:40. We paid up, I think we ended up with about 40lb of fruit! That included about 20lb of pears, and about 20lb of apples, mostly Honeycrisp. I wanted some Macs, and Pixie Crunch, but we just ran out of time. I’m glad we got to the pears and HC today, as they would’ve been gone by next week.
We left at 8, and stopped for supper, and got back home about 11! What a day, at least it wasn’t a total washout. Plus, I fixed the Jeep on my own and saved some $$ in the process.
OK, my eyes are bleary, it’s 1:30, and I still haven’t got a shower, the Mrs went to bed two hours ago, and I’m headed there soon.
Sorry for the saga, guess I’m still wired after such a long day. I’ll post some pics soon of the day’s events. Hope those who saw the totality enjoyed it. If we’re around in 7 years, there will be another total eclipse, just to the West of us, going up from Texas, northeast up into New England… So…
Yesterday we went to watch a total solar eclipse in Grand Island NE. The eclipse lasted there the maximum time of about 2 min. We started to drive around 6 a.m. and the whole drive was about 2 h. The roads were fine with some rain and the average speed was 75-80 miles/hour. Endless very flat cornfields along the road. In Grand Island we had breakfast and then drove around to look at the city. It was very clean and neat and I liked it very much. I think it is a nice small city to live in it. It is located on the shores of Platter river so it had plenty of greenery and many small lakes and ponds. Then we went to the Stuhr museum, which shows the life of the first homesteaders in the area. There were many cars, but everything was well organized and there was no problems with parking and traffic. We looked at the exhibits which were located at various places on the very large area of the museum. Old farmer’s equipment, old cars, horse carriages, railroad station, veterinary clinic, grain mill, blacksmith and tinsmith shops, dressmaker, shoemaker, postoffice, barbershop, etc. The people inside the shops were dressed in the old fashion clothes and represented different professions. Here are some pictures of the museum.
This is my son and our dog with the old tractor.
The other places.
There were many people for the solar eclipse but the place was not crowded because the area of the museum was large. The thing which amazed me was that even when the most of the sun was covered by moon the day was still bright. Only when the 90% of the sun was covered you’ll start to notice the changes in light and then all of the sudden its getting dark, but the sky is still blue.
I could not make a good picture of the sun during the eclipse but the view was awesome. Lots of good memories. The way back took us about 3.5 h. and it was not fun, the highways were quite crowded. People from many other locations went north. I can see many license plates from Iowa, Minnesota, Colorado and even a several from Arizona and California. We got back home very tired but happy.
Awesome once in a lifetime experienced!
Tony
I made sweet cherry jam. I used the rest of my Rainier and Bing cherries. It’s about 80% Rainier. I’m trying to get my freezer room back in case I go salmon fishing, or deer hunting. My Yorkie eats a deer a year. He loves it because he sees that it is our kill with it hanging from the tree and me butchering it.
Been there a few times. Grand Island is just a bit over an hrs drive for me. I agree with your interpretation of the eclipse. It is amazing the power even a small piece of the suns light has! We saw the cool “designs” the eclipse made through the tree leaves as well.
April 2024 …goes the other way next time (heads NE).
Eclipse was great yesterday and a heck of a storm blew through last night. @Olpea I hope you did not get the same pounding we did. You might have fruit on your trees. Tops were broke out of some of my pears. Could have done without the 60mph wind. I really can’t complain about the 8" of rain for my new pear trees. Only lost a couple dozen fruits and some tree tops so it’s a good trade! More please!
I tried to tell you that you’d love them! Its funny that my Chicago hardy figs have been in more than 2 weeks and you are so close. Maybe its because yours is a first year tree as I recall. Anyway, glad to see you got one and liked it as much as I thought you would. I still remember my first fig.
Yes. It is a first year tree and I’ve been in KC for last several weeks with business. Two others had rotted away and fell to the ground. I’m sure about two weeks ago they may have been perfect!! Oh well. At least I got one very sweet good one. Next year going to be great!!
Hi Clark.
It’s been extremely difficult to raise fruit in this weather this summer. I checked 3 buckets and we got 9.5" inches in the last few days. This of course is after the 4" we got the last go around (about a week ago I think). Then the 6" we got the week before that.
That’s pretty much the way it’s been this summer. I don’t know how much rain we’ve gotten in my locale, but it’s way way more than normal this summer. Our norm is about 4-5" for July and Aug. We get that every time it rains.
Even with Indar, the peaches want to rot and/or crack. Tomatoes are all cracked, and so much rain it’s killing the plants from Early Blight.
Our summer apples were pretty much non-existent. I don’t have that many apple trees, but the fruit mostly cracked and fell off. Same with the plums mostly.
I’ve started adding more pears here at the house. Picked a bushel of nice pears off an old Red Bartlett this morning. Except for Fireblight, nothing seems to bother them.
Glad your pears are doing so well! You have some nice looking ones.
There are the fruits I have been able to harvest recently. The pears are suppose to be New Century Asian pears, but don’t really look like the round pears that were in the picture when I bought the tree. I have eaten one, and it was tasty, a little bitter in the skin. I’m letting the others ripen a bit more and still have three in bags on the tree. The Elberta peaches were not great and had a lot of splitting in them. The splitting led to rot, but I was able to cut around that and the rest of the peach tasted good. I think I had five really good ones without any splits. The apples are Jonafrees that fell off the tree while i was away. They are not suppose to be ripe yet, so I’ll let them sit out too.
I work in Northeast Philadelphia and like to go for a walk during my lunch break. For those that don’t know, Philly has row homes, which are houses attached to other houses on both sides. These houses have a small front yard and you would be amazed at what people are able to grow in such a small area.
In my wandering, I have located several fruit trees. There is this one pear tree that looks very mature and is loaded with pears. It is obviously not cared for and the ground is littered with pears. Today I saw the owner sitting outside and asked if I could have a few pears. She said they did not taste good and I could help myself. I gleaned four pears from the tree and plan on going back to see if I can have some more.
Thanks Olpea I’m sorry to hear your having the same type of year I am. We are getting fruit so we can’t complain. We have great trees so we are very fortunate. I really wanted to Have my cake and eat it too!
@subdood_ky_z6b While it isn’t really fruit related, you can pick up a OBD-II → bluetooth auto code reader gadget for under $10 on ebay. You then need an app on your phone to read it. I have one and it is fine for reading/clearing codes on my VWs and Jeeps. If you want I can lookup which gadget it was that I got.
This last storm we only got about 1/2 inch of rain, we need rain here badly. It made for the best year I ever had fruit wise though. The fruit is so tasty this year too. Sorry to hear others having such problems.
No, not the freezer. That will destroy the texture and they will never ripen properly. Put them in the refrigerator, then let them sit on the counter.
