It’s 26 degrees (F) here, as we speak; the sky is impenetrably dull; the fields are a white carpet, Great Cove is a pewter platter, and motes of very fine snow have been drifting by every now and then, perhaps as scouts for an invasion. But, enough of today’s gray; we want to talk about yesterday, which provided a winter contrast.
Yesterday was sunny and relatively warm, with air so clear that this early-rising moon moved slowly in the blue sky like a cosmic beach ball, which the spruce trees seemed to try to catch:
That moon rose at 1:40 p.m. here yesterday and the images above were taken at about 3:30 p.m. Technically, it was a waxing gibbous moon that will continue to wax and become full to us on Friday, January 10. That is, this moon’s illuminated part is getting larger and larger (or waxing, from the Old English for growing). The increasing size of its illuminated part also has gotten to the point where it is more than half the moon, but not yet the full moon (gibbous, from the Latin for hump and hump-backed). (Brooklin, Maine)