Today was just a terrific day from start to finish. Kay and I drove to Gig Harbor to meet Ken and Rachel at Schmel Homestead Park to have a picnic breakfast and watch the eclipse. Kay and I brought vegan coffee cake, and Ken and Rachel brought fresh berries. Ken also brought toys and ideas on ways to experience the eclipse. He had figured out how to use his spotting scope to focus in the sun onto a notebook to show the sun without looking at it.

This worked great during the eclipse when it got near fully covered by the moon, but at other times it simply started to incinerate whatever it was focused on. A 9 year old at the park had fun burning the moon-shaped eclipse onto a 2×4. Ken also brought metal colanders as a way to see the sun focused on a paper.


It was cool too, but we had more fun pretending to be fending off aliens with the colanders on our heads. We sat, told stories, ate, chatted with a young father and his son, eating, and watching the eclipse happen.

After this I brought Kay home, and while she went to dinner with friends I went to Brett’s house after picking up some lumber at Home Depot, and put up the high trim on the side of the house that needs a gutter, started to find level spots for the shed, and then had dinner and watched the M’s with a beer at the Top of Tacoma bar in his neighborhood.
On the way home I birded 56th St. Stormwater, the Black phoebe is still there,

Levy Pond, and the Freeman Rd Mitigation where the adult Pectoral Sandpiper remains with 16 WESA.

Home just in time to watch the bottom of the 9th inning of the M’s win as Diaz got the save without too much drama.