🏔 Nature

With Tropical Storm Ophelia off the southeast coast, the clouds were working their way up this way. As usual, that brought us a spectacular sunset with a range of colors in the clouds.

Saw a bright fireball for the second time in my life last night. This time I heard it too.

This morning we went out to breakfast. On the way we saw the awesome sunrise.

This morning we had a great sky at sunrise.

It was nice to relax on the train on the way home from the Phillies game. I was half zoning out. I was treated to colorful skies from the sun setting.

We were out on the Conewago Trail this afternoon, finally finding a few caches. A few butterflies were flying around. A tiger swallowtail landed on a tree directly in front of us and sat there with open wings.

This morning, I noticed that we were having a nice sunrise. They’ve been a bit bland lately, or I missed them, but I got a nice treat this morning.

Today was the first full day of summer. Here in Lancaster County, it was a cool and damp one.

I was relaxing and watching the Phillies game after supper. While watching it, I noticed the glow coming from the front door. As always, I had to go check it out and was treated to a nice, bright sunset.

We were finally able to grab a few caches after running to a couple of stores today. We went over to Overlook park for a nice walk in the sun and warm day.

I was out in the garage watching Molly do her squats. We heard a very loud robin calling. I looked up and saw that it was perched on top of the umbrella pole on the table less than ten feet from the door.

I walked over to the bridge to see what I was hearing down on the train tracks. They’ve been doing some construction. While over there, I noticed some honey suckles blooming and hanging over the edge of the road at the bridge.

I went out on the patio for a bit to get some sunshine this afternoon. I watched a robin hop around in the backyard for a bit. Just before I came in, I noticed bright yellow flowers on weeds.

Yesterday I noticed several red buds on our rose bush with numerous green ones. Sure enough this morning the first bud has opened.

We had to run someplace this afternoon. When we parked, I noticed that the pink and white flowers over by the railroad track were blooming.

We were at Joy’s later and for longer than usual. While saying goodbye to our company I noticed this cloud was back lit by the setting sun.

We had nice looking thunderstorm off to our west this afternoon. The line eventually made it into Mount Joy but it took a while.

It’s not a secret that we had a poor winter here that was virtually snow free. Today I noticed that Pollen had sort of drifted on the patio table from the wind yesterday.

We walked past the corner where the flowers come up in the spring when we walked over to Harvey’s BBQ for a late lunch/ early supper. We noticed that the daffodils are in full bloom at that corner.

The past week or so, I’ve been noticing that the trees are beginning to flower. Today they caught my attention across the street where I could get a good picture of them.

This morning, when the sun came up, I noticed the vacant lot was full of purple flowers blooming. It had been slowly greening up, but really greened up after the past several days’ rain.

I sat on the couch this morning and noticed a pinkish purple glow coming in the window. Turns out, we had a very bright and colorful sunrise.

I was in the kitchen, grabbing my last cup of coffee, and noticed the strong yellow glow coming in. It was more the clouds glowing bright yellow than the horizon.

I happened to turn around and see the bright orange glow out the bathroom window. I grabbed my phone and went outside to check it out. I just caught the tail end of it.

From long before sunrise this morning, there was orange low to the horizon. As sunrise approached, that got brighter, so I had to grab a photo of it.

We had an outstanding bright orange sunrise here this morning. For a brief period at least, everything was glowing orange.

We had an awesome sunrise here this morning. The clouds were just to have lots of vivid colors.

We had a nice sunrise on this Christmas morning. It’s helped me with the holiday funk.

We had bright clouds this morning in a mostly clear sky. It was a great way to start the day off after yesterday was so dark and dreary.

Recent days have been dark, cloudy, rainy, and dreary. This morning it was a little drier with some breaks in the clouds. That allowed for a nice and colorful sky as the sun was rising and shining between the clouds.

After a cloudy, rainy and dreary day, the sun came out through the broken clouds just before sunset. I walked past the window and saw that the neighbor’s tree was lit up from the sun.

We had a nice and really red sunrise this morning. I just happened to catch it walking past the East-facing kitchen window when I was getting more coffee this morning.

This autumn, the leaves around Mount joy are seemingly more colorful than usual. They are much more vivid than I have seen them in this area since I’ve lived here.

We got out for a walk this evening. It was nice to enjoy the weather and we were outside just in time for today’s great sunset..

The hurricane moved back out over the Atlantic after wrecking Florida. The moisture and clouds from it are working their way in here today. We got one of those outstanding Hurricane sunsets out of it.

We had a nice fall sunrise this morning.

Today we had to go to Lancaster to get a hose to water the garden. We ran into a short delay when a flock of geese decided to waddle across Harrisburg Pike right in front of us.

This morning we had a line of thunderstorms approaching from an MCS last night. The timing was right that the tops were out ahead in time for sunrise. It gave us a pretty bright pink sunrise.

We were leaving a ball field close to sunset today and some cool iridescent clouds caught my eyes. I don’t notice them nearly as much in the summer as the winter, so it was nice to see them.

I have been noticing tons of the common white butterflies around the past week or two. Today was the first time that I had my phone on me to grab a picture of them.

We have our first rose of the year blooming on the rose bush. I smelled it when I was outside so I had to get a picture to share it.

We were walking home from Joy’s this evening and noticed the white tree that had been planted on Main Street is blooming. It’s a neat tree that’s different from the others along the streets.

We were finally able to get out for a nice walk this evening. There’s just been too much going on. We saw some dogwoods blooming at Memorial Park.

There are a bunch of various types of bulbs that someone planted in the vacant lot across the street. They’re in full bloom now. I noticed them this morning.

We got out for a nice walk this evening after supper. The trees are blooming, and some bulbs are starting to flower.

Today I noticed or at least took the time to go get a picture of some of the trees that are blooming. This year they’re not going all at once, but instead they’ve been more one at a time.

This evening I noticed a pretty nice sunset for a change. Those are harder to see here in the winter because of the neighbors’ houses mostly blocking it.

I looked out the back door to see if it was snowing yet. I was reminded of Nan and Pop telling me when they saw robins when I saw four of them hopping around the tree stump.

This morning we had a nice sunrise but it was more about the clouds glowing pink off to the north instead of the horizon.

This morning we had another good sunrise. It was a bright and colorful one with the clouds off to the east and overhead.

This morning it was very clear outside. Not even a single cloud formed before sunrise and it made for a less colorful but very nice and clear sunrise.

The sunrise this morning that I caught was cloudier than the recent ones but still was a nice colorful one and a great way to start off the day.

Another great sunrise this morning. At least I thought so.

It’s another cold morning with the temperature in the lower teens but I had to go outside and grab a picture of the awesome sunrise.

One single cloud first appeared in front of the sun giving that awesome winter irreverence effect that you see at times when the clouds are ice crystals

As I was getting another cup of coffee this morning I noticed one of those super deep red sunrises out the window. As always I had to stop and look at it a for a couple of minutes.

As long as we’ve lived here, there have has been no shortage of squirrels around the neighborhood. It’s funny to see them sitting in odd places sometimes, or even normal places, such as on the tree stump.

We have been hearing bald eagle in the evenings. We heard it again this morning. All we saw was this large bird on the railroad pole. Couldn’t ell if it’s Juvenile eagle or hawk because of the way it was perched.

I didn’t work out today. I was too busy watching the tree guys do their thing. That sort of thing is always very intriguing for me to watch.

We have been seeing many cicada killers flying around and also lots of them lying around dead. I don’t remember seeing them like this before.

Our milkweed hasn’t been doing all that well this summer, so it hasn’t attracted many butterflies. Today was the first that we actually saw one there. I moved it from the scrawny milkweed plant to a larger one.

We had a pretty good thunderstorm here this evening. On top of that, there was a nice double rainbow this evening as the storm moved off to the east.

Today, I spotted the first monarch butterfly that I am one hundred percent positive that I saw.

There are lots of mushrooms growing out of the neighbor’s lawn this summer. They’re large white ones with flat tops.

Just for shits, I stuck some of the milkweed plants I started from seeds in pots that we had lying around the other year. They’ve come back up in those pots since. This spring they seem to be doing really well in the pots.

I was getting read to head out to the garage when I heard what sounded like weak gunshots. At first, I didn’t notice it when I looked out the window, but later I saw that a large branch had split and fell from our tree.

It was a nice day today, unlike yesterday was. I got an older WOD done. After supper, we went for a walk and saw some flowers.

It’s always nice to see wildlife on our patio. First I saw a robin hopping around. Shortly after the robin flew off, I saw a squirrel out there.

Life is too short to not enjoy a sunset. When we were out for our evening walk we arrived at the train station where it’s fairly open just in time to see the sunset and the moon rise at the same time.

This morning I heard a dove and it sounded lout. I looked out the door and it was in the hanging plant right at the door.

I noticed a bird was flying back and forth between the tree and our dormant milkweed plant. It was pecking at and pulling fibers from the dead milkweed and flying off with them.

Today I did the run version of Monday’s WOD. I did pretty well with the running and I hate running. Later we got out for a nice short little hike and a few caches.

It’s starting to look like spring now that I noticed the first flowers of the spring blooming. It was some yellow bulbs near Main street.

I was grabbing another cup of coffee when I saw an awesome red sunrise.

I love seeing sunrises and today’s was the deepest red one that I can remember seeing. I noticed it when I walked into the kitchen.

We’ve been meaning to get back to the Conewago falls area when the river was low. We finally made it there today.

I haven’t seen many monarch butterflies around our house this year. Other years I saw them most of the day.

We finally made it to Conewago pothols when the river was low enough to see them. We spent some tikme enjoying the nice weather out there.

We spotted a monarch butterfly hanging out near our rose bush today.

I saw the first monarch butterfly of 2020, or at least the first one that I am positive that I saw. I thought I saw one out of the corner of my eyes before, but today I was certain.

This evening, I happened to catch the moon near sunset glowing brightly above some clouds that were glowing bright from the setting sun.

Our rose bush is still blooming. It’s still getting some clusters of flowers.

I’ve been smelling honeysuckles for a few days now but never could find them. Today I noticed the white and yellow flowers in the vacant lot at the railroad tracks so I went to check them out. Of course I ate some while I was over there. Reminded me a lot of when I was a kid and they grew right out front.

I noticed some more flowers were blooming across the street in the vacant lot. Of course I had to go check them out. While I was over there several white butterflies were flying Across.

Our rose bush has it’s first rose of the year.

We’ve been having a chipmunk that runs across our patio. I hadn’t noticed it lately so I thought one of the numerous feral cats got it but I saw it run across in front of the door while watching Molly do her WOD.

We had to go to Giant today and when we got there there was a duck standing in the driving isle. It was looking around for a bit then decided to lay right there. It didn’t want to move.

I haven’t figured out what they are but every spring in the vacant lot next to the railroad tracks there are tons of purple flowers.

Our original milkweed was supposed to be pink but it turned out to be white. The monarchs still loved it. We saw pink milkweed last summer and bought some to plant. That was late in the season so we weren’t sure if it’d grow bt it is sprouting now.

Our bleeding hearts came up and are in full bloom. They really turned out nice.

More of the flowers at the corner are blooming now. The daffodils are flowering and some other bulbs.

I have posted before about the flowers at the corner blooming but with the negativity in the world I have to share pictures. Now its more of the tulips blooming.

We decided to try bleeding hearts in our front yard last year, since they are perennials. They came back up and are starting to bloom now.

I noticed more of the bulbs at the corner blooming so I had to go get pictures. I want to continue with my posts with positive stuff. Spring and flowers both fit that.

Who would have though that a picture of fog forming along the ground like you’d read about in those old school sci-fi books I used to read would foreshadow reality. Not really but with everything being shut down it sure seemed like the end of the world might seem.

The trees are blooming now and it’s only March 30th! I do enjoy seeing the street trees blooming.

We went to a nearby park to see if we could see the great horned owl that’s nested there with a baby.

This winter has been full of awesome sunrises. We have had lots of colorful ones and it’s great to see.

We’ve been out on the NW River trail working on stages for a geocache hide in the evenings. We were out a little later this evening and got to enjoy the nice dusk settling in.

Every fall I think of how since I moved to Mount Joy, the leaves are not nearly as vivid as they were where I grew up. I’ve always been curious why that is, too.

We went to do a few geocaches today, and it turned out to be a strange day. We saw strange insects and upon our googling we found out that they were spotted lantern flies.

It was a decent day so we when geocaching out on the Northwest River Trail. While we were out there we so tones of butterflies.

Recently I have been thinking that I’d like to return to wind cave in Pequea. That was so cool to explore the cave and see what’s changed.

We have been wanting to plant milkweed for a couple of years now. We finally found some and planted it in our front yard. Last spring, we actually had monarch butterflies and caterpillars on it.

There’s been a monarch chrysalis hanging on my chair on the porch for a while. We’ve been keeping a close watch on it. Today it cleared up, and we actually got the opportunity to watch the butterfly drop out of it.

We searched and searched for butterfly weed last year but wound up only finding swamp milkweed. It came back up this year. We don’t have any monarchs yet but a bumble bee found it and has been hanging out on it all day.

We were out at the shopping center where they’re putting Whole foods in Lancaster today and saw a bunch of ducklings walking along the building.

Last fall I gathered a bunch of milkweed seeds from the pods on our plants. I thought it was worth a try to try to grow some. It took forever for them to sprout but they eventually did after I had given up.

I came across some old pictures of Swatara falls recently. That was one of my favorite geocaches of all time because it brought us to the falls.

We have a bunch of phallus like mushrooms growing out of the old mulch around our flowers.

Today was really cool since we had the solar eclipse. It wasn’t total here but it was really cool to watch things darken. The last time was when I was elementary school. I really noticed the wind pick up and the temperature drop when the sun slid behind the moon.

Today was a first for me. I’ve seen the cicada shells all over from them molting but today we saw one on a tree actually in the process of molting.

When I was a kid I had a venus fly trap and thought it was to coolest thing. I was thinking about it and found and bought one again. I’ve been wanting to get one for years now.

We were on vacation at Cape May and decided to walk to the end of the beach to see the sunset. We ended up being there at the right time, with it right near the Cape May Point Lighthouse.

Over the past several days, I have been hearing an odd banning sound. We finally discovered the source today when Molly saw a bird repeatedly attacking our windows.

It was great that my girlfriend had off work today. With the weather being so nice we went to the nearby trail for a walk and to collect some sunshine.

We’ve had some some flower plants come up that we didn’t plant. We let the grow because why not? Now they aRe blooming

We got over to Chickies Rock Park for a geocache today. Sadly, the cache was a DNF for us, butt we did get to see some pretty spring flowers in bloom.

We got to play in the woods for my girlfriend’s day off.

I looked in the backyard and saw robins pecking in the snow. It reminded me a lot of Nan and Pop, who were always thrilled to see them in the spring.

We got out on the recently refinished NW river trail for a nice walk and some caches. We heard a train coming, like you hear so often along those tracks, but this time we were at a break in the trees at just the right spot to get a picture of it approaching.

We decided to go over to Cove Park for a quick cache. We saw a woolly bear caterpillar on the trail. It got me thinking how my grandparents used to think that their colors predicted the winter.

I am making more posts from our trip to the mountains as I come across some pictures. We had a great thunderstorm and I got this frame from a video of lightning over the mountain.

Last night, a meteor came down in Canada and lit up the night sky as it burned up.

It’s not something that happens too often but an earthquake occurred in Illinois this morning. Of course my first thought was whether it was on the New Madrid Fault but apparently it was not.

Last weekend we visited Bushkill falls for the first time. It was a dreary day at first but got nicer as the day went on. It was awesome to explore the falls!

I just saw some exciting news from NASA. The Cassini probe out near Saturn detected organic molecules and water when it flew through a geyser. from Enceladus.

Space never ceases to amaze me. A gamma ray burst was detected from a start explosion. It became the farthest away object visible with the naked eye.

We went to a geocaching event at Blue Marsh today. It was really interesting getting information about how search and rescue works. Of course we went caching after the fascinating presentation about SAR.

Today was the summer solstice. The sun is moving south now. Soon the sun will set in the arctic, and it’ll be snow time!

Last night they were talking about gypsy moths on the news. That reminded me of them eating everything green up the mountains when I was a kid. The summer looked like winter because off of the plants were bare and leafless.

Last Saturday we went geocaching along the Conestoga trail near Pequea. It was my first time seeing Suzies hole, and it was a great view.

We hid a geocache and Chickies Rock Overlook a few days ago. We went out to see if anyone was out searching for it and ran into iBrew. We then headed to the overlook for the sunset.

My girlfriend had been wanting to use her camera, and I remembered reading about the snow geese at Middle Creek. It was really cool to see them when we headed over to check it out.

We decided to go check out the ice on the Susquehanna River today since it’s been so cold. It’s always wild to see all the ice on the river when you’re used to seeing the water moving.

It’s been below freezing for a few days with the arctic air. We usually like to go check out the river ice if we get the chaNce.

We recently went geocaching in a new place to us called Kelly’s run. It’s one of the gorges along the Susquehanna river in southern Lancaster County.