You Learn Something New Every Day

Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, yesterday's mediocre photo of a rainbow/icebow has become a decent photo of a sun dog!

A sun dog, or parhelion, is an atmospheric phenomenon of an ice crystal halo around the sun.  Way cool!  Many thanks to IanH, who lives way up North in Alberta, Canada, (click here) for setting me straight.  And thanks to CountryDreaming and Dreaming.

Now I wish I had looked at the big picture of the sky, instead of just looking toward the barn.  But hey, it was -18F and I was c-c-c-cold.  I wonder if the halo was more complete, like this photo on the Internet -

I'm a little embarrassed.  My father was a meteorologist, so you'd think I'd know about sun dogs.  And my brother Joe writes an astronomy blog for the Deseret News (click here).  Here's my favorite photo of  Joe -

He was out in the Utah desert with his telescope and laptop.  The photo was taken by his friend.

The Sun'll Come Out...Tomorrow

It was -18 degrees F when we got up to feed this morning.  It seemed strange to see a rainbow.

It was supposed to get up to 0, but I'm pretty sure we're not going to make it.  It's 1pm and we've warmed up to -8.  The winds are blowing at 35mph.  Needless to say, the horses are stall-bound today.  It's +20F in the barn, which is the coldest it's ever been in there.  Delicate Paj has a sheet and two blankets on.  Zan, Boomer and Reggie each have two blankets on.  We are feeding extra rations and hand-walking inside the barn.  The sun will come out tomorrow.  It's supposed to get up to +8F.  Thursday we will be above freezing.  It'll feel like the tropics.