Ha-ha-ha! Wanna give God a giggle? Make some plans! I really wanted to have a good half of my posts centered on Naval Air. It was a big part of my life and I've got a metrick butt-ton (MBT) of sea stories*, some of which are even true, more or less. For example, "This is no $#!+. I was, 'working' the roof on Midway (CV-41) BITD, and I found myself, no $#!+, strapping my mom into a jet."
Peg "Fishstick" Evertson in the mighty War Buckeye, ready to taxi to the cat on USS Midway, circa 2012.
And furthermore, over at Sarge's Place, Juvat has a great tale of bleed air and sims. Which reminds me. "This is no $#!+, I spent a little time in the right seat of the Intruder, and I plan to share the details of that good fortune (and a picture of the scar it left) someday, but not today, because I'm short on time. Anyway, we were launching out of Oceana in a gaggle, heading for Roosevelt Roads and an Orange Air Det. Our jet was heavy with gas, a full internal bag and 8,000 lbs on the wings. As we waddled down the runway, there was a bang as we neared 100 knots, followed by a master caution for bleed air. Followed by PC1 and PC2 bleeding out. Followed by a fire light. Then the other fire light." I'll flesh that one out in the near (more of less) future. As Juvat noted in his post, the BOLD FACE for bleed air is rather sparse. Basically GTFO.** Spoiler alert! I'm still here. But I digress. Spring and fencing. I kicked the yearlings over to spring grass yesterday. These are calves born last spring, which I've kept over the winter rather than sell. The plan is to put some "free" pounds on them by grazing over the summer, then sell them in the fall for a huge profit. Will that scheme work? I'll get back to ya in the fall.
Young cattle are a joy, but they come with an attitude. This one's always sticking his tongue out at me. Click to embiggen and get the full juvenile effect.
There's always one...
Sigh.
They seem to like their new home. Especially the tender green springtime grass. Down at the bottom of the gully behind them is the place where a truck came to grief over the winter. Did I mention that I-80 runs right smack through the middle of this pasture?
Picked the wrong place to run off the road. LOOK AT MY FENCE!!!
All better. Don't get me started on NDOR and insurance companies.
The fence wrecked by the truck is fixed, but the rest of the eight miles of perimeter fence on this pasture needed attention. We live in a dynamic world. Frost heave, wind, tumbleweeds, sunshine and rain, snow drifts, antelope and deer, cattle (?), oxidation, time. Every spring it takes a bit of fixin' to make it right. And the fixin' takes time. Which I've been managing poorly, at least as far as the blog is concerned. I do get a few pictures, though, so it's not all a loss. And I'm working on the time management thing. Random pics from yesterday.
Sigh squared. Thank goodness for recyclers.
Oh that's a pretty spring picture! Better in person.
Kimball, 1 Mile. Dump your firetrucking cans there, please.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I've had more than enough coffee so I really oughta be fixin' fence. Cheers!
*A fairy tale begins "once upon a time," but a sea story begins "this is no $#!+." ** Get The Firetruck Out. Can be taken two ways, and often is.
The last week or so has been a perfect storm of nice weather, lots of work, and a bit of viral illness. Which is the excuse I'm using for thoughtlessly abandoning this place to its own devices. Which are apparently few, because the blog has published nothing on it's own. Bad blog! Lazy blog! Another thing that happened over the last week or so is that spring arrived. Click on the pictures for a larger image.
Cows gobble greening grass on late winter (spring, really) pasture Tuesday morning, March 10.
Of course it’s not really spring just yet. By the calendar and by the heavens, the Vernal Equinox is still a week away. But it’s close. And out in the real world, nature has put winter behind her and embarked on spring. You can tell. There'll be more cold and snow. That's a given. But it's now spring and there's no looking back.
What the cattle were doing a year ago on March 10, 2014.
Spring is a rebirth, of course, the time when nature wakes from her long winter slumber. The days get longer, the sun climbs higher in the sky, the air and soil warm and the green of photosynthesis begins to add color to the drab, monochromatic landscape. The wind loses it’s bite, ground squirrels come out, insects begin to buzz and crawl, birds begin to nest, and calves begin to dot the pastures.
The best springtime conditions are idyllic. Spring has another face, of course. Howling north winds driving heavy snow and smashing the nascent rebirth to a standstill for a few hours or a few days.
When I begin looking for spring I’m looking for the idyllic variety, of course.
We had a nice warm period in January and February, and while it was enjoyable, it wasn’t spring. A cold snap ended that abruptly. On March 4 the temperature was about 1 degree and the ice was eight inches thick on the stock tanks.
Thick stock tank ice on March 4. Eight inches? Who are you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?
I broke my ice axe that morning. I also sent a video of the wintery scene-- including thick tank ice and a broken axe, to my friend in Herefordshire, England.
Broken ice choppin' axe.
I met Elwyn and Julie last July when they visited our ranch during their vacation trip to the states.
Elwyn and Julie on the EJE last July.
We really hit it off. There are a lot of differences between England and the U.S. and between Herefordshire and Nebraska, but production agriculture is a universal language, and when we’d each puzzled through each other’s strange accent, we’d found that our lives, experiences, and practices are often quite similar.
In responding to my icy video, Elwyn said, “I wish you’d give me warning before you show me cold pictures like that! It’s 12 degrees (celsius, 54 Fahrenheit) over here, I’ve thrown my coat off and am getting the fertiliser spreader out. Spring has arrived two weeks early!”
Elwyn and Julie are “mixed” farmers from near the tiny village of Dilwyn. They raise cattle and sheep and grow hay, small grains, and apples. Their son Jack has recently “finished university” and joined the family operation. A daughter, Beth, is still in school.
We keep in touch via a smartphone application called “WhatsApp.” To an old guy like me, it’s pretty amazing to be able to chat and share videos and pictures in near-real time from 4,500 miles distance. Herefordshire is not only distant in space, it’s seven (six with the recent time change) hours ahead of us.
Elwyn and Julie are fourth generation farmers, working the same land that Elwyn’s great-grandfather farmed. In many ways their operation is similar to a diversified operation here in Nebraska. In other ways it’s very different. For instance, they have a 100 cow herd and a flock of 275 ewes. They raise hay silage and corn for feed. But in England corn actually means small grains, wheat and barley for the most part. What we call corn they call maize.
Astonishingly, they do all of this on about 150 acres!
Another big difference is that they “house” their livestock throughout the winter, keeping them in large barns. This puzzled me at first, because the winters in Herefordshire are mild compared to Nebraska.
A frosty winter morn in Herefordshire, seen from Elwyn and Julie's back porch.
It gets cold there of course, but the temperature seldom drops below 20 degrees.
Herefordshire in the depths of winter. The temperature had fallen to 21 F on the coldest day of the year.
It stays so warm (relatively, of course) that they actually have to shave the backs of their cattle before they go indoors so that they don't overheat!
Son Jack shaving a cow for winter. You've no idea how strange that seems to a Nebraska cattleman.
When it gets cold they get a bit of snow, but it’s generally warm enough that most of their winter precipitation comes as rain. Plant growth slows in the winter in Herefordshire, and the soils become saturated from the winter rain. You can imagine what would happen if 100 cows and 275 ewes were wintered on 50 sodden acres. It would be the world’s largest mud bog!
As you might imagine, with the barns being so central to livestock production, they are very well thought out, set up and equipped.
Panorama view of one of Elwyn's barns.
Elwyn’s barns have concrete floors. They put down a thick layer of straw bedding in the individual pens. The pens are modular and they spend a lot of time shifting livestock, “mucking out,” and replenishing bedding. It’s quite labor intensive and also a significant expense.
Panorama of the second barn.
Elwyn’s cow herd calves in February, and while it’s an important time, calving is almost a sideshow compared to lambing. They’ve got good cows, he said, and pay close attention to breeding for calving ease. They’re set up and ready to assist when needed, but they rarely have to pull a calf.
Lambing is an entirely different thing.
Brand new Herefordshire twin lambs, only moments old.
The lambing begins in late February and hits full speed in early March. This year of 275 ewes, they scanned 175 twins, 42 triplets and 58 singles.
Elwyn has dubbed this one "Lamb Ranger."
Ewes require more attention during lambing because multiple births mean more complications.
A modern lambing aid is Lamb TV. What a country!
So Elwyn’s family stay busy 24/7 during lambing, each taking a six-hour daily “watch.”
A set of new triplets working out the pecking order.
Now that the calving’s done and the lambing is drawing to a close, Elwyn and Jack are busy spreading the winter’s accumulation of “muck” on their crop fields in anticipation of, as the English say, “ploughing.”
It’s been a great deal of fun sharing stories, pictures and videos across the Atlantic. In the cold of late February and early March I got to catch a taste of spring in Herefordshire, and got to share the trials and tribulations of thick ice and broken axes.
This week has been near-idyllic across the southwest Panhandle. The sun has been warm and the breeze mild. Overnight temperatures are still dropping into the 20’s, but of course it’s still winter. Daytime temperatures have been climbing into the 60’s and even touching 70 on occasion. As I walked out across the pastures this morning (Wednesday morning) I noted that the grass had really taken off over the last 24 hours. Yesterday there were thin patches of green; today the carpet is beginning to fill and the individual plants have gained a good inch in stature.
Hope you enjoyed this peek into farming in England. A couple of videos from Herefordshire:
Yesterday the weather here on our little slice of heaven was miserable. Okay Einstein, miserable relative to what? Ah, there's the question! And the answer is (in the broadest and most general terms):
I'm such an idea thief... Relative to my personal comfort preference of the moment. I like the weather to be sunny, about 70 degrees, 60 percent relative humidity, and with just a touch of light and variable winds. But I can be comfortable with temps ranging from about minus 20 to plus 90, so long as the humidity isn't exceptionally high, and in particular, so long as the winds are calm! Yesterday the sky was sunny, the temp was in the lower teens, the humidity was about 80 percent, and the winds were howling out of the north at 60 mph. It was miserable. This morning the sun was shining, the temperature in the upper single digits (6-9 degrees), the humidity was 70 percent, and the wind was only the lightest kiss of a breeze. It was magnificent! Now if you think about it in the context of life, the universe, and everything...
And set it against the scale of all environmental conditions across spacetime, the difference between my estimation of miserable and magnificent is simply not detectable. Nor is it detectable when the scale is limited to our own solar system, where temperatures on the planets range from minus 390 F to plus 875 F and from -459 F in the depths of the Oort Cloud to waaaaay frickin' hot (5 x 10^6 K) in the Solar Corona. But there's still a difference between miserable and magnificent. I's a very real and important distinction. Now that we've cleared that up, what do the cows think?
Who remembers the Battle of the Eastern Solomons? It's not an every day topic of conversation. I rather doubt it ever gets mentioned in history class. I know it never came up in the college history courses I took, not even in the WWII specific ones. Those who paid attention in class learned that WWII went like this: Pearl Harbor-Midway-Okinawa-Hiroshima/Nagasaki. With some stuff in between. Eastern Solomons was some of the stuff in between. Task Force 61, including the carriers Enterprise and Saratoga, left Pearl Harbor in the middle of July, 1942, en route to the South Pacific to support America's first effort to take back territory captured by Japan. On August 8 the First Marine Division landed on the Solomon Islands. It was a vicious fight, and for the first two weeks TF-61 supported the landings and secured sea lines of communication southwest of the Solomons. On August 24 a strong Japanese force approached and was attacked by aircraft from TF-61. In the ensuing fight at sea, which came to be known as the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, the Japanese light carrier Ryūjō was sunk, and the Japanese troops intended for Guadalcanal were forced back.
USS Enterprise (CV-6) burns after being struck by Japanese bombs on August 24, 1942, during the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. Wikimedia Commons.
A near miss sends a column of water high in the air off the starboard quarter of USS Enterprise (CV-6) during the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, August 24, 1942. Wikimedia Commons.
What may be the same near miss, taken from the opposite side. Wikimedia Commons.
A Japanese Val dive bomber shot down in flames over USS Enterprise (CV-6) during the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, August 24, 1942. Wikimedia Commons.
Enterprise suffered most heavily of the American ships; three direct hits and four near misses killed 77, wounded 91, and inflicted serious damage on the carrier.
One of the most iconic images of the carrier war in the Pacific. A Japanese bomb detonates on the Enterprise flight deck aft of the island structure during the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, August 24, 1942. Wikimedia Commons.
The damage caused by the explosion in the image above, taken after the initial air attack during the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, August 24, 1942. Wikimedia Commons.
A bomb exploding in the hangar bay cause the flight deck of Enterprise to bulge. This image taken at Pearl Harbor in September, 1942, weeks after the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. Wikimedia Commons.
Quick, hard work by damage control parties patched her up so that she was able to return to Hawaii under her own power.
Damage control teams fight a fire in the main deck 5-inch gallery on USS Enterprise during the the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. Wikimedia Commons.
After the battle. Wikimedia Commons.
The 5-inch gallery after the battle. Wikimedia Commons.
I own a slim, black-bound volume entitled Service Record World War I And II Kimball And Community. Published locally in 1947, it was an effort to honor those local folks who served in those global conflagrations.
It's rather a haunting little book. The first chapter is entitled Gold Star Boys. The list includes Keith L. Childers. He Joined the Navy in May, 1941. He served in USS Enterprise (CV-6) as an Aviation Machinists Mate, and fell at Eastern Solomons on August 24, 1942.
Childers is not a "local" name. It's a name that seems "kinda" familiar to a few folks, but none of the well established keepers of Kimball lore can place him or his family with any certainty. He joined the Navy before Pearl Harbor, which sets him apart from most of the locals who served. With only a couple of exceptions, Kimball's other WWII vets all joined or were drafted later in the war. At a slight tangent, the war was particularly hard on those Kimball men who joined the Navy before Pearl Harbor. In addition to Childers, Robert Bickel fell in USS Arizona on December 7, 1941. Charles Lanning fell in USS Minneapolis at the Battle of Tassafaronga on November 30, 1942, near Savo Island. I think most of us realize that the price of our freedom was paid for, in part, with the lives of men and women we've never met, or even heard of. There are other costs of course, and the Americans who served in battle are not solely responsible for our good fortune. But they did sacrifice a lot for us. Some gave all. Keith Childers died in Enterprise sometime during that hellish rain of bombs on August 24, 1942. Few (if any) Kimball residents remember Keith or his family. I certainly don't. But I can mark his existence and the gift he made to all of us. Thank you Keith Childers. May you rest in peace. From CV6.org:
The next morning, August 24, a Monday, twenty three Enterprise SBDs fanned out on 200 mile search legs, across a wide arc of ocean north of the Big E's Task Force 16. Hours of tedious searching uncovered no enemy force. Other reconnaissance flights, however, had more success. Around 1000, PBYs reported a carrier, a cruiser and destroyer escort some 200 miles northwest of the American force. The carrier was the light carrier Ryujo, escorted by the cruiser Tone, sent in advance of the main Japanese strike force to cover the transports approaching from Rabaul. Then, fighters from Saratoga intercepted and downed another enemy flying boat, this one only twenty miles from the task force. Early in the afternoon, another Saratoga airman brought down still another enemy scout, this one within visible range of the American ships.
There was no question now that the Japanese knew the location of the American carriers, but with the exception of Ryujo, the Americans could only guess the position of the Japanese. Shortly after 1300, twenty three fighters and dive bombers rumbled down Enterprise's flight deck, launched on 250 mile search legs north and west of the task force.
Another half hour passed with no contacts, other than the PBYs still shadowing Ryujo. Fletcher, after struggling to close the distance between Ryujo and his task forces, grudgingly ordered Saratoga to launch her strike. Just minutes after Saratoga's thirty dive bombers and seven torpedo planes had formed up and struck out towards Ryujo, Navy PBYs and Enterprise scouts unmasked the real threat. Some 200 miles north of Enterprise and Saratoga, Shokaku and Zuikaku were surging southward at 30 knots, preparing to strike a blow against the American carriers. With heavy static disrupting communications on both sides, and inexperienced American pilots cluttering the airwaves with chatter, the reports didn't immediately reach Fletcher.
When they did, he immediately attempted to redirect Saratoga's strike, even as they were lining up the attack which would put Ryujo under the waves by that evening. Every available fighter on both Saratoga and the Big E was gassed, armed and spotted, ready to take off at the first sign of an attack.
The sign came at 1632: on radar, many bogies, range 88 miles, bearing 320 degrees. Saratoga and Enterprise, sailing ten miles apart, turned southeast into the wind and launched their remaining fighters. Aft of Enterprise, matching her 27 knots, steamed the new 35,000 ton battleship North Carolina BB-55; at their flanks the cruisers Portland and Atlanta, with six destroyers in the screen. On all ships, guns were trained skyward, and eyes strained towards the northwest, where - still over the horizon - the enemy was approaching. Overhead circled four-plane fighter sections, fifty-four planes in all.
The first contact with the incoming enemy strike was made at 1655. At 18,000 feet, two miles above the Wildcats scrambling to intercept, were two formations of Japanese Val dive bombers. For almost twenty minutes, Wildcats, Zeros and Vals tangled high over the sea. Afterwards, Enterprise pilots could claim having downed 29 planes: a figure more remarkable because of the inexperience and lack of discipline of the American pilots at that time.
As the aerial battle raged, drifting steadily closer to Enterprise's task force, Enterprise launched her remaining eleven Dauntlesses and six TBFs, on an ultimately fruitless raid against the main Japanese force. The decision to launch the strike, however, suggested by air officer John Crommelin, probably saved Enterprise from a fate like that suffered by the Japanese carriers at Midway. The planes, fully fueled and armed, had been spotted in the same area where, in minutes, three bombs would tear through the Douglas fir planking of Enterprise's flight deck. Had the planes been parked there when the bombs hit, Enterprise likely would not have survived the day.
The last plane lifted off Enterprise's deck at 1708. Her gunners now stood ready to defend the ship. Yet even as Radar Plot reported "The enemy planes are now directly overhead!", task force lookouts could not spot the enemy planes. Worse, the ship's fire control directors failed to pick up the target, depriving the 5" guns the opportunity to fire on the enemy strike group before it could begin its attack. At 1712, as the first of the surviving 30 Val dive bombers nosed over at 20,000 feet, a puff of smoke attracted the attention of 1st Sergeant Joseph R. Schinka (USMC). Commanding the Big E's #4 20mm anti-aircraft battery, Schinka opened fire. Though the enemy planes were still beyond the reach of the 20mm batteries, the gun's tracers guided the fire of other guns. In moments, a thundering barrage of 20mm, 1.1" and 5" fire filled the sky over Enterprise's flight deck, as North Carolina, Portland, Atlanta and the destroyers all came to her defense.
In the clear blue, late afternoon sky, the bombers pitched into their dives, one every seven seconds: five, maybe six planes pressing their attack simultaneously, while others formed up behind them, or sped away low over the waves after releasing their bombs. For nearly two minutes, as Enterprise weaved and bobbed with surprising agility, the heavy anti-aircraft fire took its toll on the attacking planes, Enterprise's guns alone knocking down 15. High overhead, fighters from Saratoga and the Big E made passes at the planes as they prepared for their dives, sometimes even following the Vals during their descent. It wasn't enough. The first bomb to strike Enterprise pierced her flight deck just forward of the aft elevator, plunged through five decks and detonated.
The time was 1714. An elevator pump room team, ammunition handlers, and a damage control team stationed in the chief petty officers' quarters were wiped out by the blast. Thirty five men died instantly. As the explosion spread, it ripped six foot holes in the hull at the waterline: the ship quickly acquired a list to starboard as seawater poured in. The blast tore sixteen foot holes through the steel decks overhead, bulging the hangar deck upwards a full two feet, and rendering the aft elevator useless. The concussion whipped the warship - 800 feet and millions of pounds of wood and steel - stem to stern, first upwards, then side-to-side, hurling men off their feet, out of their chairs, across the gun tubs.
Ship and crew had just thirty seconds to recover before the second bomb struck. Detonating on impact, just fifteen feet from where the first bomb had punched through the deck, it obliterated the aft starboard 5" gun gallery and its crew, the violence of the explosion amplified by the ignition of powder bags in the gun tub. Thirty eight men, ten of whom were never positively identified, died that moment. The guns of the aft starboard quarter fell silent, their crews dead or wounded; heavy black smoke poured from newly ignited fires.
Trailing smoke, taking on water, Enterprise drove forward at 27 knots. Below decks and across the flight deck, damage control teams scrambled to bring the fires and flooding under control, to pull survivors from the slippery and torn decks and compartments, to restore power and flush holds of explosive vapors. As the ship twisted away from under the continuing assault, her remaining guns resumed fire, rejoining the barrage thrown up by North Carolina and the other ships in the task force. For almost ninety long seconds the task force fought back against the aerial assault, protecting the precious flat deck at its center.
Just two minutes after the first hit, a third bomb slammed into Enterprise's flight deck, just forward of the number 2 elevator. A smaller, 500 lb., bomb, this one was defective: still, it punched a ten foot hole through the flight deck, disabling the No. 2 elevator, killing and wounding more men.
As the assault tailed off, Enterprise - on fire, listing, spilling black smoke over the water - kept her place in the task force. Within an hour, the damage control parties had brought the fires under control, patched over the hole blown in the flight deck by the third bomb, counterflooded to correct the ship's starboard list, and improvised plugs for the waterline holes with lumber and mattresses. While the Wildcats overhead harassed the departing Japanese bombers, Enterprise's returning scouts circled, waiting anxiously for an opportunity to land, some breaking off to lend the CAP a hand. Enterprise signaled the task force that she could continue unassisted, and as evening came on began recovering her planes, still making 24 knots despite her extensive injuries.
An hour before the Vals had begun their attack, the Japanese commander Chuichi Nagumo, assuming the sacrifice of Ryujo had drawn off the American planes, had launched a second strike. These planes now probed the Pacific, seeking the American ships. They were just appearing on task force radar when Enterprise lost steering control.
Below decks, the steering room had been effectively sealed off immediately after the first bomb hit, to prevent the small compartment and its crew of seven from being overwhelmed by thick smoke. Between the fires encircling the compartment, and the heat generated by the powerful electric steering motors inside, the temperature inside the compartment rose steadily, from 120 degrees to 150, and then to 170. Both men and machinery failed. Enterprise's rudder swung right, swung left, swung right again and 1850, jammed hard over.
While radar now showed the incoming strike at fifty miles, Enterprise narrowly missed slicing the destroyer Balch in two. Her four great bronze screws were thrown in reverse, pulling her speed down to ten knots, as a breakdown flag was run up her truck. The rudder was jammed so far over that not even going forward on the starboard screws and reversing the port could straighten her course. She circled helplessly, an easy target for bombers and submarines alike.
An anxious thirty-eight minutes passed while damage control teams and engineers fought their way into the steering compartment, first pulling to safety the men collapsed inside, and then starting the second of the two steering motors. On radar, the Japanese squadrons passed fifty miles south of the task force, reversed course to the northwest, and missed the ships entirely. With night coming on, Enterprise had survived to fight another day.
Despite the severe damage Enterprise received, the Eastern Solomons were an American victory, tactically and strategically. Yamamoto's Operation KA had cost the Japanese the light carrier Ryujo. Worse, 71 planes and their aircrews from Shokaku and Zuikaku had been lost - over a hundred experienced airmen that the Japanese would never be able to replace. In comparison, fewer than 20 planes were lost between Enterprise and Saratoga. The human cost on Enterprise, however, was grim. For 74 men the attack of the 24th marked the last 45 minutes of their lives, and 91 others were wounded.
On the 25th, Yamamoto cancelled Operation KA: the first major Japanese attempt to recapture Guadalcanal had failed. That same same day, Enterprise departed for Pearl Harbor, where repair crews worked on her 24 hours a day, from September 10 until October 16. When she reappeared off New Caledonia on October 23, the situation on Guadalcanal, and in the South Pacific, had reached the point of crisis.
Snow Dogs! Boy! I'm using a lot of exclamation points! Okay, okay. Snowdogs. Around these parts that's the generic term for atmospheric reflective/refractive phenomena associated with snow. The local term isn't that far off, really, a riff on the more commonly known/seen sun dog phenomena. For those keeping score at home, this, from wikipedia:
Sun dogs (or sundogs), mock suns or phantom suns, scientific name parhelia (singular parhelion), are an atmospheric phenomenon that consists of a pair of bright spots on either side on the Sun, often co-occurring with a luminous ring known as a 22° halo. Sun dogs are a member of a large family of halos, created by light interacting with ice crystals in the atmosphere. Sun dogs typically appear as two subtly colored patches of light to the left and right of the Sun, approximately 22° distant and at the same elevation above the horizon as the Sun. They can be seen anywhere in the world during any season, but they are not always obvious or bright. Sun dogs are best seen and are most conspicuous when the Sun is close to the horizon.
At any rate, sundogs are far from uncommon around here during the winter. Moondogs are something less than rare as well. Both called snowdogs by the good people of Kimball County, including myself. And they're very cool and all, but my favorite are light pillars. We call them snowdogs, too. Many of us are just too cheap to keep extra words laying around, being underemployed. Light pillars, according to wikipedia:
Light pillars are a kind of optical phenomenon which is formed by the reflection of sunlight or moonlight by ice crystals that are present in the Earth's atmosphere. They are also called the crystal beam phenomenon. The light pillar looks like a thin column that extends vertically above and/or below the source of light. The light pillar is prominently visible when the Sun is low or lies below the horizon. It normally forms an arc that extends from five to ten degrees beyond the solar disc. Light pillars can sometimes also be seen arising from the Moon. Light pillars [can] also be formed by man-made light sources, such as streetlights.
Thus:
A light pillar cast by the moon over Antarctica. S
I think light pillars, which I call snowdogs, are the bomb. The ones cast by the sun are great, but the really cool ones are cast by the moon. And the all time coolest of all time without a single doubt are those cast by the rotating beacon at Kimball's Municipal Airport, KIBM. At least in my opinion. There's just something amazing about being outside on a still winter's evening and seeing that shaft of light shoot heavenward every few seconds. I can, and often do (when conditions are right) watch it for hours. Now that you've seen some good snowdog images taken by competent photographers, I'll share what I captured via my S4 the other evening. Unfortunately, these images don't do the experience justice. If I was a good blogger I would purchase an expensive camera, learn how to use it, and post up some breathtaking pics. Maybe someday. But for now I am a cheap and lazy blogger. You can click to enlarge. They look kinda cool on a big screen in a dark room. But so does my boot camp graduation picture. If you squint. And have been drinking.
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