SOLSTICE SUNRISE

Solstice Morning Idyll -- the rising sun through the trees.

In the past, I have written several articles about Summer Solstice, including pictures of the sunsets, sunlight, sunrise (generally through the clouds), etc. 

I've always been fascinated by the Solstices, sometimes tracking the sun's apparent movement as it sets and rises, including marking the trees on the distant hillsides where the sun come up, and goes down.

This year I didn't catch any sunset pics. But I did get out during Solstice morning, the a.m. of June 21st.

So here are a few of the pics I took, including a couple I took through the trees when the sun had just set on the early evening of June 21st.

A frog pond and bicycle trail on Solstice Morning. The morning was pleasant, with the air fresh and cool.

Looking east, the sun just rising over the hills to the left of the picture.

A lone pigeon sits on one of the electric wires near the river. Often there will be 10-20 pigeons there.

The Cedar River in the Solstice sunrise.

All these pics I took with my newly awakened Fuji AX655, 16 megapixel digital snapshot camera -- the camera which froze up on me in 2016 and then fixed itself after sitting on my desk immobile for 5 years. There is a post about that here: Interrock Nation: My FUJI AX655 16 Megapixel Snapshot Camera Fixed Itself

The Cedar River, lazier flowing than usual, in Renton on Solstice Morning.

The Renton skate park at night, June 21st. It was shut down during the Corona lockdowns, but things are back to normal now.

The big Cottonwood tree near the trail, Solstice Morning.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT MY EXPERIENCE WITH THE 'JAB'

Nothing else much has been happening here. I've been off work. 

After getting my second Pfizer jab, I have had no side effects I can think of, aside from the time I work up in the middle of the night, and my heart was racing a little for about a minute. Then it settled down. It didn't happen again. I also had a slight muscle pain behind my neck. Whether that was from oversleeping or whether it was a side effect of the vaccine I don't know. My left arm, where I got jabbed, was a little sore for two days.

That's it.

My elderly mother got both Pfizer jabs and all she had was a sore arm -- no other side effects whatsoever.

My ZebraKenko, purple 10-speed bicycle -- Japanese made in the 1970's. Still hitting the road in 2021.

I'm going into detail about my experience with the 'jab' here because there is still a lot of paranoia about the vaccines here in the US. I myself measured out the pluses and minuses of risk -- I figured it was better to get the jab and deal with a few side effects, rather than catch corona and risk a ton of health issues.

For what it's worth, I still take garlic extract and zinc every day, as well as a few other supplements. I've been taking garlic and zinc for years.

My Grundig G2, my favorite go-to SW radio. It performs as well off the whip as my other radios perform when connected to a 25 ft. (10 meters) indoor wire. On SW, these small DSP-chip radios can really perform.

IN OTHER, NON-HEALTH RELATED THINGS:

On Shortwave radio, I've been experiencing the same mostly dead SWBC bands as I've experienced over the past 4-5 years. I have heard Voz Missionaria just barely, on 9665 khz, and Radio New Zealand is amazingly strong during the evenings on 7245 khz. I believe their antenna system amplifies the effective power by 16 db towards the Pacific Ocean Islands region, so we here in the Western U.S. receive that benefit.

I also heard the BBC broadcasting to West Africa, in French, from the UK on 9410 khz last night. It was weak, but readable. The signal had over-the-pole choppiness to it.

Early in the morning a couple days ago I switched on my Grundig G2 and tuned around the 49 meter band. It was the first time in maybe six to eight months I tuned the 49 meter band during that hour. Usually, early mornings is when the "Asian Pipeline" comes in. That's my name for the plethora of Asian stations I hear early mornings when the SW conditions are good.

When I first got my G2 in 2014, I tuned around the 49 and 41 meter bands around 6 a.m. local time (it was still dark out), and both bands were loaded with signals -- mainly from Japan and China. For the next year or so I noticed much the same thing. Of course, the solar minimum began to kick in during 2017 and that began to choke off SW.

This particular recent morning when I tuned the 49 meter band, the SW conditions weren't so hot. There still were a few signals from China: CNR1, their main channel, was audible on 5-6 frequencies. CNR1 is used to jam other broadcasts aimed at China. In the early 2010's, I'd hear it SIO 555 many mornings with a smooth voiced announcer talking softly as romantic piano music played behind him. On a higher fidelity SW radio, like my DX-390, G2, or DX-350, it sounded very full, like a decent AM band, smooth jazz station.

I didn't hear the piano music this time, though.

The moon through the trees, the night of June 21st. My Fuji AX655 takes pretty good night sky shots.

That's about all for now. I hope that this blog posts finds you all well and safe.

Peace.

C.C. June 24th, 2021.