Which Was the Bigger Event?

Today there was a total solar eclipse across a swath of the United States. Where we live (Delaware, Ohio) was in the path of totality. Warren and I were invited to a viewing gathering next door and spent a wonderful few hours chatting, laughing, and watching the sun slowly disappear and then reappear. 

So as to not arrive empty-handed, I made two types of cookies to take: a cinnamon sugar cookie and a double chocolate cookie. Earlier in the day, I took some to our neighbors on the other side. In thanking me, Adam (the father of Margaux of the wonderful birthday tower) texted that he was "assuming that this is the correct way to eat them for the total eclipse effect:"

Eclipse preview

Yes, indeed! 

Seven years ago, there was a partial solar eclipse in our area, but this was the first full solar eclipse any of us (there were seven of us total) had ever seen. We were all wonderstruck.  All of us just kept marveling at what was taking place over our heads. We kept commenting on the changes in the light and the air temperature. 

And truly, there are not enough words to describe the event.

Solar corona at totality; if you were looking through eclipse glasses, you would see the sun totally blackened with a shining ring of light around it. My phone? Not so much! 

So yes, that was a BIG event today! 

But there was another BIG event earlier today. Midmorning, after thinning out the dead flowers from a birthday bouquet, I walked the discards out to the compost container back by the Hej garden. That garden currently is covered in purple deadnettle, one of the first flowering anything to come up in the spring. I had seen the garden last week and knew that it was carpeted in the small flowering plants. All the same, I stopped in my tracks. 

What stopped me?

BEES!!! 

Several bumblebees were zigzagging through the deadnettle. I only had my phone on me, but all the same managed to capture one of them in action:

The bumbler clearly ignoring me

 I went back to the house and grabbed my camera. Now, I have not really used my camera since shattering my wrist in January. I tried a few times, but pretty much lacked the physical capability to hold it as well as enough sensation in my index finger to trip the shutter. But I have been doing my exercises faithfully for week and while I am not 100% yet, I am much better. Better enough that I could get some shots off.

In the brief time it took to walk to the house, get my camera, then walk back out to the Hej garden, the bumblebees had moved on. But happily for me, the honeybees had moved in behind them and were busy mining the pollen:

The first honeybees of 2024

Bees, bees, bees! These are the first I have seen in 2024 and that, for me, is also a BIG event! 

I love that on a day of a once-in-a-lifetime sky event, my morning started with my finding a whole bed of bees, already starting their 2024 rounds. And maybe there aren't enough words to describe that event either.

The bigger event? They were both BIG.