Earth | Lunar Standstill

As most lunaphiles are aware, a Lunar Standstill  is occurring throughout 2025, reaching its peak in early November 2025. Specifically, the northern major lunar standstill moonrise is noted on November 7, 2025. This major lunar standstill event is part of the 18.6-year lunar nodal cycle, when the Moon reaches its most extreme northern and southern rising and setting points along the horizon. This event can be observed over a period spanning roughly two years, covering 2024 through 2026, with the peak of maximum standstill near March 2025 and significant standstill points continuing into late 2025.

Human beings noted the phenomenon of Lunar Standstills at least 10,000 years ago and built stone monuments to measure and record these events. Stonehenge is just one of these monuments, as was the Ziggurat at Ur in Mesopotamia (now in Iraq).

I stayed up all night on November 7 to witness this day of the Standstill, which was just two days after the Full Moon. It was a perfectly clear night and the woods was well-lit with moonlight. My only companion was a Barred Owl who serenaded me all night with its distinctive “Who cooks for all?” call. 

For the whole lowdown on lunar standstills and much else see the entertaining and informative Our Moon: How Earth's Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are.

USA | Allegheny Mountains | Deer Season #2

Archery Season for deer is still in full swing. Now a bowhunter has brought me some steaks made from the backstrap of the deer, which many Venison Cognoscenti consider the best cut.

Venison steaks made from the backstrap of the deer

Venison steaks 

My.olive oil had frozen solid so I had to heat it up in a pan of 

boiling water before I could use it.

I fried the steaks in olive oil with onions, black peppercorns, and soy sauce,

Now there’s a dish to set before a king!!!

Had our first snow fall of the year.

My current domicile, or the Pine Hill Hilton, as I like to call it. 

Temperatures dropped to 16ºF. 

Butter tea was certainly welcome on these chilly mornings. I could close my eyes and imagine I was in Tibet!

My carpet collection has come in handy. I bought this handmade silk carpet in Uzbekistan, but it was probably Made in Iran or perhaps Turkmenistan. The big white oak in the photo has shed a prodigious amount of acorns. The neighborhood squirrels are happy!

U.S.A | Maryland | Pennsylvania | New Book

The 3,294-foot Big Savage Tunnel north of Frostburg closed for the winter on November 30, 2023, and would not reopen until March 28, 2024, thus effectively ending the biking season for through-trips between Cumberland and Pittsburgh. I spent the winter holed up in Frostburg, Maryland, which I am using as a base for my wanderings on the GAP. After the November 30 tunnel closing a few brief snow squalls laid down an inch or less of snow that quickly melted and occasionally rain would freeze at the higher altitudes, making the trail treacherous, but other than during these brief episodes the GAP remained open to the tunnel for much of December and early January. In late January and in February a few heavy snowfalls closed the GAP completely. The last big blizzard, which dropped close to six inches of snow, hit just before the Spring Equinox on March 19. It took almost a week for the snow to melt off the GAP north of Frostburg. As soon as the trail was clear I rode up to Big Savage Tunnel . . .  Continued.