Small Town Living

It's a lovely evening in this here small town.

I was just sitting outside on my front steps enjoying the warm evening, looking up at the sky and discovered that you can actually see the stars. Can't do that in the bigger places, 'cause the streetlights drown out the skies and you can't see anything.

What's really special about the night sky is watching some of the "stars" actually move across the sky. These are either airplanes on their way to or from big cities such as Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Calgary or Edmonton.  I do live in flyover country after all.  Might as well make the best of it.

Or, perhaps, these moving stars are satellites heading who knows where. Or maybe even aliens checking out us earthlings. 

When we were kids on the farm, many eons ago, we used to get old blankets and lay on the grass in the yard, blanket below us, blanket on top, and watch the skies at night.  Used to tease one of our sisters about her joining the family after being shoved down a big tube from an alien spacecraft. That's still a part of the family lore.

August was a great month to be out watching the night skies, especially later in the month, as the earth passes through an asteroid belt and the number of falling stars or shooting stars is phenomenal.

Some nights we also get to see spectacular dancing displays of Aurora Borealis.

City kids miss out on this. Poor kids.