A Midnight Rainbow

I was working hard at my bench, hammering away, when I noticed a lovely rosy glow coming thru the window. On a whim I grabbed my camera and headed out the front door. The first thing I saw was this:



A rainbow at midnight!

I've lived in Alaska since 1994, and the perpetually changing light is one of my favorite things. I've been outside at midnight every summer solstice, and I'm a horrible night owl anyway, so I'm often outside in the middle of the night, summer or winter. But I've never seen a midnight rainbow before.

This one seemed to end at the bottom of my driveway. Makes me feel lucky. And look at that lovely red glow on the birches!

So then I looked around the corner of the house, towards the Northwest, and this is what I saw:



The sky is on fire! Yes, I've seen lots of midnight sunset/sunrises, but this is certainly one of the most dramatic. (If you look at the larger version of this pic, please try to ignore all the junk in the goose play area... That's their kiddie pool and bucket. Messy, messy gooses. But notice how much light there is? This is as dark as it got.)

I've been terribly remiss in sharing all of the delightful swap packages I've been receiving. Life is rather "interesting" at the moment (when isn't it?), and these goodies -- and the postcard and letter swaps, too -- are often the high point of my day. I've put swap photos in my Flickr albums, but I want to write a bit more about the love and craft that so overwhelms me when I open the packages. Soon, I promise.

But go and take a look at Ralph the Turtle, or my lovely Dye-No-Mite package, or the sweet maneki nekos, or the heart pin cushion. I can't help but grin when I see these things.

In the meantime, wherever you are, I hope the joy and energy of the Midnight Sun are contagious: May you catch them just by looking at the pictures!