Peeling Day (Apple Butter Making, Day 1)

Today was the first day of the 3rd annual Housman Family & Friends Apple Butter making weekend. This year started with 16 bushels of Staymen apples. We had 14 family and friends help peel, then core, and then inspect the apples. The inspection process involves going through each peeled & cored apple and searching for seeds, imperfections, errant peels and removing them with a paring knife. After this procees is completed, the apples are bagged to be preserved over night. Tomorrow morning, around 5 am, a fire will be lit under the copper kettle and the apples will be fed into a hand-crank grinder. Once crushed, they go into the kettle with a small amount of vinegar to get the process started. Apples will continue to be crushed and filled into the kettle until all are in it. I'll explain the details about the rest of what happens tomorrow in a post I will write tomorrow evening.

To wrap up today's explanation, we started around 8 am this morning and finished up around 3:30 pm this afternoon -- this included cleaning up (peels/trash) and putting away the various tools (peelers, corers, buckets, etc).

Below are several videos I took thoughout the day with the new 240fps mode on my iPhone 6 Plus as well as various photos I took in a gallery.

Incredible Holuhraun Eruption Videos

Holuhraun volcan eruption

In the above video you'll see the massive size of the eruption of the rift and the resulting lava flow forming a river of magma. I've never seen anything like this before.

The ongoing volcanic eruption in Holuhraun has already become the largest lava eruption in Iceland since the 19th century, according to volcanologist Ármann Höskuldsson. More lava has been emitted than in the largest lava eruption of the 20th century, Krafla in 1984. Lava is made up of crystals, volcanic glass, and bubbles (volcanic gases).

In this video you'll see how low the viscosity of the lava coming from this eruption. It is clearly molten and moving below the surface but the "crust" of the flow cools enough to harden. It is as if to make it seem as a slow, relentless wall of rock is coming toward you.

New Cloud Type "Undulatus Asperatus" in Timelapse

Crazy wave clouds rolled over Lincoln NE on July 7, 2014.

From the video description by Alex Schueth:

Crazy wave clouds rolled over Lincoln NE on July 7, 2014.

Angela Fritz, writing for The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang:

These clouds are as mesmerizing as they are ominous, and even more so when viewed in timelapse. Alex Schueth, who posted the video, calls them “crazy wave clouds,” but meteorologists know them better as undulatus asperatus — a newly defined cloud type. The asperatus clouds form in the same type of conditions as the well-known (and much beloved) mammatus clouds, with slightly different wind characteristics up at the cloud level. This time lapse video illustrates what meteorologists know about air and the atmosphere: it’s like a fluid, and the right kind of wind can make very interesting waves.

In 2009, the Cloud Appreciation Society (yes, you can join!) proposed that the undulatus asperatus be officially added to the list of known clouds. However, the World Meteorological Association maintains the list of recognized cloud types, and is in charge of determining what should be included in the International Cloud Atlas. While the asperatus hasn’t been added yet, we think the society makes a good case. If it is added, it will be the first new cloud type since the cirrus intotus was added in 1951.

While the the term comes from the Latin word aspero, which means “to make rough.” The Cloud Appreciation Society says that this term was used by Roman poets to describe how the sea looked during a cold, north wind. If you’re loving this video, the Cloud Appreciation Society keeps a gallery of user-submitted photos of the asperatus.

And here is the video slowed down to real time:

These clouds preceded a storm cell on July 7th, 2014

Aurora Borealis

Jason Kottke writes:

This looks like a time lapse, but it's not. It's just a straight-up gorgeous video of the aurora borealis filmed in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada.

It is real time motion! NOT time-lapse. Brighter the Aurora, faster the movement. Yellowknife, Canada. Captured between 2013.3.1. 22:25 ~23:50 I used Nikon D4, at ISO 6400. 24mm f/1.4G lens at f/2.0 or f/1.4. I also tested Canon 5D mark III same time. But Nikon D4 was absolutely winner. Canon 1Dx may have similar quality. (have similar sensor pixel size) ps) All the people are standing and watching aurora. But one guy is running around. It's me. -.-;;;