Whatever Weds. A Coyote Tale

Copyright ©2026 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.

Saturday morning after I’d finished Wordle and Strands I shared my results with my sister. We trade results and talk about where we struggled or where we felt it was easy. We talked for a bit and then I got up to make a second cup of tea this was about 7A.M. I just caught out the corner of my eye out back a Coyote streaking by. I moved to the backdoor to see where it was going and here came another one streaking by following the first one! That was neat. I thought they were probably heading back to the den since the sun was up already.

Fast forward 50 minutes and when I looked up from reading there out at the edge of the golf course was a Coyote with its back to me gazing out across the flood plain. Oh! I raced to get my camera that was in my retreat. I wished as I was racing that it would still be there when I got back. It was!

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Coyote Gazing across the field.

As I opened the sliding glass door and screen it heard me and turned to see what the noise was. It soon realized I was no threat so turned its gaze back to the field. Above is exactly what I saw that had me run for my camera.

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Then I guess it decided there was nothing to worry about or going on so it laid down in the cold grass.

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I think my neighbor came out to look and as it seems to be looking that way rather than at me.

After a few minutes something caught its attention out in the field and it got up to look. I looked too. Oh! There out in the field further west was another Coyote! Perhaps these two were the two I had seen running by an hour before?

Here’s Number Two out in the field looking back at Number One. This is cropped in a bit.

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Next, Number One started making its way across the golf course closer to me! Curious perhaps or had it heard the birds?

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It kept coming closer then below me a Cooper’s Hawk swooped in low over the Sagebrush just behind my fence! The Sparrows and Quail all dove into the Sagebrush and got really quiet. The Hawk landed up on a branch in my neighbor’s tree. The Hawk was watching the approaching Coyote not the birds. I was watching them all.
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Cooper’s Hawk

Coyote Number One got to the bottom of the hill below me but, I couldn’t see him anymore. Then he started up the golf cart path headed east and soon was out of sight.

Number Two couldn’t see Number One I think, so came up to the edge of the course. It spotted me. Our eyes met. Then it turned to look east after its buddy, and off it went after it head down on the scent.

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I watched it until it was out of sight then looked up and there out in the distance were 3 Hot Air Balloons rising. I hoped they’d float my way, but they never do. Prevailing winds tend to head east. This morning was no different they all floated east behind the mountains out into the great Nevada desert.

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I watched until the last balloon slid behind the mountains and out of view. It was my turn to turn away from the view. I went to get my forgotten cup of tea now cold then headed to the kitchen to make a fresh cup. Happy with the way my day started and counting my blessings. I was thinking how wonderful it is to have all this nature and wildlife here and I was very thankful to be home Saturday morning to see it all.

more to come…

Whatever Weds. Aurora’s Amethyst Sky

Copyright ©2026 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.

Monday I got an alert from my Aurora App that said it might possible to see the Aurora as low as Northern Nevada. There was a pretty large CME -solar flare on January 19th that I read about in Spaceweather and it mentioned the Aurora Borealis could be really good and perhaps wide spread. I was on a hike when my app pinged me Monday afternoon saying that it was looking good where I live to see some of the Aurora. When I got home I charged up my batteries, switched lenses, and got my gear ready. In the evening close to the peak KP index reading per my app I put on my thermals, coat, toe warmers, then gathered my hand heating pouch, tripod, gear bag, red headlamp, and walked out into the 35 degrees F night air. I headed down the street to photograph the sky over my neighbors ranch.

The stars were bright, and clear, and the air cold, and brisk. It was just me and a horse in the stall kicking and making that sound they make when the blow raspberries through their nose, and lips. I suspect it heard me and saw my red headlamp. Then it got really quiet.

The horse and I settled in for a bit. I set up my tripod, and camera then got my focus dialed in and made a few tests shots. Then I made this shot when it was supposed to be “peak KP index (6.67)” for my area.

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It was very light pinky purple with maybe a little green.

There’s light pollution from Carson City to the north.

Way out on the top of hills in the distance is a bright white light. That’s an ATV of some kind making its way to the top of the Pinenut Mountains. I wondered if they were going to a great view and maybe a darker sky?

I read the Aurora’s were spectacular in parts of Europe and some of the images I’ve seen are fantastic.

This Aurora wasn’t as strong as the one that we saw here in October 2024 see my post here , but anytime I get a ping saying maybe I’ll see an Aurora in No. Nevada I’ll be out with my camera.

Happy Mid Week Everyone!

more to come…

Whatever Weds. Coming to you from a Remote Location…

Copyright ©2025 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.

©Deborah M. Zajac | http//:circadianreflections.com
Legacy Couch T.V. Control Units

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Whatever Weds. Late afternoon Moon

Copyright ©2025 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.

I rarely photograph daytime Moons, but this one was almost true south and outside my window so had to go out and photograph it.

November 30, 2025. A Waxing Gibbous (74.8%) Moon.

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more to come…

Whatever Weds. Comet Lemmon

Copyright ©2025 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.

I went out with a friend to try to see if I could find and photograph C/2025 A6 Comet (Lemmon) on October 19th. I didn’t go too far from home just up into the Pinenut Mountains a little bit. l took my 50mm lens so I would be able to see a wide space of the sky and hopefully see it. I never saw it with my eyes or binoculars, but when I got home and uploaded my images I was happy to see my camera had seen it. It’s the tiny green dot upper center of the image.

It’s tiny at 50mm but, I cropped this in a bit for a better look.

©Deborah M. Zajac | http//:circadianreflections.com
Comet Lemmon Nikon D850| Nikkor 50mm

The next night I went back to the same spot with my old 80-200mm lens but, I wasn’t able to see it at all. I believe it was too low and behind the hills opposite.

So last night a friend and I went north to a spot I know that had more open sky. It took us a while to find it but, we did. My old lens had a bit of trouble focusing on my newish bigger sensor D810 but, once I uploaded my images I found I had several decent shots of the comet with a hint of its tail too.

©Deborah M. Zajac | http//:circadianreflections.com
Comet Lemmon| Nikon D810| Nikkor 80-200mmD| October 21, 2025

It’s always exciting to see a comet and this one is pretty cool. It was 55 million miles from Earth last night and it won’t be back again until the year 3175! Do you think my images will survive for my future family members to see my images made with probably antiquated photography methods and gear? Somewhere between 33 and 46 generations will pass before C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) comes our way again. It boggles my mind.

Did you see it?

more to come…

Whatever Weds. Quantum of the Seas

Copyright ©2025 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.

This week I’ll share some photos I made of the ship we sailed to Alaska on. She’s the largest Royal Caribbean ship we’ve sailed on.

She was built in 2014 and sails under the flag of Bahamas. At the time of her delivery she was the third largest cruise in the world by gross tonnage (168,666 GT). She’s 1,141 feet long (347.7 meters) and 236ft 3inches tall, (72 meters). Her top speed is 22.0 knots and will hold 4,180 passengers (double occupancy), and a maximum of 4,905 passengers, with a crew of 1,500.

On sea days we felt the 4,900+ people on board especially on the days the pool deck was closed due to heavy winds, and rain.

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The Bow of Quantum of the Seas
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Aft of Quantum of the Seas showing off her Climbing Wall a bit.
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This is Felicia the Big Magenta Polar Bear by artist Lawrence Argent. Titled ” From Afar”. She’s 30ft tall, is comprised of 1,340 stainless steel triangles, and weighs eight-tons.
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That arm with pod on the end is the North Star Observation Pod. It gives you a 360 degree panoramic view of the ports, ocean, and surroundings. We didn’t try it. We meant to on Port Days but, were so busy with excursions we never got the chance to.
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One of the Pools, hot tub, bar, and track on Deck 15
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Waves of Light by artist So Sunny Park

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The Esplanade on Decks 4 and 5. Here you’ll find shopping, dining, entertainment, and socializing. We spent a lot of time on this deck.

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Quantum of the Seas Orchestra on the theater stage on Deck 4.
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Quantum of the Seas Lifebuoy on Deck 15

She’s a beautiful ship that we enjoyed a lot. We came off her ready for another cruise.

Have a lovely week everyone!

more to come…

Whatever Weds.-Alaska Cruise Pics

Copyright ©2025 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.

Some of you may recall that He-Man and I took a Cruise to Alaska on board the Quantum of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean Ship earlier this month. I thought I’d start sharing our trip with photos of our stateroom .

We were sailing out of the Port of Seattle so we flew up a day before our cruise departed. We stayed in the north end of town in a Comfort Inn & Suites. The room and hotel were nice, the neighborhood…a little sketchy, but we felt safe enough to walk to the nearby stores and a restaurant for dinner. We just pulled our city street awareness spidy senses out of the archives and stayed alert while walking.

This was the view from our room of downtown Seattle, and Mt. Rainier way in the distance on the left just as the city lights were coming on for the evening.

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That parking lot is car dealer spare lot we think.

We took an Uber to the port after checking out of the hotel. Getting through security and checking in with Royal Caribbean was a breeze. Our stateroom wasn’t quite ready so we headed up to the Windjammer Cafe for lunch. I haven’t got any photos of that sorry!

Then we headed to Deck 12 mid-ship to our stateroom hide-away for our departure. We had a stateroom with a balcony on the port side of the ship. The images in the gallery are our main stateroom and view of the balcony, one closet, we had two closets, the bathroom, the big bed…bigger than our Queen at home and there was storage in a cupboard above the bed, the vanity I used for applying my makeup, and over the course of the cruise our Stateroom Attendant left us 4 towel animals. My favorites were the bear, and elephant.

Views from our stateroom balcony-the busy port where people were being dropped off to get onboard, and the port crew loading the luggage, food, and all the things we’d need for the week, and the Seattle Skyline from our balcony on Deck 12 shortly after we left the port.

We’re off! North to Alaska, the rush is on!

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This is the movie that made me want to go to Alaska when I was girl. I had this song in my head off and on the whole trip. 😊

more to come…