Excerpt from The Vi-Purrs

As most of you know, I try to include useful information in my books. For instance, in this excerpt of The Vi-Purrs, Xander reminds Mischief how the moon moves. The inspiration for the scene came from the jpg above, which I discovered on Pinterest. For those who aren’t familiar with this series, Xander de Hunter is a Catamondo’s Sea Purrtector (sort of a Siamese 007); Mischief, a pretty little calico, is his young apprentice and Hector is an editor for  the Daily Mews.

Xander narrowed his eyes at Mischief. “Do you remember the moon cycle?”

“If the left side of the Moon is dark then the light part is growing, so the Moon is getting bigger. If the right side of the Moon is heading toward the dark nights.”

Xander nodded. “Do you remember what the moon looked like last night?”

Her nose scrunched in thought. “I think it was dark on the left, and almost half and half.”

“Very good. So when does the moon rise, when it is dark there?”

She shrugged.

“Purrhaps she hasn’t gotten to that lesson,” Hector said. “Fortunately, I always post this in The Mews and I can tell you that the moon rose at 11:31 this morning and it will set at 22:57 this evening.” Mischief looked up at the sky, doubt and surprise in her expression. “Trust me, it’s up there, you just can’t see it because the sun is too bright.”

“If you say so.”

Xander nodded at Hector. “He is correct and once it sets, the shadows stop shifting, so that is when I will check the situation. For now, we need to rest.”

The VI-Purrs is available at Amazon in both print and e-book format as well as at your favorite e-book vendor.

Sunday 9-27 = Blood Moon

I am excited enough about this to report it on my blog, even though it has nothing to do with pet care. Maybe, due to the space race and TV, you’ve become jaded about sky-watching events. But Sunday evening will be worth looking at — it’s not just a total eclipse of the moon, it will also be a super moon and a blood moon  combined – the first in more than three decades. There is an excellent article at: Super Blood Moon on Sunday!

For me, the timetable for this amazing event will be:

               Moon's
                                                Azimuth   Altitude
                                     h  m            o        o
Moonrise               2015 Sep 27  19:04          89.2     ----
Moon enters penumbra   2015 Sep 27  20:10.3        96.6     13.6
Moon enters umbra      2015 Sep 27  21:06.8       103.5     25.5
Moon enters totality   2015 Sep 27  22:10.7       113.3     38.7
Middle of eclipse      2015 Sep 27  22:47.1       120.5     45.8
Moon leaves totality   2015 Sep 27  23:23.5       129.7     52.3
Moon leaves umbra      2015 Sep 28  00:27.4       153.3     61.2
Moon leaves penumbra   2015 Sep 28  01:24.0       183.0     63.9 
Moonset 2015 Sep 28 07:39 273.6 ----

You can find out specifics, like those above, for your own area at

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/LunarEclipse.php

Happy viewing!

Jeanne