The grass on the Santa Rita foothills is still green at the roots, but otherwise it has that gone-to-seed autumn look. The “Gold Fields” are blooming all over, adding splashes of golden color everywhere. On the roadsides and on the edges of the dry river beds, tall sunflowers adding their own shades of gold, brown and green.
We have wonderful dark skies and wide horizons for astronomical viewing here. Early on Sunday morning, Sr. Pam set up her Uncle Lee’s telescope on the patio outside the chapter room, and several of us had a planet-viewing session. Venus, Mars, and Jupiter are all visible to the naked eye in the east right now if you know where to look. We focused on Jupiter and its four largest moons (although we could only pick out 3 of them that morning), and then moved up to Venus in its crescent phase. Truly, the heavens proclaim the glory of God, as the Psalmist says!
