In which we look! up in the sky! it's not a bird or a plane! It's an...

 Aurora borealis!  

The results of a G4 solar storm, sending charged particles to Earth via the solar wind, all of which sounds like Star Trek-level gibberish, but this is real, and it's cool.

Sky to the north

With our un-aided eyes we could see a pinkish tint to the sky, and some shapes that drifted around.  Cameras see these things much better than we do!

Sky to the east of the farm.

Usually the best time to see the lights is after 10pm, partly because the sky is darker because sunset is long gone, and partly because the neighbors have finally gone to bed and turned off their lights (except that one neighbor because there's always one neighbor).  

Porchlights from that one neighbor but also colors!

We started getting pings about the lights at 8pm, a mere 3.5 hours after sunset (sniff!!  so dark so early!) and I ran outside to take a look.

Jim's camera gets the green tones better than mine does

"Come outside right now!" I told Jim, and we both went out to the pasture to trip over helpful cats and look at the sky until my phone battery died.

When the battery was charged back up again, the clouds had moved in and the lights had moved on.

Ah, well.

The pasture is dark, the Dragon is darker

I've seen Northern Lights many times, most memorably from the deck of a shrimp boat in Blackstone Bay Alaska, when the lights were so bright that seagulls were flying around like it was daytime.  

But seeing them from our own backyard is pretty special.