Toy Hot Air Balloon

This toy hot air balloon has been in progress for several weeks. I finally got the last of the "gores" glued together, and was able to inflate it. It took two or three minutes to fill, even with the powerful blast from a vacuum cleaner exhaust. We're planning to launch it from the hills of Amboy the weekend after Christmas. More pictures are almost certain to follow.

Hanging Nest

We discovered this nest in the Linden tree yesterday. Apparently the bushtit birds like our trees and bushes, because this is the sixth hanging nest we've found, and the third nest in the past three years.

Note the wine bottle shape. The opening is at the top, with a flap of moss and spider web covering it to keep out the rain or obscure the entrance. The entire structure is very resilient at this stage. The insides are lined with cobweb, feathers and down, so soft that I can't feel it when I touch it.

Natural Beauty

No credit can be given to the photographer. These models are just naturally beautiful.

Tomato Crop

Here is a sampling of the tomatoes we harvested this year. Apparently we eat our tomatoes with butter.

Goldenrod Spider

Monya and I found this Misumena vatia in our Escondita hedge this morning.

We saw one of these flower spiders before, but didn't have a camera. It's also out of place on a bush with red flowers. They usually crouch in a white or yellow flower and snatch a bug that is landing on the flower. She looked a lot cleaner before we got the zoomed in version from the camera, but it is late summer, and she's probably just looking for somewhere to lay her eggs.

Great Pumpkin Harvest 2007

Last weekend P'Nut and Miss Maple helped me harvest our pumpkins. We gathered up 45 of the Cucurbita pepo melons. Note that some of them were different colors, and some had warts on the surface, like gourds. All of the seeds came out of the same pumpkin from last fall, so maybe this is a result of cross-pollination. We were also shocked to discover tiny thorns on the skin, not just on the vines, but they were easily rubbed off with leather gloves.

A View 40 Years Old

Compare this photo with the one posted on the Letters From Amboy blog. They're quite similar. My intent here was to capture the seven horizons. Thanks to some help from two excellent photographers, I was also able to capture the texture of the clouds.

This was my second visit to this lake in 40 years. I can't tell if it was different this time or not. At least I knew it was there.

Giant Q Tips

Clouds rolled slowly over the mountain tops, partially obscurring this meadow of Western Anemone. Sometime soon, I intend to post a photo of some Anemone under water. They're just as tall, and a lot more colorful, but you can't see as many of them at one time.

Giant Mushroom

This mushroom was about the size of a loaf of bread. I especially like the color, and almost wanted to eat it.

Fishing at a Secret Lake

We watched the fisherman, on the left in this photo, while he brought in three Brook Trout. Many more fish were jumping clear out of the water, but they were out of his casting range.

Tiny Baby

This photo shows the tiniest baby I've ever seen. She weighed only 1# 6oz when she was born last month. Now she's up to more than two pounds and eating real food.

Phases of Venus

Here are five photos, merged into a single frame. Each of them is a picture of Venus, taken at the same magnification, about 50x, but on different days: May 29, June 18, June 25, July 6, July 10 and July 24. Notice how the planet appears to be getting larger, and the crescent shape is getting thinner. This may be the last photo I am able to take of Venus before it gets too close to the horizon. Notice how the apparent diameter has increased to more than double since I started.

These pictures are really poor quality compared to what it looks like with moving air currents and color refraction, but they capture the idea, and provide fascinating comparisons.

Clavius - Moon Photo

Thanks to my friend Jerry, I'm learning astrophotography (and I know one major landmark on the moon). The landmark is a crater called Clavius. It is the second largest crater on the moon. This morning (at 4:00 AM) the visibility was excellent for this area, and the lighting was perfect for viewing Clavius, the large crater in the center of the photo.

The image has been rotated so it is oriented as seen by observers in the northern hemisphere, and it features a close-up view of the bottom (south pole) of the moon. The moon is at the beginning of the 4th quarter, so this moon phase will only be seen in the morning, before sunrise (or with a blue, daylight sky). Most importantly, the angle of the sun exaggerates the features of Clavius and the other craters near the center of the moon.

Another Moon

On June 18 I tried something a bit different. I used the zoom on the camera lens to magnify the 50x image produced by the telescope. I'm not sure what the magnification is here, but it's a nice photo.

If you look carefully, you can see two tiny specs of light that appear disconnected from the moon in the upper right corner of the photo. They are moon mountains, just over the moon's horizon, but high enough to catch and reflect some sunlight.

Miss Maple: Standing

Monya insisted that I post this photo of Miss Maple, standing and holding the little pink doll.

Green Sweater

Some of my enthusiasm for knitting is gone, so this green sweater took six months to complete. P'Nut liked it so much that she insisted on wearing it immediately. Fortunately, she promised to stop growing, so the sweater fits her.


In an attempt to give something to Miss Maple at the same time, I knitted this little doll. Miss Maple liked it, but P'Nut really liked it. You can see her holding the doll in the sweater photo.

More Rare Than a Blue Moon

Tonight, if your skies are clear, you will be able to see a rare event. It is the second full moon in a single calendar month. Even more rare than that is a good photograph of the Moon taken by me through my 1200mm telephoto lens. This photo was taken two days ago, before the Moon "turned blue."

Pretty P'Nut

The other day, on a sudden whim, I put P'Nut's necklace on top of her head rather than around her neck. The result was so amazing that I asked her to pose for this picture. Am I just a biased grandfather? Or is she really stunning and beautiful?

Giant Willow Tree Gone

Here are two photos of what used to be a landmark for me. This giant Weeping Willow tree was visible from all the way across the lake, and its branches hung over the spot where I sat in my kayak to take these photos. I tried to blend them into a single photo, but there was too much distance between the two, causing too much paralax to handle with photo editing. You can see the damage to the house in the form of broken shingles, bent gutters and downspout, and a broken eave. Also the fence has been damaged and is only braced into position.

Paddling Down the Cedar River

Click Here to See the Movie
Here's a low-resolution version of the movies I recorded while paddling down the Cedar River last Sunday. In the full resolution version you can see the fish clearly, hear the bird calls, and see two of the three Blue Herons flying away. The biplane landing at the end is a bit more obvious too.