Trick or Treat

Well, it is Halloween!  We had probably 50 or so cute little kids and a few that were not so little.  I thought the green and purple grape costumes were great.

I admit that I kept the Butterfingers back...

A closer look at Aluminum Overcast

 Since I was able to get a decent photo of the B17 flying overhead yesterday morning I took my wife and went to the Bloomington Airport to get a closer look.  For $5.00 you could crawl through the plane, so, why not!  Boy, I certainly admire the people who did this.  It was difficult navigating in the plane even when it was on the ground. Here are some photos I took (click on individual shots to enlarge).

 

 

You can see me standing in line to get on the plane in the reflection above.  At the left is the cockpit and the view below has a bit of Photoshop work (guess where my photography club Creative group meets each month).
 

"Aluminum Overcast"

This B17, restored by the Experimental Aircraft Association, is visiting the Bloomington (IN) area this weekend.  The plane is taking WW2 veterans for free flights and will do an "overflight" prior to the IU football game on Saturday.  It had passed over my house several times last night and this morning so I snapped a few photos.  "Aluminum Overcast" is the name of the plane.

Definitely a Strawflower!

Luckily there has not been a killing frost since I took the picture of my mystery flower.  It has opened enough that I can see that it is a strawflower (Helichrysum).  What I didn't know is that strawflowers are in the sunflower family--but if you look at it you can see the similarities.  If you click on the image you can see all the ants happily playing around the stem.

Neat compost

Only my wife would make the pre-compost leftovers from her fruit look artistic.

Ctenuchid moths and skipper butterflies.

I have quite a few Mums (or Asters) around the house and garden.  I think it is fascinating to see all the insects that like to pollinate them.  There are quite a few different bees, but these two guys  are there almost all the time.  I finally got interested enough to look up the orange-headed guy.   I like the quote: "Another sure sign of fall - in addition to the woollybears crossing the road - is the appearance of ctenuchid moths on the last blooming flowers of the summer."  I think the butterfly at the top is a Fiery Skipper butterfly, but remember there are thousands of skippers!

White Sulphur

It took me weeks to finally get a half-way decent photo of the simple White Sulphur butterfly.  I see them all the time but they don't like to sit still very long!  This one is sitting on my Thai Basil.

Yummy!

It's always great to have the kids home for a cookout on a fantastic fall day.

Invaders from Mars pods?

There is a rather attractive trumpet vine growing on a Sassafras tree in my back yard.  The lovely orange flowers are certainly long gone but I noticed the seed pods as I was going through the garden so I snapped a picture.

What I didn't know is that the trumpet vine is an invasive species! After reading some of the stories I am becoming a bit worried, but hey--they can't be any worse than the bamboo that is creeping this way from down the street.  The scary thing is the number of seeds in each pod.

Airports are weird!

I always am amazed at the time and money spent on making airports as ultramodern as they are.  I wonder how much the artist was paid for the "ceiling" in the Indianapolis International Airport.  The blue-green ovals have "cilia" hanging down from the edges. 

Pretty peppers!

Indiana University does go all out on landscaping the campus.  I do love the corner of Fourth Street and Indiana this year where they have an absolutely amazing growth of ornamental peppers.  I noticed that several of the bushes have disappeared during the year, but most are still going strong.

Painted Lady

I am going to have to get a point and shoot with a better macro lens!  This shot is not bad, but I had a devil of a time getting it in focus.  I am fairly sure this is a "painted lady".

Baby Gopher Purge

I like the lighting in this shot.  The original Gopher Purge has long since bit the dust (probably too dry), but several sprouts have come up.  I don't know if they will over-winter, but I will keep my fingers crossed.

One last visit to the Asters...

 The sun was shining on the asters this morning and I didn't have anything else worth taking a picture of, so.......

More Asters (or Mums?)

Whatever you call them they are pretty in the fall.

Fall bounty!

We have already had several of the acorn squash and one of the butternuts.  My wife thinks these are much better to grow in the garden than the gourds I usually grow (I still have one gourd this year).

Nasty in the morning

Nasturtiums remain my favorite flower.  They not only are pretty, but they taste wonderful.  I like the morning dew on this one.

Peppers galore

I guess the heat and dry weather works for peppers!  I admit that I have been watering some of the plants to make sure they didn't completely dry up.

Please stay warm for a few more days....

If you look in the middle of the picnic table shown yesterday you can see one clay pot which I have nursed for nearly six weeks (or longer!).  I kept thinking it is probably a week since it just gets bigger and bigger each day, but as you can see it is obviously a flower of some kind.  I just hope it blooms before the first frost.  I do know that it is big enough that it has to be watered every day.

Almost gone...

Compared to the photos I took this spring of the garden, this looks sad!  I still have a few things going strong (cherry tomatoes, peppers, Swiss chard), and I have leeks, spinach, and bok choy growing in pots on the picnic table.

More Fall

I know I should be raking them, not taking pictures of them (but leaves are kind of neat).  These are from our Sweet Gum tree.

Flower week

Fall is fast approaching so I spent some time snapping pics of flowers while I still can!  The Asters are starting to look great (especially with the morning dew).

I'll take Baskin Robbins

Picnics with chemists are always fun.  This (of course) is the "home made" ice cream.  I don't know about you, but the bubbly concoction on the right looks downright ugly.

Fall colors

Amazingly enough the trees are starting to put on a little color in spite of the fact that we have had less than 1/2 inch of rain in the past six weeks along with record-breaking heat (86F today for a new record).  There is now an absolute fire ban in most counties in central and southern Indiana.

Jordan Hall at sunset

I had my camera in my pocket while walking across campus and snapped this shot of Jordan Hall in the late afternoon sunlight.

Persimmon time (almost)

I checked out my favorite persimmon tree locations and was really disappointed.  It appears the hot dry weather was too much this year.  Most of the trees I found had terribly dried persimmons already on the ground in spite of the lack of a frost.  This is the only tree I found that still had fruit in the tree.

Another Gigapan

I was mainly trying to see if my technique had improved any on making large micropanoramas.  This the the Josiah Willard Gibbs (famous for his thermodynamics) stamp published in 2004.  It is neat in that it has the equation for the Gibbs' free energy on his collar as micro-printing to prevent counterfeiting.

 

Magnified, this is what is on the collar:

You can enjoy the entire stamp on the Gigapan site.  For those interested the image consists of 189 photos merged using Photoshop.  I had to reduce the image from ca. 40000 x 23000 pixels by half in order to save it as a jpg file.

Morning Sun

There is something about the colors early in the morning sunlight.  No wonder really dedicated photographers go to extremes to get up before sunrise and set up to catch scenes at their best.  I am only willing to step inside and get my camera if my coffee is still hot and I have finished reading the morning paper.

This is the sedum plan growing next to my back porch.

Don't you just hate......

...walking across the yard in bare feet with these on the ground?

Actually, they are neat in stereo.  This is again a case where I just snapped several photos while moving my camera from left to right about 4 inches while keeping one spot centered in the viewfinder.  It is interesting that the first picture is usually not suitable, but the second and third or second and fourth make a nice stereo pair.  Actually depending on how fast you "pan" you can change the stereo from too little to hyperstereo.

 

In case you don't know, this is a Sweet Gum tree.

Backyard Birds--4

Another favorite at the feeder all year is the Tufted Titmouse.  They always look neat, but they do scatter seeds when the feed. 

Backyard Birds--3

While not one of my favorite birds, I have to include the Mourning Dove.  The thing I like most is how it always manages to try to keep it's head stationary when it moves around on the ground or lands on an unstable perch.  It reminds me of how we used to pick up hens at grandma's house and move them while they kept their heads in one place (how do they do that?).  There are almost always a pair of doves in our back yard.