Solar Eclipse – Part 1

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We traveled from our home near Springfield MO to Poplar Bluff MO for the solar eclipse on April 8th. There was a flurry of activity on the day before the event to finalize our destination; the weather forecast was the key driver for us to choose Poplar Bluff (along with Whitely Park being a good location that was not included as part of the event planning by the city).

We left our house at 5:30 AM to pick up our daughter and son-in-law before heading east; it wasn’t long before sunrise. I took some pictures of it through the windshield of the car (my husband did all the driving).

We did not encounter any heavy traffic during our morning drive…got to the park 2 hours before the first contact…plenty of time for set up and looking around the park. We set up on an asphalt parking lot that never completely filled up so we spilled over onto the two spaces on either side of where we were parked next to a fenced soccer field.

I walked around to look at a few low growing plants…

And trees that were just beginning to leaf out. I realized that the trees did no have enough foliage to make projected crescent patterns onto the ground as happened when we were in Loup City, Nebraska for the August 2017 solar eclipse.

On the ground – I noted roots of a sycamore, seed pods of sweet gums (from last year and green ones from this year) and a clump of green (probably a weed) surrounded by brown thatch.

There were birds about:

Two purple martin houses that were beginning to be populated. One had a pair of house sparrows too; I wondered how long it would take for the purple martins to evict them.

A starling in the grass – keeping an eye on the sky.

And a group of robins in a tree without leaves but lots of twigs that made it hard to get a good image.

I took most of my eclipse pictures with my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HX) on a tripod with a solar filter taped to the camera body to cover the lens until totality). I had eclipse glasses that I wore to look at the sun with my eyes and put over the camera on my iPhone to take one picture. I’ll post my eclipse pictures on Sunday along with some my husband took…stay tuned for that.

Our yard/yard work – March 2024

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There is a lot going on in our yard this month. The bulbs I planted last year have thrived. The crocus bloomed first followed by the hyacinths and daffodils. The hyacinths don’t seem to bloom as well here as they did years ago in Maryland.

The forsythia bush in the corner of our yard is blooming profusely. I cut some to bring inside…and took some macro pictures of the flowers there. After the bush finishes blooming, I will trim it back significantly. I planted pawpaw seeds under it and I am hoping they come up…start my grove of pawpaw trees with the forsythia’s protection from the hottest parts of the summer days.

The fragrant sumac is blooming. I bought the young plant last spring after the bloom time so this is my first season to observe the small flowers.

The lambs’ ear is returning. The clumps that get more sun did not die back like the largest clump on the north side of the house. There are two in a sunny place that might merge over the summer.

The small hens and chicks are pretty with additional color forming on the tips of their leaves over the winter. There are still two chicks. I’ll be moving more rocks away from them so it will be easier for them to spread.

The vinca under one of our cedars is blooming. It seems to be well contained. I don’t want more of it!

I’ve planted more pollinator/butterfly garden seeds in two places: enlarging the existing wildflower garden and a sunny area under a pine tree where I cleared away most of the pine needles (it is sunnier there because I cut some low branches).

I’m not sure if the bulbs I planted from my parents’ garden are going to survive. They had to be planted in the winter…not the optimal time. Hopefully they will become established over this summer although I doubt they will bloom.

The mound where a pine tree used to be (it fell and had to be removed) is going to fill out nicely with irises and I planted a tiny oak there (I cut it from my flower bed last fall and put it in a vase to enjoy the fall color….it grew a root and put out green leaves! It will take years before it gets big enough to impact the bed but could eventually dominate the back yard!). The beautyberry that is there has not leafed out yet.

The hostas are beginning to emerge…in dense clumps. I decided to divide two clumps…since I have a shady place that I’d like to convert from grass.

I planted divided clumps (roots plus a furled leave or two) at the pine needle and flower bed boundaries with grass. I covered the grass with extra pine needles (from under the tree where I planted pollinator/butterfly garden seeds) and clippings from some bushes). I was thrilled when the hosta leaves unfurled within a day or two after they were planted!

There is still a lot to do in the yard. I get a little done every day I am at home and it’s dry…over 60 degrees.

Annual stick/pinecone yard clean up

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The chiminea left by the previous owner of our house comes in handy for burning sticks and pinecones that would otherwise be difficult to get rid of. The sticks come mostly from our neighbor’s river birch (the tree sheds into our side yard every time we have a strong wind!) but there is a mixture of crape myrtle and oak….and some branches trimmed from the forsythia last season that were thoroughly dried in their pile under a pine tree. The first two fires were all sticks! Most of them broke into short enough pieces easily enough but a few poked out the opening of the chiminea until they burnt enough that I could slide them the rest of the way in. The mornings were cool enough that I enjoyed watching the fire burn. My husband asked why I smelled like smoke when I came inside!

As I trimmed some lower branches off our largest pine, I realized that there were way too many pine cones and that I was going to need to burn some of them – particularly the ones that had fallen onto grass rather than the carpet of needles directly under the tree; otherwise the lawn mower was going to be challenged by them every time I mowed in the upcoming months.

I piled the cones into a wagon along with the forsythia sticks (which had broken easily into short lengths) and loaded the chiminea with the sticks and half the cones for the third fire of the season. I lit a paper towel wadded under the sticks to start the fire.

It was an interesting fire to watch. The forsythia sticks and most of the cones caught fire easily although some of the cones might have been damp enough to slow their burning. As the fire progressed, I enjoyed the movement of the flames…the shape of the cones and the way they changed from their brown color to black with glowing red crescents to black and white…and then ash. I added the rest of the pinecones once most of the initial load had burned….and they caught quickly. After they had burned down, I stirred the ashes and was surprised at the chunks that still hadn’t burned. I closed the screen on the chiminea and watched the fire die before I went inside – realizing how much I had enjoyed photographing the pinecone fire.

Walk in the Carrollton Neighborhood

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Getting out for a walk in the neighborhood was a treat during the routine of being with my parent in the hospital for 24 hours and then catching up on everything else (including sleep) for 24 hours…repeating. Even though I was exhausted, being outdoors in the crisp air was exhilarating; as always, I had my camera in hand to document what I noticed.

I didn’t get away from the house before I noticed the mini-mums in the front flowerbed and the oak leaves on the ground but held upright by the groundcover.

There was a flowerbed near the sidewalk a few blocks away that was full of ceramic yard art tucked into the plantings. The frog was my favorite.

I noticed that the city of Carrollton (Texas) has marked the drains along the street…indicating that the drains go straight to waterways (i.e. not treatment for contaminates).

There was a confused pear tree along the way – blooming in late November rather than waiting until the spring!

Refreshed and feeling less stressed…I returned to my parents’ house for a nap.

Bringing Fall Foliage Indoors

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I found a small oak and a maple growing in my flowerbed…cut them since they can’t grow large there. They were colorful so I put them in a kombucha jar on one of my office tables and have been enjoying them for the past week or so.

The oak was the largest of the two small trees and the leaves were a variety of colors. It is probably a child of the oak in our neighbor’s yard – maybe planted in our flower bed by a squirrel.

The oaks in our neighborhood retain their leaves longer than many other trees nearby…so maybe this young one will last longer indoors too.

The red maple seedling made an interesting macro image from above! It is smaller and more delicate than the oak…but the topmost leaves continued to grow after I cut it!

The maples in our yard have already lost their leaves but the small one indoors is still photogenic!

Our Missouri Neighborhood – November 2023

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I am planning to do a lot more walks around my neighborhood – get some quality outdoor time/exercise…maybe even what the Garmin calls ‘intensity minutes’. I’ll take a small camera with me…just in case I spot anything interesting. My daughter called me just as I was heading out so I didn’t photograph the great blue heron that was in a sunny spot at the edge of the pond; I just watched until it flew away while I talked to her.

I did some power walking almost to the furthest bridge before I stopped to photograph some oak leaves that had caught in the grass at the edge of the pond. The tree still had quite a few leaves to drop!

The willow seems to still have mostly green leaves!

A little further along there was debris on the walk; looking closer I realized it was seeds rather than leaves!

Even though the temperature was only about 40 degrees. The sunshine must have made the bank warm enough for a turtle to leave the water.

After I got to the other end of the ponds, I noticed a lot of maple leaves had fallen in the drainage channel and the grass along the path.

A short length of sidewalk on my route was almost covered with pine needles. I enjoyed photographing some cones that had fallen as well.

There was a stump at one end of the row of pines that must have been cut several years ago – maybe before we moved to the neighborhood. The color of the pine needles stands out against the gray of the wood and the powdery green of lichen/moss.  

A big plus – I accumulated 29 intensity minutes!

Our Nixa, MO Yard – March 2023

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The bulbs are up in our Missouri yard but making slow progress toward blooming because we keep having cold days! There are irises from a previous owner; I added more last fall along with daffodils, crocus, and allium. There is something growing low and around the irises that is very green (I suspect it is a weed/invasive but I am leaving it alone because I like its greenness).

The hyacinths are up and one tried to bloom. Most are still waiting to raise their buds above their leaves.

I am waiting to cut the decorative grass until late May…give insects overwintering there a chance to hatch and provide food for nesting birds.

The robins are back, of course. They don’t come to our feeder (they are not seed-eaters), but they are in our yard finding food – a good indicator that the yard might not be overwhelmed with chemicals. I am keen to let it grow as naturally as possible since I want birds and pollinators to be healthy here.

I have a clearer view of the sky in this house than I did in Maryland; the trees are not as dense or large. There is a river birch and oak in our neighbor’s yard that might provide an opportunity for a picture of the moon resting on branches…but I didn’t catch it this month. My camera’s night scene setting did a relatively good job of getting the moon in focus (Canon PowerShot SX70-HS on a monopod…me standing in my yard a few feet from my home office).

Overall – I like our new location…and plan to spend a lot more time in the yard when the temperatures are a little warmer.

Our Missouri Neighborhood – March 2023

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The temperature has fluctuated wildly – from the teens to 70s this month. I took walks on two of the sunny days. We’ve had enough rain that the drainage into the ponds had running water on both days, and I stopped on the bridge to take pictures of leaves from last season in the rippling water. Oaks, maples, river birch, and red buds are represented.

There is almost always a pair of mallards about….and lots of robins.

Some branches from a magnolia in a nearby yard are upright in the pond. I wonder how long they will last…..or maybe someone is trying to root them (i.e. start new trees)?

The turtles are more active on warm days. They all appear to be red-eared sliders. Their snouts are usually all that is visible unless they are closer to shore or sunning on some high ground in the pond.

One day I started out in sunshine but there were more clouds than I anticipated. I took some landscape shots….experimenting with backlight and the curving walkway through the trees around our pond.

Some geese were on the walkway (and this time of year I give them space since they might be aggressive) so I went up to the street to complete the loop to my house. I noticed that the stormwater drain is labeled ‘no dumping – drains to river’ with a metal shield; in Maryland the labeling was painted onto the concrete.

The red maples are some of the earliest trees to bloom. The trees along the path don’t have low branches so my pictures of the flowers rely on my camera’s zoom.

Sometimes I photograph something because I didn’t anticipate it…the oak leaf stuck in the chain link of the tennis court is an example.

Another is the mats of algae on lower spillway between the two ponds. They had washed from the upper pond but are doomed to dry out on the spillway if another rain does not come soon. Still – they were ‘emerald isles’ at a time of year where there is still a lot brown in the natural world.

Ritter Springs

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Ritter Springs is a park near Springfield MO – north of the city in a rural area. It was our first visit to the park (one of our exploratory day trips this fall). There is a one lane paved road a short distance into the park then a gravel parking lot. A gate blocked the gravel road down to a pavilion; near the gate there was a map of the park and its connections to other nearby parks via trails.  

The park would have been a lot more scenic a few weeks earlier before most of the leaves fell. When we were there, drives of leaves accumulated everywhere…filling any low areas.

Even so we enjoyed our walk through the woods along the road and on mowed trails – looking for photo opportunities. I spotted shelf fungus that were bright spots in the fallen leaves,

A buckeye butterfly in a sunny spot,

The torn end of a recently fallen branch,

Some red leaves still on a young oak…protected from the wind by the bigger trees,

And a tree top full of cones.

But probably the tree I got most excited about was the Osage Orange. The tree had a very limited range in pre-colonial North America but has been planted by settlers as a hedge where its thorns deterred free-range livestock from vegetable gardens and corn fields. It also has historical significance in plains states where is was widely planted in rows for windbreaks. This time of year it is easier to identify the trees with their huge fruits….or simply looking up after seeing one of the greenish orbs on the ground. There are a lot more of the trees in Missouri than in Maryland!

I took a closer look at one of the fruits.

Next time…we’ll go further into the park…maybe even all the way down to the Little Sac River!

Our New Neighborhood – November 2022

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The fall in our neighborhood peaked very quickly. It was already fading by early November but I still enjoyed trying to capture the remnants as I walked around the stormwater ponds. There were some leaves in the shallow water in the trough of concrete that feeds water into the ponds. I stopped to take some pictures looking down from the bridge.

And a few colorful leaves are still on the trees.

The oak leaves were thick at the edge of one pond…some wild asters growing through them…floating on the top of the water. I didn’t notice the fish swimming from under the leaves and water plants until I looked at image on my computer screen!

A red eared slider poked its head out of the water a little further away.

On the loop back toward my house, noticed a little color on along the path

And some brilliant red seedlings at the edge of the pond (will they survive to become trees?).

Our Missouri Yard – October 2022

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We had two mornings with temperatures in the 20s last week after I took some pictures of the yard. The frost didn’t seem to impact the oak or river birch in our neighbor’s yard very much.

The rose petals are all limp now, but the leaves are unchanged. Some of the buds might still open now that we are going to have at least 10 days of temperatures well above freezing.

The pokeweed flowers and berries survived very well but the leaves or limp. The berries that are already ripened will probably be eaten by birds, but the immature fruits are probably not going to develop further.

The oxalis triangularis that is growing on the east side of our house survived the frost unscathed! Maybe it benefited from being close to the brick wall of the house and getting sun first thing in the morning when the temperature was the coldest.

Now that is it warmed up again – I am planting bulbs: daffodils, hyacinths, allium, and crocus. The previous owner put landscaping fabric then rocks in the flower beds, so the task is very difficult. I removed a small cedar that had died and planted bulbs in the space – filling in the bigger hole I made in the black fabric with cedar mulch and rocks. Over time, there might be more and more of that…until there is not as much of the black fabric in the beds.  I am probably going to plant the rest of the crocus in the lawn since they will come up and bloom before the grass would need to be mowed!

Zooming – June 2022

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I didn’t have as many photographs as usual to choose from in June…too busy moving. There were still enough to choose twelve. The locations were wide ranging: our neighborhoods in Maryland and Missouri, the botanical garden in Springfield MO, our houses in Maryland and Missouri. It is occurring to me that my multi-day road trips between Maryland and Missouri/Texas are almost over. The trek between Missouri and Texas is an easy 6.5 hours!

Enjoy the slide show!

Moving Out

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The moving out day started out with a flurry of activity (putting bedding into closets to be used on inflatable mattresses after the movers left) and walking around making sure there was blue tape on everything that was not going on the truck. The kitchen area was where we stored the boxes/padding we’d use for the few remaining items that would go in a car when we left the house for the last time (the space between the refrigerator and the cabinet…and then in kitchen cabinets that were otherwise empty). I set myself up a working area with my laptop and papers associated with the move day. The Regency bag was for plastic bags of small hardware as furniture was disassembled. I put each set in a Ziploc with a piece of paper indicating the furniture it would be reunited with in Missouri. Just before the mover was due to arrive, everything was as ready as I could make it. I walked down the driveway and the took a picture of our oak with Virginia Creeper – a Zen moment.

The mover and his 3 helpers arrived shortly thereafter and then the team to prepare the grand piano (and treadmill) for the move. They put mats down on the wood floor…would have put more if we were not going to replace the carpeting anyway. Ramps were improvised for the two steps down from our front door. They loaded into the side of the truck. Big boxes of moving blankets and a big hanger of huge rubber bands to hold them in place around furniture were brought it. A steady stream of boxes were taken to the truck on dollies. The rubber bands and shrink wrap were the two innovations most noticeable to me since my last long distance move in 1983 (Plano TX to Springfield VA…..now we’re doing Laurel MD to Springfield/Nixa MO). The piano was partially disassembled, padded and loaded onto the bottom part of the crate which had been built specifically for it in front of our house (the team’s van had a generator to power the tools!). The piano went to the truck on a 4-wheel dolly where the rest of the crate was assembled around it. Going down the ramp at our front door was a bit scary for me to watch but the team told me that it was relatively easy (there was a job they had that required taking a piano down a muddy hill which they categorized as awful/scary but even they the piano came through unscathed).

10 hours from when they started – everything to go on the truck was loaded and the big truck pulled away. The delivery date for our move in is a bit more than a week away…but a lot needs to happen in that week!

Our Maryland Neighborhood

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I took an early morning walk in our neighborhood – down to the water retention pond…savoring the familiar sights and sounds. The first was our oak near our mailbox. It was a much smaller tree when we moved to the house over 25 years ago. I planted day lilies around its base about 10 years ago; they never get a chance to bloom because the deer eat the buds like candy but the leaves make a lush collar for the tree that keeps the mowers from damaging the trunk.

I took pictures of some of my favorite trees against the morning sky/shadow – maple, ginkgo and oak. The maples are thriving while the oaks are declining. The builder planted one of each near the street originally.

The ginkgo is near the street in one of the yards along the way to the pond. It leans a little toward the street.

At the pond, cattails were thick with old and new growth, the red winged blackbirds and green frogs (rubber band sound) were noisy, and I appreciated once again that the slopes are no longer mowed.

I managed to photograph a female red winged blackbird and a rather scruffy looking fledgling that she was feeding. The fledgling stayed down in the cattails more than the adult.

I took a picture of the oak overhead as I sat on the bench near the pond. It is a lot like ours…more dead branches than it should have.

The arborist that worked on our sycamore and plum talked about the oaks dying…that making sure they are watered is about all you can do to help prolong their life; it looks like all the oaks in our neighborhood are experienced a slow death. The Virginia Creeper that is growing on our tree makes it looks greener than it would be on its own!

Our Yard – May 2022

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Damp weather has been my excuse for not doing yard work…but I finally did a walk around and an hour of work a few days ago. The holly at the corner of the house was hiding the weeds behind it. They are gone now. The front flower bed had quite a few little trees: red maples and tulip poplars; they’ve been pulled.

I appreciated the oak near out mailbox. The tree has been declining but it looks like the spring rains have helped it come alive for another year. The Virginia creeper on its trunk has leafed out as well.

The azalea that drapes itself over a side of the front porch is blooming. I’m going to trim the bush beside it to give it more room….or maybe that will make it easier for the deer to nibble the tender azalea stems.

The nine bark bush is blooming. I will trim it after the blooms are done.

A branch broke in one of the bushes…I cut it out and the bush looks lush and green. There were also some vines growing up through the bushes…which I removed.

My goal in the chaos garden was to cut down everything except for the spice bush and, of course, the sycamore. I started but didn’t make much progress during my hour. I discovered some irises getting ready to bloom – which I won’t cut down!

Overall – I had a wheelbarrow of vegetation that I cut or pulled that was added to the brush pile at the edge of the forest. On the way I noticed that the violets are beginning to bloom. I dodged the ferns coming up under the deck as I returned the wheelbarrow to its place; there seem to be more ferns every year.

Springfield Yard – April 2022

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The stars of my daughter’s yard in mid-April are the redbud and cherry trees. She has two of each. The cherry trees are about the same size, but the redbuds are very different – a large tree in the back yard and a younger tree in the front yard.

As I was looking at the younger redbud in the front, I noticed that the huge oak in her neighbor’s yard had been cut down. I had noticed it had a crack in it and thought it needed to be seen by an arborist since it was so large that it would have taken out a house (or two) or blocked the street if it came down in an uncontrolled way. Still - it’s sad that the tree had to come down. It had probably been planted when the houses were built in the 1950s. My daughter has an oak of the same vintage in her yard. She’s already planning to have an arborist to look at that tree…and the rest of her trees.

She has an aging dogwood that is blooming right now but there are quite a few dead branches, and part of the trunk has no bark. Can it be saved? It’s small enough that it could die in place in the next few years and then be cut down.

Springfield Yard Macro – 1

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Last week, I walked around my daughter’s yard with my macro lens. I focused on the trees as first; none if them are leafing out yet…my theme shifted from buds to bark. There was a good collection of lichen and moss on the older maple by her garden room. I like the different textures of the lichen and how green the moss looks even when the temperatures are still relatively cold.

Perhaps the most spectacular ‘bark’ was on the river birch. There are layers of bark that can look like sandstone….or overviews of the desert southwest (complete with some green in one image). But these are all macro images of a river birch tree trunk.

A cherry lenticel. In our area of Maryland some cherry trees were already beginning to bloom…but not this one in Springfield.

A healed wound where a branch was cut – or broke – a long time ago in the life of a large oak probably planted in the 1950s when the house was built. The neighborhood is full of 70-year-old oaks. Some are not in good shape. This one had a large branch removed well before my daughter bought the house. The branches the tree normally sheds are relatively small…normal for a healthy oak.

Tomorrow---the rest of the macro pictures from my walk around the yard….

Trek to and in Druid Hill Park – Part II

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On out way to Druid Hill Park through Baltimore, there were some trees that still had most of their leaves! All the ones around our house in the suburbs to the south of the city and the airport have lost all their leaves.

I wondered if it was the heat island effect of the city or the disruption of wind by building and walls; there are some city microclimates that cause the trees to keep their leaves a bit longer…very noticeable right now. I also noticed tents periodically on medians and places along the road with a little more space (see tent on the right under the trees in the picture below); is this the way the homeless people in Baltimore are surviving this winter?

There is graffiti on buildings…but there are also bits of city art on otherwise mundane buildings. I wondered if the height and lights are have kept the art intact in some places.

On the way home – the GPS routed us through downtown and I took pictures of the Bromo-seltzer Tower as we stopped at lights. It’s used for artists studios now….next to a fire station.

Overall – the birding walk was a tiny step back to ‘normal’ for us although both by husband and I are beginning to realize that we’ll probably never be quite like we were pre-pandemic. It’s not just the pandemic that has changed us; more on that thought is few days when I write my month COVID-19 pandemic post.

A few more notes from November…

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As November is ending - there are a few more items I want to post about….

My 90-year-old mother still enjoys making breakfast herself and my dad. I photographed one of her more elaborate breakfasts when I was visiting: microwaved sausage patty, sauteed peppers, mushrooms and onions + cheesy eggs from a skillet, and a freezer biscuit heated in a toaster oven. I’m glad that modern conveniences (microwave ovens, precooked sausage patties, frozen biscuits) make it easier for her to prepare meals.

A brown-headed cowbird visited out deck on a cold morning….alone, looking very round scrunched down in the cold. It stayed around for a bit. I wondered if it had become separated from a flock or was just enjoying the sunshine and relative safety of our deck.

The sun backlighting oak leaves gives their color more definition. This was a morning that the grass was frosty; by the time I took the picture the frost was beginning to melt but it still added a sparkle around the leaves.

My husband was out at a county park/astronomy site for the lunar eclipse in the early morning hours of the 19th. It was cold but he was prepared for that and stayed until the clouds obscured the moon about 5 AM. He took lots of photos!

Finally – I enjoy finding ways to reuse single use plastic. I’m not sure whether this was a bowl or a dome from a food purchase….but it makes an excellent stand for my laptop when I am using an external keyboard! It allows for plenty of air circulation around the laptop, raises it off the surface of the desk (in case I spill something), and the light shining through it is appealing too!

Fall in Springfield, MO

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I arrived in Springfield when the squirrels were eating the jack-o-lanterns

And many trees had just dropped their leaves. At my daughter’s house, the maple and oak leaves collected in drifts on the driveway/patio, a mixture of leaves were staying where they fell on the grass (needing to be raked or mowed soon), and redbud leaves lined the stone walk at the side of the house.

We spent an hour vacuuming up leaves on the hard surfaces while I was there and put the shredded leaves in beds around the yard. I’m not sure all the leaves will be so easily dealt with although many can be mowed into the yard.

My favorite plants retaining their leaves were the magnolia (with some pods still holding their red seeds) and the oak leaf hydrangea with its drying flowers and red leaves. I think the oak leaf hydrangea moves to the top of my list for bushes I’d like to plant at my house!

The hosta’s are responding to cool temperatures with a yellowing of their leaves – a last bit of beauty from the plants before winter.

After we were done with our yard work, we cut some of the last Asian hydrangea flowers to take inside…maybe they will retain some of their color as they dry out.

Overall – it was a beautiful day in Springfield before I continued toward home.