Halfway to Winter

Halloween marks the midpoint between autumn and winter. In the past week it has definitely turned more towards winter as many of the leaves are down. Two weeks ago I captured these trees with all the leaves still on the limbs.



No bright blue skies today; the rains are coming in

But it's a schizophrenic time. There are still flowers in bloom. I guess that's what makes Halloween so interesting; not fall but not winter either.

With Halloween tomorrow I hoped to get a few shots of Jack 'O Lanterns on today's walk.

Not sure what this is supposed to be

I couldn't figure out what this was until I downloaded the picture to my computer

Crazy scary!

Interesting: painted, not carved

A classic

 Here's my punkin; I've got to figure out what to do with it.

As usual my craftsmanship doesn't match my vision. I wanted a big clown mouth and my theory on Jack 'O Laterns is that that the bigger openings the better. I think I made the mouth too big; I wish the candle wasn't so visible. Maybe pumpkin is not my media.
Carla did a nice job on getting the crazy sideways looking guy.

A picture from my new camera

Was playing with my new camera and wanted to get a picture that would grab the foreground and leave the background dark. Here's what I came up with.

One of the drop lights over our island

and another one with a bit longer exposure time (1/60 second v. 1/80) f stop 2; focal length 5.2

I was happy I could not pick up the late evening light in the windows behind the light.

Minestrone Soup

At the Volks March today we donated a few cans of soup for the local food pantry. So soup was on our minds and it seemed a little Minestrone was called for. The recipe came in a recent Cook's Illustrated magazine. Two things intrigued me about the recipe. First was the use of white beans. I've been meaning to use some white beans in a recipe and this seemed perfect. Second was the fact that you simmer a hunk of parmesan cheese rind with the beans for about an hour.

Here's the line up.

 Lots of good vegetables.

Mise én place

Render the fat out of the prosciutto

Add the onions, carrots, celery, & zuchinni

After the tough vegetables soften for about 8 or 10 minutes we add the cabbage, red pepper flakes, garlic, and a bit o' salt.

Add the cabbage

 Problem: We want firm vegetables in the soup but we need to boil those beans for almost an hour.
Solution: Reserve the vegetables for later use

Set aside the vegetables for a bit

Beans go on an aggressive simmer for 45 minutes. 

Add the vegetables back in for 15 minutes

Add some chopped basil

 Dinner is served

Dinner!

I think this is a winner! Perfect for a fall day.

Sherwood Merry Walkers Volks Walk

My work has a "Healthy Steps" program where you get points for various activities. I get most of my points from swimming and yoga, but you need to have a few public activities in order to get full credit (meaning cash rewards at the end of the year and reductions in health insurance premiums).

I found the Sherwood Merry Walkers website through work and the 10K walk through Sherwood during the fall colors looked like it might be fun. So this morning we headed down Roy Rogers Road to the Sherwood YMCA which was the starting point

I just got a new camera this week: Canon Powershot S100; today would be a good time to see how it works. It's got a lot of options; it will take me a while to get used to them all.

Right off the bat I realized we were in for a scary walk

Ghouls and Goblins

But the trees were pretty so we carried on.

Looking east down Sunset Blvd

Scary scary; we must be near an old grave yard

A nice little house in downtown Sherwood

We got to cross railroad tracks TWICE. I think this is the line that WES uses

A little pond in the wetlands. Ducks headed straight toward us when we stopped

More fall colors with some other Volks Marchers on the route

A cemetery! We whistled as we walked by

Walking down one street the trees are red

Turn the corner; different trees..different colors

A scary ghoul

We'll definitely do this again.

Fall Colors

I love this time of year around the neighborhood. Our trees turn a beautiful shade of yellow and form a canopy as we drive home. So we went out for a walk in the afternoon sun and I took the camera along.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, here is a long essay.

The camera I have my eye on has GPS, so pictures will post with their location.

(Further down I added pictures from our Sunday walk to the pond near Nimbus Ave.)

These trees caused our neighbors many problems over the years. No more

Then on Sunday we walked over to the pond near Nimbus Ave.

An alley way between Southridge HS and Nimbus

Fanno Creek

A little red among the green

Tough thing about suburbia; can't get away from poles, roads and what-not.
That's the original Fanno Creek farm house in the background

Looking across the pond

My jig-jaw picture

Interesting plant at one of the buildings in the industrial park near the pond

Carla's coleus outside our front door. Just a few more weeks before it gets too cold.

Saturday October 29; still a few trees with colors left. I'm no biologist but it seems that the yellow/orange leaves are gone and the mostly red leaves remain