More Fall Colors

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We don’t have a lot of brilliant fall color usually. This fall it seems like there’s more color than normal, for this area.

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There’s one spot along the highway that I pass on my way to town/work. For some reason the Bradford Pears are always extra brilliant.

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Today I remembered to take my camera along to take some pictures. Whatever pockets of color we get, we will admire as hard as we can!! 🙂

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For the Beauty of the Earth

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For the beauty of the earth
for the glory of the skies,

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for the love which from our birth
over and around us lies;

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Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our hymn of grateful praise.

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For the beauty of each hour
of the day and of the night,

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hill and vale, and tree and flower,
sun and moon, and stars of light;

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Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our hymn of grateful praise.

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For thyself, best Gift Divine,
to the world so freely given,

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for that great, great love of thine,
peace on earth, and joy in heaven:

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Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our hymn of grateful praise.

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Super Moon

About that full moon the other night, I hear it was super! We didn’t get to see it Sunday night or Monday morning due to it being very overcast. I thought maybe I could at least see it set Monday morning but lo, and behold, it was so overcast at 6:00 AM, you couldn’t see even a trace of the moon.

I learned something new about full moons and calendars this week. I’m designing a church calendar again and noticed, once more, that there are discrepancies between calendars and even online full moon charts. Here’s why: technically, this super moon was full at 8:53 AM on November 14. This means when the moon comes up in the evening on Monday, it’s already waning. So do you put Sunday or Monday on the calendar as full moon? At moonrise Sunday night it is fuller than at moonrise Monday night. Usually full moon (according to the calendar) comes up as the sun is setting. If you consider the 14th to be full moon, and if you’re looking for it Monday night, it will come up after dark. It comes up nearly an hour later each night.

Anyhow, calendars and full moon conundrums aside…. Monday cleared up beautifully and we had a wiener roast at my mom’s house for supper. The moon rose up, big and bright. On my bucket list is to get a shot of the moon on the horizon with an object silhouetted in it. We live in a very flat land with few hills, even you can even call them that. What “hills” we have are mostly covered in pine trees. They are not the most exciting thing to silhouette.

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There it is, big and round and bright! But without anything for scale, it’s hard to tell just how big it was as a super moon.

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My lens is 200 mm at the long end. I’m amazed at the details it can capture considering it is not a high end lens. This Leyland Cypress was at least 30 feet from me plus this is cropped.

Tuesday morning I tried again, even though it would be more light from the sun than I wanted (as I mentioned each day makes nearly an hours difference in the location).

The mists were rising from the water and the grass, and well, nearly everything.

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I had thought Lake Grace would be the mostly like to still see the moon at the horizon without going further out into the county where the farmland is. Alas and alack, the fog off the water totally obliterated the view of the moon.

But…

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All was not lost as the fog created another kind of beauty!

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A few more beauties in the early morning:

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This maple tree is supposed to be an “orange blaze” and this year is the closest it’s come to that. Usually they turn brown and fall off. We’ve had quite a few pine trees taken down due to the county working on putting a paved road in, and some trees came down that were diseased. I think the tree is more unprotected from cooler temps so maybe we’ll see more color out of it another year. Unless…those spots on the leaves tell a different story about the tree. Any horticulturists out there with opinions on that??

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That’s water beads on some outdoor seat cushions, in case your wondering if Scotchgard really works. 🙂