Shoot the Moon

The night after Thanksgiving we had a beautiful full moon. I keep forgetting to return the Andrews' 300mm lens, so I pulled it out and about blinded myself. The moon is brighter than you think. It's just about impossible to include the moon in a picture of something else and not have it look like a tiny, featureless white dot — there's always trickery involved. So next time you see a poster of a giant moon rising over a cityscape, know that it's been faked. Click the picture for a detailed version. I'm an Apollo junkie and can't wait to see the new Ron Howard documentary.

The Hogwarts Owl Visits

Today Malcolm turned 11. When he was within earshot I made a loud banging, scratching noise on the front door. When I had Malcolm's attention I looked out the window in surprise and told him there was a large owl on the porch with a note in its beak. I think I had him going for a split second there. If you don't know Harry Potter, you have no idea what I'm talking about. Malcolm had his choice of meals today: he wanted a cheese omelet for lunch, then pot roast and mash for dinner. Also pictured are guests at his party after the homemade chocolate-on-chocolate mother-in-law cake.

Happy Thanksgiving

From us to you.

Five Mile Hike

Saturday last week Malcolm and I went on his first Boy Scout hike at Plotterkill, a nature preserve in our county, about 15 miles from home. Its name comes from the Dutch settlers' description of its cliffs and flaking shale ledge waterfalls: platte means flat, and kill means stream. The temperature was in the middle 30s when we arrived, but the terrain is steep, so once we set out we got warmed up. There are several falls there and the most impressive one we saw was around 60 feet. The Scouts cooked a hot lunch, which was as impressive as the falls when you're outside for five hours at this temperature. We came home tired but we had a great time.

Candy Times Two

The night before Halloween was our annual church Trunk or Treat, where people decorate their cars and the kids come around the parking lot begging candy. If you think about it, hitting people up for candy car to car is a much more efficient way to rack up the kilocalories than going house to house. Somehow that didn't stop our kids from going out the next night, too. Joanie's excellent homemade panda and tiger costumes (from the days when she had time to make costumes) have been amortized into service again for our littlest tikes.