Friday, October 10, 2014

TWO FOR JOY

With the coming of frosty mornings it takes a little extra resolve to leave a warm bed for an early morning walk.

 Still, I was up and on my way long before the sun decided to climb over the Grand Teton Mountains along the Wyoming-Idaho border.

 When I walked along the path by the golf course near the airport my shadow was wonderfully tall and long legged.

 The trees are putting on their fall foliage but haven’t dropped many leaves yet.

Black billed magpies are a common sight around here.  Usually they are spooked of cameras and are a challenge to photograph.

 However, I caught these two working on a duet of sorts.  Mostly magpies aren’t much for singing.  They give warning calls and the young ones create quite a racket when they want to be fed.

 I think this may be a couple of parents celebrating their empty nest and a bit of free time now that the kids have left home.

 I got in a few more photos before they spotted me and took off with a flash of white wings and flit of long tail feathers.

When I was a kid we had a jump rope rhyme about magpies.

One for sorrow,
Two for joy,
Three for a girl,
Four for a boy,
Five for silver,
Six for gold,
Seven for a secret,
Never to be told,
Eight for a wish
Nine for a kiss
Ten for a bird
You must not miss.

O-U-T jump out!


Do kids even jump rope on the playground anymore?

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

MOON LOONY

There’s not a lot to like about being at the point in life when one’s body refuses to sleep more than five or six hours without a trip to the loo.

But when I got up at around four-dark-thirty there was an early morning lunar eclipse going on.

I guess this is known as a “Blood Moon” from the reddish shadow caused by the earth’s atmosphere. It’s the same thing that causes a red sunset but it seems more spooky.

When I went for a morning walk a few hours later the moon had turned back to its normal color. Kids on the way to school were unimpressed.

I was the only one getting all loony about the big round thing in the sky.

The rest of the world was just going about their day.