Fall 2014

Kayaking Turkeys Hikes Lake Front Snow

Mom's Birthday & Uncle Roger's Visit Dad's Birthday & Uncle Jerry & Freys Visit Powerline Glitch in Yard Thanksgiving in Gaithersburg

Alan made homemade bread and baked it by the fire.

He used his Grandmother's camping reflector oven.

Yes, it worked great! The results were tasty.

Grandma Fowles former home on West Boulevard in Cleveland. She lived here for 50 years.

Glen took down the remaining hickory tree stump in Julie's yard.

and transported it via lawn tractor to our yard.

We finally upgraded our cell phones and got a family plan with smart phones for everyone. That evening, the power went out, but we had new devices to play around with and learn while running battery lights for illumination.

Fog

And then it started snowing! September 30th is a little early for that.

Deer wandered through the front yard -- why we need to cage the fruit trees!

October 10th: Frost dusted the yard and Halloween decor.

the lower yard glows yellow in the fall.

leaves adorn the creek behind our house.

sunrise cast an eerie glow this particular morning.

Salamander by the creek.

October 23rd: A partial solar eclipse was visible in our area right around sunset. These images were taken with my Lumix zs19 camera through special eclipse-viewing shades.

And then the sun dipped into the clouds at the horizon.

Backyard in fall.

Alan spotted the imprints of leaves on the stepping stones.

playful squirrels

I moved the stump of the pluot tree that was taken down in January by the car on our lawn. It's coming back up from the roots, below the graft, so I expect it to be a Citation Plum; that's probably what the rootstock is.

Oak leaves on our front yard tree.

Ready for the trick-or-treaters.

Coast Redwood

Sequoia seedlings grown from seeds.

Black squirrels have definitely migrated into our area. They were reintroduced at Kent State years ago and have been slowly expanding their territory since.

A not-really-Thanksgiving turkey dinner, just because.

With a cake for Dad's birthday, since the actual day was tomorrow, although we had also celebrated with Jerry, Beth, and John when they were in town.

We tried to get a head start on Christmas decorations and put up the pole with lights.

And then we got an extremely windy day with gusts over 50mph. So we packed up the lights and tried again after Thanksgiving, next time with stronger support ropes.