Congratulations Tigers!

Congratulations to our Gordonsville Tiger football team for winning the 1-A Championship today in the Blue Cross Bowl! We beat Hungtingdon 21-20. Me and Terry attended the game this afternoon as well as the entire town of Gordonsville it seemed. It was a nail biter, but we won a hard fought game. First time the Tigers have been state champions since 1984!

This afternoon's beautiful sunset!

Dark Sand Cascades on Mars
Image Credit: HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona), NASA Explanation: They might look like trees on Mars, but they're not. Groups of dark brown streaks have been photographed by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on melting pinkish sand dunes covered with light frost. The above image was taken in 2008 April near the North Pole of Mars. At that time, dark sand on the interior of Martian sand dunes became more and more visible as the spring Sun melted the lighter carbon dioxide ice. When occurring near the top of a dune, dark sand may cascade down the dune leaving dark surface streaks -- streaks that might appear at first to be trees standing in front of the lighter regions, but cast no shadows. Objects about 25 centimeters across are resolved on this image spanning about one kilometer. Close ups of some parts of this image show billowing plumes indicating that the sand slides were occurring even when the image was being taken.

Stars

 

How countlessly they congregate
    O'er our tumultuous snow,
Which flows in shapes as tall as trees
    When wintry winds do blow!--
As if with keeness for our fate,
    Our faltering few steps on
To white rest, and a place of rest
    Invisible at dawn,--
And yet with neither love nor hate,
    Those stars like some snow-white
Minerva's snow-white marble eyes
    Without the gift of sight.

Robert Frost

Stars and Clouds at Dusk

Dreams in the Dusk

Dreams in the dusk,
Only dreams closing the day
And with the day’s close going back
To the gray things, the dark things,
The far, deep things of dreamland.

Dreams, only dreams in the dusk,
Only the old remembered pictures
Of lost days when the day’s loss
Wrote in tears the heart’s loss.

Tears and loss and broken dreams
May find your heart at dusk. 

Carl Sandburg

Our Japanese Maple tree is a sea of red. Beautiful!

More Thanksgiving Outtakes

Thanksgiving 2012

Our family had a most excellent Thanksgiving. My sister, Jane, and her hubby, Don hosted this year. The food and fellowship was awesome! I have the greatest family in the world and am so blessed to have each and everyone of them in my life!

Thanksgiving group shot outtakes :0)

Another astrophotography shot by popular demand :0) I haven't taken new photos in awhile so I'm reaching back into my photo archives. Hope to have some new shots asap.

Another astrophotography shot from Sept. 8 of this year.

I love astrophotography! I took this shot outside our house on Sept. 8th of this year. All you need is a camera and a tripod. A remote shutter release is helpful too. Here are the settings I use for this type of photography. It's real easy to do.

Camera settings

• Program Mode - Set to Manual.
• Autofocus - Turn off, or set to Manual.
• White Balance - Set to Daylight or use a custom white balance (especially if your camera is modified).
• Drive - Set to One Shot.
• ISO - This is discussed in detail in a following section, but generally should be set to 1600 or 800 for long-exposure deep-sky astrophotos.
• Metering - Generally doesn't matter, but you can try setting it to Spot if you are shooting the Moon or Sun (with proper filtration)
• Exposure Compensation - Set to Zero, no exposure compensation. Doesn't really matter because you are not using autoexposure.
• Shutter Speed - Set to the exposure you want, up to 30 seconds can usually be dialed in directly. For longer than 30 seconds, set to Bulb. On some cameras, Bulb may be a separate exposure mode setting, or it may be accessed on the shutter speed dial past the 30 second setting.
• Self Timer - If you don't have a remote release, you can use the camera's self-timer to trip the shutter so you don't have to touch the camera, which will help reduce vibrations and possible star trailing.
• Mirror Lock-Up - For long exposures with a very solid mounting, it probably is not necessary to lock the mirror up before an exposure. For short exposures for high-resolution planetary or double-star work, it is a good idea to lock the mirror up before the exposure to reduce camera movement and vibration caused by mirror slap. Some cameras access this setting with a control on top of the camera and some through a custom setting in a menu. Some cameras like the 20Da require the shutter to be pressed once to lock the mirror up, and then be pressed again to actually open the shutter. Take care to learn exactly how your camera works for this feature, because you could press the shutter thinking you have opened it for a long exposure and go off to do something else, and then come back only to find that all you had done was lock the mirror up and that no exposure had been taken. Some cameras do not offer a mirror lockup up at all, but they may move the mirror up out of the way as the first thing when using the self timer. Read the camera manual to learn how your particular model works.

Pod Thingys!

I found these really cool little pods growing in our mulch. I'm not sure what they are.

If you look closely you can see a face on this one.

The Fog

Fog rolling through Gordonsville early this morning.

Welcome to Fall!

Terry took this shot on Aug. 11, 2012 from the top of the bridge in Cumberland Mt. State Park. I love the reflection of the clouds and sky in the water!

This is a shot from Aug. 11 of this year from our road trip to Cumberland Mt. State Park.

Happy Veterans Day!

Thank you to all veterans past and present for the freedoms we enjoy today! God bless you all!

My father, Flynn Mabry, served his country in WWII in the Army Air Corps. He was stationed in Thorpe Abbotts, England where he served as an airplane mechanic with the 100th bomb group, 350 bomb squadron. He helped to keep the B-17s flying!

Foggy November Morning in Black and White

Super Massive Spider Web

This picture goes back to our Aug. 11th road trip to Cumberland Mt. State Park. This is the largest spider web I've ever seen.

We had our Bradford Pear trees on the side of the house topped yesterday. They were planted not long after we moved into our house. Hopefully they will last us another 5 years.

The Maple trees in our front yard are really pretty this year.

November 2 sunset.

Our University of Tennessee Volunteers played Troy earlier today. It was a close and hard fought game. The Vols ended up winning 55 to 48. We celebrated our win with a victory fire in the back yard. It was a gorgeous day. After it got dark, we brought out one of our sleeping bags and spread it on the ground by the fire. We had a great time until the storms moved in. We stayed out as long as we could until the lightning got so bad we had to abandon our fire and take shelter on the back porch. Hope your Saturday was awesome! Daylight savings time ends tonight. Don't forget to set your clocks back an hour.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Him Loves Him Rabbits

Years ago I used to collect stuffed rabbits. I have them stored in a large basket in our upstairs bonus room. Bullet found the basket and the rabbits and has been dragging them out to play with. He will bring them to us like he has killed a real rabbit. It's so funny. Of course we heap praise on him for bringing us a present.