Golden Sky

Today was a free day.  A day all to myself.  So, after sleeping in and eating a massive bowl of granola, I grabbed my camera and headed for the woods.  I'm rather lucky, see, in order to get to the woods you have to go for a nice walk along the river, pass tons of dogs and waterfowl, meander across a meadow and climb a few rolling hills.  Not a bad way to reach my destination.  

...and not a bad destination.  Those trees were very tall.  They might just be able to get at whatever it is they are reaching for.

From The Prehistoric To The Current

I was studying some fossils yesterday.  Apparently I need to do more studying/learning because I found out that spiders and scorpions existed during the Cretaceous period.  I suppose if I think about it, it makes sense...other arthropods existed then...I just never thought about spiders doing so, and definitely not scorpions.  I also came across a beautiful trilobite.  (By "came across" I mean bumped into white visiting a museum). Here are the fossils of said creatures...

Today I was walking through Ormeau Park in Belfast.  I found a patch of mushrooms.  By no means am I an avid mushroom identifier, but after some research, I believe these to be panaeolus sphinctrinus.  Any awesome and capable mushroom identifiers out there?  Am I right in my assumption?  Or perhaps I found a new species? Eh eh?

A Walk in the Woods

So many of my days include a walk in the woods.  About 75% of my photography has been taken on a walk in the woods.  Why stop now?  Here are another two photos to add to that 75%.

Treeffiti

I looked up what I could only assume has been used before...the term treeffiti.  It has been.  Someone once said no one ever has an original idea...too true, too true.  

As horrible as it is to do something like this to a tree, it does look...interesting.

Perched, high up in a...Transmission Tower

These turkey vultures were lazily basking in the sun.  They reminded me of the vultures in Disney's The Jungle Book...all indecisive and British.  

Ridley Creek State Park

Today was my wife's birthday.  She requested a fun day somewhere.  I found a place not too far away that seemed to have the historic stuff that she likes as well as the outdoorsy nature stuff that I like.  It was Ridley Creek State Park and it was awesome.

Mansion at Ridley Creek State Park

This mansion is currently the state park office.  The grounds directly surrounding the mansion have tons of little paths.  One of which will lead you to...

Door to a Greenhouse

There is a pretty old, rather run-down greenhouse quite close to the mansion.  A gate led us to this door.  This door led us to...

Dilapidated Greenhouse

 Branches from plants that were not supposed to be in this greenhouse have broken through the glass and are winding their way across the ceiling.  The plants seem to be doing better than the building is.

Mushroom Forest

Today's subject became part of a delicious spaghetti dinner.  There are few better spaghetti sauces than ones that are a combination of every vegetable you have laying around.  And so the mushrooms I had sitting in my fridge doubled as my subject and my dinner.

Mushroom Forest

At the risk of sounding like some Mario level, I shall call this photo Mushroom Forest.  This image is worth two extra lives.

Mushrooms Before Swine

...Or at least mushrooms under swine.  It didn't take long for Confucius the Pig to make his way into one of my photos.  Here he is playing "King of the Mushroom."

The Results

The results are in.
My experiment, though the conditions were not perfect, seemed to prove that the moon was not noticeably different from Saturday to Sunday.  You will have to pardon the branches and stuff in front of the moon, but in order to get it at 8:00pm, I just had to hope that the branches wouldn't affect the results.  I can't see how they would.  I was at a shelter on the Appalachian Trail at 8:00, and had no intentions of hiking a mile one way or the other to locate a clearing.  Here's what I have...

 Clear Sky, Unclear Skyline

The outline of the moon is pretty clear.  If only I wasn't surrounded by trees, the shot would have been perfect.  Note: this is the only time you will ever hear my complain about being surrounded by trees.

Combined

Here is Saturday's moon superimposed over Friday's.  The outlines match up perfectly.  I definitely don't see a difference in size.  Perhaps there was a difference in luminosity, but the tree branches may have screwed that part of my experiment up. 

The earlier part of my day was spent hiking a small trail with my wife that brought us to some vernal ponds and then we hopped on the Appalachian Trail and did about 6 miles before we found a good place to camp.

Vernal Pond

It's fairly crazy to be hiking through the woods and suddenly come upon a pond right in the middle of the path.  These ponds are only a few inches deep but have some strange animals and plants living in them.  Need proof? Look up Fairy Shrimp.

Eggs, Lots of Them

The only animal life we saw were eggs.  They were everywhere.  These Vernal Ponds will be filled with frogs soon.