Peak Color

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It was a cloudy, rainy, and wet day yesterday.  I headed out with my camera and tripod around 5PM to see if I could find something worthy of a picture.  I had noticed on the to/from school trip for the kids today that we seemed to be at peak color now.

I found that one of my sasanqua camellias was blooming:

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But then I also found this gorgeous dogwood in my neighbor's yard:

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The tree sits right by the front of the house, and in my daily, I thought the white rail was a nice contrast to the red leaves.

It was Cars2 on DVD last night, a beautiful fire in the fireplace, and a wonderful chicken leg and broccoli rice casserole for dinner.

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The Hoodie

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Ever since my boys were little, during cold weather (and sometimes warm weather), they've enjoyed wearing hooded sweatshirts.  I lucked out at the end of year clearance at Wal-Mart last spring and got matching NC State red/black hooded sweatshirts.  The boys have been enjoying wearing them this week now that we've had some chilly temps.  Here Johnny is playing on his school playground while we wait for a parent teacher conference for Joey.

Here's a shot of Joey that I liked too:

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I worked hard to get the Halloween decorations down last night.  I put up our Tom Turkey Thanksgiving inflatable and gave some thought to what I might be able/not able to do for Christmas this year.  I'm a bit upset about lifting restrictions post surgery right during the Christmas holiday.  Sigh...  One day at a time, right?  Right!

Rain expected all day here.  Wishing for sun and great photo ops.

Maple Tree Color

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I took a few minutes yesterday while out at an appointment to take pics of this pretty maple tree in the midday light.  It was hard to pick which one I liked best.  I mean, it was easy for me to find something I liked about each of these shots.  I went with the one with the branches framing the leaf because I thought it was somewhat unique and had geometric as well as color and light interest.

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The Old Homestead

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I took a few shots of the old homestead a few days ago.  I've take shots of it many times before.  I was just curious what it was looking like these days.  The light was so bad that I thought that the shots I took didn't have a chance of being worthwhile.  I took bracketed images just in case I wanted to pump them through Photomatix.   Below is the original devoid of color and life and detail. As you can see in the daily, Photomatix did a nice job of bringing out the best in the shot.

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Another new view:

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My favorite all time shot at this location:

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Isn't it amazing how different light and different sky on different days will causes Photomatix to process the shot so differently!

To be clear, I stand where I stand to take these views because of a fence.

Yates Mill

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I mentioned that I wanted to share a Yates Mill shot as a daily and talk a bit more about my visit there with Donnie on Sunday.  This shot was taken on the observation deck across from the mill while a tour was going on.  The water wheel was running, and I could hear the soft tumble of the wheel as I took this shot.  I was fussing...well pleading...with the folks on the platform to move on and finally I just took a few bracketed images anyway.  A few minutes later, the wind picked up, and the perfect calm of this shot was gone for the rest of our visit.  When I ran the shot through Photomatix, I asked it to reduce movement of people and between them being reasonably still and the software, I don't see any ghosting...whew.  The original underexposed shot is almost this blue too, so although the color is a bit intense, that's just as much how it really was than the software.

A few other Yates Mill shots:

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The 'Fall Learning Activity' aka party in Joey's classroom yesterday was a lot of fun.  I got to be wrapped up like a mummy...5 times:-)

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We had a lot of fun trick or treating last night despite the fact that we had a chilly rain.  For the first time that Teen and I can remember, we had to drive the kids around instead of walk.  Even so, we all had wet feet along with our buckets of candy.  The rain kindof slowed me down on picture taking although I did get a few shots to remember the evening by.

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Yes, that's me on the right and I am dressed as who you think I might be:-)

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The following shot just goes to show that sometimes the best shots are the unplanned at the end when you're least expecting them shots...

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Until next year...it's a wrap:-)

Happy Halloween

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This is a big pumpkin from Porters that I carved last night.  It turned out a bit spooky...

Joey did the Frankenstein pumpkin on the right with a little help from mom, and Johnny did the geometric face on the left almost entirely by himself from drawing the design to cutting out the pieces.

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Some other shots of us cutting out the pumpkins and goofing off from last night.

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http://fotomom.smugmug.com/Yates-Mill-Pond/Yates-Mill-103011/19823761_NkjKTJ#1558290531_86gfs5f

I used the self timer to take this picture of me and Donnie at Yates Mill yesterday afternoon.  Silly me left the tripod in the van, but Donnie managed to use my coat to get the camera to sit on the bench rail.

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Boy do I like this picture!

More on the mill later in the week as I have some more shots from there I'd like to talk about along with posting a daily from there.  With it being Halloween, despite having mill shots to share, I felt I had to go with the pumpkins as the focus today.

Autumn Leaves

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A was out in the yard for a few minutes yesterday afternoon after the rain left and the sun came out.  We still are not at peak color.  We've not had a frost yet, and I think last night was the first night the temps have fallen into the 30s (33?) so far this autumn.

I'm going to be very impressed if you know what kindof tree this 3 fingered glove looking leaf belongs to.  Are you ready?  Sassafras.  They are all over my yard mixed in with the oaks, maples, sweet gum, holly, and pines.  I love the unique shape of the leaves.

I also took the dogwood shot below.

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And, a bit earlier in the day, this fern/creek shot in Donnie's front yard.  He loves the ferns and encourages them to grow throughout his yard and creek area.  I thought the colorful leaves in the creek behind them made for a nice backdrop.

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Donnie and I are headed to Yates Mill for a walk around the millpond and hopefully some nice pics:-)