My dad started to clear the tree that fell yesterday, donning some grubby clothes and breaking out the backhoe and chainsaw, much like the last time a tree fell while we were in town.

Today's agenda was for the removal of the biggest parts of the trunk, which is a one-man job (if the one man has a chainsaw and backhoe), so Anthony and I were relegated to observer. It's just as well, because Anthony was wearing the shirt he made with Aunt Natalie last year, and I wouldn't want to see it get sap or whatnot on it. I'm [...]

It seems that word of the tree that fell this afternoon has gotten out to the neighbors... a doe stopped by at dusk to check it out.

Continued here...

Never a dull moment around here. Yesterday was nonstop hubbub with Cousin Titi's visit and her daddy's birthday. They left for home this morning, so perhaps to fill in the quiet, a 70' (21 meter) tree decided to fall for no apparent reason. It's a sumac, which Wikipedia says reaches a maximum height of less than half that, so perhaps that's why it fell.

It just seemed to have been the tree's time. There was no storm, no wind... nothing special. Just a loud crack and, well, the sound of a tree falling, taking out a couple of other smaller [...]

Last night after enjoying Uncle Alan's cake, it started to rain a bit. With a thin but intense line of thunderstorms approaching, the dusk light turned the sort of semi-surreal greenish that might otherwise suggest a tornado, but it was apparent that it was merely from the odd circumstances of dusk + clear weather + aproaching storm.

In any case, the 8:30pm light was limited but gorgeous.

With the lack of light I didn't expect much in the way of sharpness from my hand-held 125mm Voigtländer attempts, but I had high hopes for the color, and was not disappointed.

So, my brother Alan is in town with Natalie and Titi, and since his birthday was the other day, my mom prepared a birthday cake for after dinner.

After Alan blew out most of the candles, Titi came over to inspect the cake.

For her part, though, she got the cutest little ice cream cone I've ever seen, perfectly matched to her 16-month-old size....

Anthony, hot and tired from play, benefited from the birthday occasion with cake and ice cream...