This is Halloween

Jedi

Skeleton (notice the broken right arm)

Ghost Dog loves bones.  He went Trick-or-Treating too.

The Left-Handed Solidarity League

Saturday, Livia did what you do with trampolines: she broke her arm falling off of one.  When faced with the fact that it was her right hand, Livia wept, "But I do so many wonderful things with my right hand!"  To cheer her up, Ariel volunteered to eat all of his meals with his left hand until Livia's cast comes off.  This prompted the whole family to form the Left-handed Solidarity League.  I love the vicious look Livia's got -- like she's going to kill you with that spoon.  After she knocks you unconscious with her cast.

Columbian Exploration

Our usual Saturday adventure was interrupted by a busy day, so we moved our expedition to Monday, Columbus Day. Ariel had the day off, and we planned to go hiking with the H Family. Turned out that Mr. H did not have the day off, but we enjoyed the day with Mrs H and the three H boys.

Not knowing how much day-out we could all endure with 5 kids aged 2-9, I picked a gentle hike -- a little 2.2 mile stroll just outside the Beltway following Scott's Run (a body of water, not a daring escape) down to the Potomac River.

My camera failed to reset its settings back to a nice low f-stop, so I took a lot of crappy, grainy shots in the shade.  I'm really embarrassed about some of these, but they're all I've got.

We were lucky enough to ford the river a few times on these cement stepping stones.

Scott's Run meets the Potomac with a lovely little waterfall.  I like these two shots (above and below) because you can see the illusion of photography.  The top one is my SOOC (straight out of the camera) shot, while the bottom is the magic of post-production work (and the zoom of my lens).


Lena with Maryland across the river behind her.



Sometimes I let Ariel hold the camera.

Livia and Timmy were born within a week of each other, and have been friends since they were in nursery.  



We didn't see a lot of critters on this trip.  Most likely they heard us coming from a mile off.

First Battle of Manassas

We're trying to get out of the house every Saturday, and my rule is, if the sun is shining, we hike.  In 5 weeks, the dog will be cleared by the vet to go out in public, and I plan on taking him hiking.  The girls have been informed that these hikes in the interim are a test.  If they whine now, they won't come hiking with me and Blitz.  This prompted Livia to repeatedly remark, "This is awesome!"

So Saturday we went to Manassas Battlefield Park, site of two big battles in the Civil War.  We hiked the trail for the First Battle of Manassas (the most famous) and had a very enjoyable 6 mile stroll with occasional snippets of history thrown in for good measure.
Ariel with Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson.



Dad, what kind of tree is this?  Looks like a green bean tree to me.

Edit: Dad said, "Your bean tree is the Northern Catalpa Tree (Catalpa Speciosa). It is much prized by fishermen in that  worms and grubs enjoy dining on its fallen leaves. Many grow along the banks of the French Broad River near Brevard and everyone just called them Bean Trees when I was growing up."  
My handsome husband at Stone Bridge.



The old-wives tale says that the wider the brown band on a woolly-bear caterpillar, the milder the winter will be.  The band on this little thing is so wide, there's no black on him at all.  I'm hoping that's a portent of a hot, sunny winter, and not that it's just a different all-brown type of caterpillar.
We also found cicada husks.

To prevent the husks from being crushed in their pockets, I recommended the girls wear them in their hair like hairbows.  Ariel and I showcased this new fashion trend.  (Kira, I expect to see Rosie with insect exoskeletons in her hair.)
On a spur trail to see an old family cemetery, I spotted this beautiful Eastern Hognosed Snake trying to slither away.  I scurried to get in front of him while he puffed up and hissed and coiled into springing position.  For this shot, I was about 2-3 feet away, crouched down nearly on my belly.  Ariel was behind him with a stick asking if he should poke it towards me.  I knew it wasn't poisonous, but that didn't mean that I wanted it to bite me.

Weekend Trip to England

Saturday, I woke up rearing to go to a photography expo taking place at the same time/location of a craft fair. We were going to make a whole family day out of it, but when I arrived, the whole thing was fairly blasé. The theme of the photog lectures was photographing nature, so we decided to instead go out into nature and take some pictures there.

We drove through the countryside on tiny little one lane roads that reminded me greatly of England. Then we parked and climbed England Mountain at the Wildcat Mountain Natural Area, maintained by The Nature Conservancy.
Make certain that you vote in the poll of which of these two butterfly shots you prefer.
We encountered a fungus humongus.


And we saw some lovely tiny lichen.
Next we saw a stick insect. He was bookin' it across the trail.


At the 1.5 mile mark, halfway in, we came upon this little spring house.

Near the spring house was the Smith House, on old homestead, abandoned well before anyone thought of modern conveniences like plumbing, electricity, or rat poisoning. Livia went in first and then came out screaming that there were rats in the ceiling. Of course, I had to go in and photograph the place, and it gave me an extreme case of the heeby-jeebies. If you yourself don't take a lot of photos, you may not realize this, but photography is extremely hazardous. When you're looking through the viewfinder of the camera (or even at the LCD screen on a digicam), you lose all sense of everything going on around you. You could easily lose your balance from tripping over huge gaping holes or a gigantic rat could sneak right up on you. I went in aware of this vulnerability, so I had the girls guard me. I didn't manage to see any rats myself.

We had a marvelous time and appreciated our own house when we arrived home.