Halloween

This was our pumpkin head. It attracted many children of varying sizes, and varying concepts of what halloween costumes might be like. Older boys favoured ice-hockey garb, while older girls tended towards the witchy look. Younger children were more imaginatively decked out by their parents. They were all polite and well-behaved, and took our candy in a good-natured way. I probably ate too much of our own candy.

Mazda 3

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Originally uploaded by davidmold.

Got my new car - this was taken on the forecourt at the garage.

Back Garden

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Originally uploaded by davidmold.

Around lunchtime, the sun in the south streams through the trees, and the trunks of the pines make long shadows.

Office Panorama

I should probably tidy my office at some point. Maybe tomorrow.

Amy

I found this old picture on my hard drive, and it made me miss the cat. This used to be one of Amy's favourite places to be.

More Halloween

Everywhere you turn these days there's something spooky-looking. This ghost made out of some plastic bags and an umbrella is learning to play football with a pumpkin.

Vectors

This is a journal of culture and technology in a dynamic vernacular. Never mind that no-one knows what on earth that might be, these fellows have gone ahead and done one, and it's already into its second issue. Have a look at the projects. So far I have examined WiFi.Bedouin. It takes a long, long time to work out what the point of it is, and I am still not entirely sure. Still, they talk in the journal as if it makes sense to them. Does it really or are they blagging it? You decide.

By the way, they have a fancy Flash presentation for WiFi.Bedouin, which presents it in a very confusing way. There are some more accessible regular web pages, however, which explain it better.

Clyde Shepherd Nature Preserve

Went to visit this place today, and found it to be a wonderful area full of surprises. We saw cranes and kingfishers. Below is Aster pilosus, which is one of the beautiful wild flowers in bloom at this time of year.

To the left is a Yellow Garden Spider, Argiope aurantia, which looks very impressively large but is harmless to people. The females grow to be twice the size of males. There were quite a few to be seen by the side of the path.

Butterflies in October

Butterflies in October in Atlanta are quite a common site. This one is a garden visitor, and likes the flowers that people plant around their mailboxes, so you sometimes see one by the side of the road. It is a Pearl Crescent, Phyciodes tharos. The caterpillar eats several species of aster. More information on the butterfly is here.

Halloween Decorations

It is coming up to halloween. In order to encourage trick-or-treaters to come to their house, or simply to amuse their children, people decorate their porches and front gardens with halloween-themed items. The people at this house made a werewolf to sit outside drinking a beer. I'm not sure what he has in his left hand. The bushes are decorated with spray-on cobwebs.

Most people just put out a pumpkin or two though.

Looking out the window

It's good to look at the sky through the pines. In our house you can lie on the sofa and see this view.

A lot of needles fall down from these pines, and the cones drop all over the lawn. Squirrels run along the branches and up and down the trunks.

Sometimes people come to the house and say "Oh, these big trees, you should cut them down." What would you say?

Chrysalis

Here's a pupa. I found a larva wandering in the garden a few weeks ago, and he turned into this. What will it turn into next?