Almost Full Moon Commute Home

Posted on October 22, 2018 by vanbraman

Tonight the moon was almost full and was rising above the horizon as I tackled my nightly commute.

I first saw the moon while in Livermore when it was just over the hills and it looked very large. However, it was faint as it was still light. It soon disappeared behind the Altamont, but I knew that I would see it again later in my commute.

Peeking Moon, Altamont, Almost Full MoonAs I started down the Altamont you could see the moon just peeking over the hills.

Power Lines, Altamont, Full Moon, Back setHere it looks like I am driving into the sunset instead of away from it. I really like this picture with the power lines, the lone cow and the golden grass of the Altamont in the dry season.

You can see that the moon is starting to rise up into the air and appearing smaller and smaller.

However, you could still see a lot of detail of the surface of the moon which does not show up in these pictures.

Moon and Power Towers, Sunset, Golden Hills, Almost Full MoonHere are more power lines with the moon behind the towers. I go under several sets of power lines on the way home.

Moon at Dusk, Commute Home, Almost Full MoonIt is getting darker as I approach home and the moon is even higher in the sky.

I had to make a stop at the library on the way home and I tried to take a picture of the moon to show the detail.

Moon - Almost Full Moon - Beautiful Evening - Craters on the moonI was not successful, so decided to share this picture I took some time ago that shows the detail of an almost full moon. The moon will not be full until Wednesday.

Tonight I took a long solitary walk under the almost full moon. You can tell that fall is here as leaves are starting to appear on the sidewalks and it is getting a bit chilly.

Steven

 

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Cutting it Back

Posted on October 21, 2018 by vanbraman

Yesterday I did quite a bit of yard work and today I paid for it. However, it was not because of sore muscles. Instead I had very bad allergies, most likely from the tree work that I did. I do have to be careful when working with my trees. I always wear gloves since any scratches will have an inflammatory response. However, since I was cutting with a saw and generating a lot of small particles I guess I should have worn a mask. Note to self: Buy a mask to wear next time.

Tree Trimming, Tree Removal, Yard WorkHere is how my tree looked on Saturday morning. This is even cut back from earlier in the year. I have slowly been cutting it back. The long range plan is to get rid of it entirely since it no longer has a good water source and really does not do much for shading the house anyway.

Cutting back tree, yard workThe first step was getting rid of the remaining small branches. Then it was time to get cutting on the trunk. Unfortunately I don’t have a large tree saw, but I do have a nice handheld saw.

tree trunk, large branch, tree serviceIt took a lot of work, but I finally had a piece of the trunk on the ground.

Tree Trunk, cutting back tree, yard workHere is how the tree looks now. I can now wait to borrow a bigger saw from someone before I take the rest of it down.

Overgrown Back yard, rose bush, yard workI also needed to prune back an unruly rose bush. I had been letting this one grow so it could develop some good roots.

Pruned rose bush, yard workHere the rose bush looks much better. It looks a bit fuller than it actually is because of the shadow on the fence. It is an interesting picture.

Overgrown bush, back yard, yard workThen I had to figure out what to do with this overgrown bush. I planted this 17 years ago when I moved in and despite cutting it back quite often it has just grown too big.

I first tried to shape it a bit and reduce the height and width, but soon gave up. I took drastic action instead.

Bush cut back, Will it recover?, Yard workThis very well may not recover from the drastic pruning that I did. If it doesn’t I will just take it out entirely and plant something else. Perhaps another rose bush.

This was also a very dusty job and probably contributed to the bad allergies today. I got up this morning and felt so out of it that I went back to bed and didn’t get up till the afternoon.

Steven

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