Fall colors unfold slowly

Fall colors are unfolding slowly - we are told that we are at light to moderate leaf change. Splashes of color (yellow, oranges, vivid reds) appear amidst the green. Assuming that the winds of last night did not blow all the leaves away and that the anticipated heavy rain this evening does not strip the trees, we should be seeing good color as soon as we have a bit of cold. We have been sleeping with the windows open. The rain is suppose to bring warmer air with it.

Papa Bear has been experimenting with what is called a raw photograph. It is software he has added to his camera from the public domain that allows him to capture and save pictures that have many more pixels, which allows him to produce pictures with range of light details similar to his High Dynamic Range pictures, but the objects in the pictures (water, leaves, clouds) can be moving as only a single image is needed. The sunset picture of this blog is such a picture.

We have been working in the yard as weather permits. We took one day to travel to Ellsworth to look for a saw. We also shopped for groceries at the Hannaford grocery there, which is a super store compared to the Hannaford on the Island: a couple aisles of organic foods, many more no-hormone meats. As we finished putting the groceries we purchased in the car, the skies opened and we were instantly soaked!! We have not seen such a sudden, short and heavy storm here before.

I have been loving my running - hope to do about 6.5 miles on Saturday after the rain stops. Could I run in the rain? Yes, and if I have to, I will, but the rain is suppose to stop by mid-day. I have found that my longer runs require water so I am now carrying water.

I attended a Bible study at St. John's on Thursday afternoon. The group meets for a hour or so. We read the scriptures from the lectionary. The words are read aloud, we reflect, and then share what jumped out to us - a word, a phrase, something we heard. The words are read again, and this time after we reflect, we talk about how the words relate to community - our local community, or a wider community (for example, the world.) At the end, we get to ask questions and discuss possible answers. The process is interesting and makes us responsible for understanding what we are reading and hearing. Several different translations are used and hearing the text with different words causes us to think closely about what we hear.

And a wonderful woman has shared a book with me about worship in the Episcopal Church, so I am learning more about what is done and why it is done. I am so thankful for her gift of this book!

I have been on a baking streak and we have had apple crisp, pumpkin bread pudding, brownies and large oatmeal cookies. I have another brownie recipe I want to try, too.

We are talking about what we need to accomplish before we leave, and anticipating for a visit from Baby Bear and Boo Boo next weekend.