Although mostly Neil just tried a couple of new possible workflows for post processing his images so I figured as he had done the work I should post them for him.

As the title notes…gorgeous weather windows…high today was 73 and the low overnight will be mid 50s so we’ll have to shut down our windows a bit. Couple slight sprinkles the past week but nothing worth mentioning. 

Turkey day was pretty excellent for us even though it was actually a smoked and then grilled (to crispy the skin because crispy of course). Side dishes were an apple Manchego cheese salad which was surprisingly good and a loaded sweet potato casserole from Chef John which was surprisingly (for his recipes) mediocre at best. The bacon addition was great but Neil’s gonna go back to his pre baked and then sliced thick sweet potatoes browned in butter, brown sugar, and toasted pecans but he’s gonna add the bacon because that was the sole addition to the recipe that both of them liked. He made his Blueberry Crisp that they both like but this time instead of just blueberries he added dried apricots, craisins, and chopped dates along with a smidgeon of bourbon. Excellent with either ice cream or whipped cream (we’ve had both so far). We had leftover chicken on Friday and then leftover ricotta stuffed shells and marinara sauce from Wednesday night before the holiday…we didn’t want to get to being too over chicken. Saturday he took the bones from the chicken after stripping the rest of the meat off…froze the nice breast slices…and made some nice homemade chicken stock. Sunday he made gumbo…onions and peppers sautéed and then browned some Andouille sausage slices. Made the roux and tossed in some chopped bacon while it was browning…then added some of the aforementioned chicken stock and spices…cayenne, thyme, sage, hot sauce and the all important file (that’s ground up dried sassafras leaves and is pronounced like filet. It’s what gives gumbo the ‘gumbo’ flavor. He left out the okra because it’s okra and it’s nasty…and let it simmer for a couple of hours. Made the rice outside since he didn’t want to make the kitchen hot…then added the Andouille, the bits and bobs of chicken he saved from the carcass, and 20 or so bay scallops right at the end…to warm the first two and cook the latter but they only take like 2 minutes to be done. Served it over rice and had a nice bottle of Merlot alongside it…and as he predicted the leftover gumbo with some freshly cooked rice was even better Monday afternoon…they have to leave early for her Mastersingers practice and they need to run by the Wines R Us on the way home.

Over Tuesday and Wednesday…he went ahead and did the swap from their old watches and iPhones and dropped the old iPhones off at the shipping place for trade in…that will get them a bit over $300 back. The new iPhone 15s and watch series 9 are faster, don’t have battery life issues the old ones were showing, and have some nice new features as well. 

He started working on his visa application for Tanzania…some issues there he’s trying to get sorted out with the web page options…and checked again to see if he could get a seat assignment for the returning flight from Arusha Tanzania back to Amsterdam…when they did the reservations the was the only one he could not get an assigned seat on. He paid extra for business class seats so he could actually sleep on the overnight flights going and coming…and it turns out that Delta’s partner KLM wants an extra $87.20 to choose a particular business class seat on that returning flight. At worst…he’ll be 5 rows further back than the front of business seating and that won’t really impact him getting off the plane and on to his next gate to catch the flight back to the US…there is only a 55 minutes layover in Amsterdam but an extra 5 rows of seats to get off won’t make a difference as it’s not all that far to anyplace in the Amsterdam airport. Hopefully he’ll get the answers he needs to solve the visa application issue in a day or two.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the Iron Bowl or the annual game between Alabama and Auburn. They’ve now been involved in 2 of the 3 most dramatic endings to a college football game we’ve ever seen. Ten years ago playing in Auburn…it was the famous Kick Six bowl. The score was tied with 1 second remaining and Alabama attempted a 57 yard field goal to win…the kicker had kicked 3 total field field goals in his career at that point and none nearly as long…so it wasn’t likely to be good anyway but hey, ya gotta try. An Auburn defensive back lined up in the end zone, fielded the short kick…and ran it back 109 yards down the left sideline for the game winning points. Yeah…it was a great play and it was the second game that year Auburn won on a fluke play at the end…against Georgia earlier they had a deep pass that bounced off of 1 receiver, 2 defensive backs, and into the hands of a second receiver for a long touchdown that provided the winning points in that game. So…naturally those two plays were shown again this year as it was the 10th anniversary…and again…and again…and again. This year’s game itself was your typical Iron Bowl…back and forth, 4 total lead changes, and the relative records and quality of the two teams had nothing to do with the game. In this one…the much better team usually plays down from its best and the worse team plays much better so it’s almost always a tight game until the end. And ya know…it happened again. Alabama punted with about 3 minutes left and the Auburn receiver muffed the punt resulting in the 4 points behind Alabama team having one final chance to score and win. They drove down to just inside the 5 and then the Alabama center snapped the ball too early when the QB wasn’t looking for it resulting in an 18 yard loss so it was 2nd and goal from the 26; Alabama uses a hand clap to indicate the snap rather than words…and the defense isn’t allowed to clap at all if the offense uses claps to snap. One of the Auburn linebackers clapped immediately before the errant snap and it should have been called a penalty which would have given Alabama a 2nd and goal at the 2 yard line instead of the 26…but the referees didn’t call it. Third down was a touchdown pass but the QB was past the line so it was 5 yards back and loss of down so now 4th and goal from the 31 with 20something seconds left. After an Auburn timeout…they snapped the ball…Auburn had a 3 man rush easily handled by the 5 lineman and put 8 guys back in pass coverage while Alabama sent 5 receivers to the end zone. QB could have had a sandwich he had so much time and finally tossed a pass to the corner where one of the receivers had gotten both open and single covered. Jump ball…and he pulled it in for what turned out to be the winning score. After the extra point…Alabama kicked off and Auburn had it inside the 10 with no timeouts and about 15 seconds remaining. A scramble play ensued and it was incomplete but the clock runs now on incompletions in the last 2 minutes. Auburn quickly got onside and with 1 second remaining snapped the ball but it was intercepted and returned for another apparent score although it was overturned because the refs said he was out of bounds (but there was never a replay showed) and there was no time remaining anyway. Final score was 27-24.

And speaking of refs…those guys were about the worst officiating crew we’ve seen this year and I’m not saying it because they only called penalties on Alabama that shouldn’t have been called and didn’t call them similarly on Auburn…there were an abundance of questionable calls both ways. For instance…on one play 3 Auburn players went in motion simultaneously and that caused a Bama guy to jump into the neutral zone but no contact was made. Ball was snapped while all 3 Auburn players were still moving which is obviously an illegal shift penalty as only 1 person can be in motion at the snap and whether there are defensive players in the neutral zone doesn’t make it offside which was what was called. They also missed a blatant face mask penalty against Alabama on the kickoff after their first score…but the offender was blocked in the back into the kick returner which might have offset the face mask because only the block in the back was called. Me…I thought that it would have been offsetting fouls and the ball stays where it was when the tackle occurred. Like I said…poor officiating all around.

Ok, on to photos.

Great Blue Heron or GBH as we call it.

LBH…and I’ll give you one guess what those initials mean…the L is for Little. Note the red on the neck is getting a bit more pronounced…this means it’s a male and it’s getting on towards the mating season.

Snowy Egret. Can’t see his golden slippers…but it is what it is.

Ragnar the gator…haven’t seen him in a month or so in our pond so he musta been elsewhere. Strange pose as the middle of his body is underwater but the tail on the bank and the head floating. When we first saw it we thought that maybe the tail had been bitten off by an even larger specimen but after getting the photos and zooming in you can barely see the submerged portion of the body.

And finally…our newly resident (apparently) Osprey. He (or maybe she…the sexes look the same and are about the same size) has been sitting in this tree a lot lately with the cooler weather and this is the third time we’ve seen it having breakfast up there. Don’t know if it is a catch from our pond or not though as we’ve not seen it until after it was well into eating every time. Sorry the beak is missing but Neil didn’t notice it had its head turned until after it had gone when he was processing the pictures.

Interesting things found on the net.

This is a copyrighted photo so I can’t show you it directly…but go
here to see the 2023 Comedy Wildlife Award Grand Prize winner…Air Guitar Roo. Make sure you watch the changing sequence at the top to see all of the winners as well…but Roo clearly won hands down.

Cyas.