Happy Halloween!!

Mystical Pants

A Bird in the Hand

I found this little Pine Warbler at the end of my driveway the other day. He was lying face down with wings spread, dazed. He didn't appear to have been mauled by the cats. It is possible that he had flown into something. I'm not sure what happened to him, but I picked him up to keep the cats from getting to him. After a brief rest and encouragement from his friends, he was able to fly away.




Here he is resting in a dishpan. The entire time he was disabled, his buddies were chirping and calling to him. The noise they were making was what caused me to walk to the end of the driveway to see what was going on in the first place. There are plenty of Pine Warblers in the neighborhood and they are often in our backyard, flitting, chirping, and fussing about in the trees.




I had to take one more photo of this adorable face before letting him go. Click for a closer look.

Baby Pants

Dress Pants

Portrait

Two More Photos of the Ladies and Parting Shots

I didn't get these two photos uploaded yesterday, so I thought I'd include them in this post.


The Nina at Guntersville, AL, October 12, 2010




The Pinta at Guntersville, AL, October 12, 2010



And now the ladies leave Guntersville for Chattanooga, TN. Although they make use of wind and sail as much as possible, they are equipped with inboard motors in order to adhere to schedules and navigate rivers a bit more efficiently. They had been in Florence, AL before heading to Huntsville and Guntersville. Had I thought about it, I would have gone over to Guntersville Dam to watch them go through the locks. It would have given an opportunity for some interesting photos. I had hoped to get to Guntersville in time to watch them leave, hoping that they would get away under sail. However, I was late leaving Huntsville and was only able to watch them fade into the distance.


The Nina and the Pinta depart Guntersville, AL (October 13, 2010)



One of the ladies headed to Chattanooga, October 13, 2010

For more information, photos, and schedule visit the website for The Columbus Foundation.

Columbus Day 2010

The Nina (front) and Pinta at Guntersville, AL, October 12, 2010


I thought I'd missed these ships this time on their visit to North Alabama. I saw the Nina at Guntersville about 12 years ago. This time, both the Nina and the Pinta were here in Huntsville at Ditto Landing and at Guntersville before heading on up to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Thinking they'd already left the area, I was enjoying the photos from a couple of fellow bloggers this morning when I decided to check the website and see what the schedule was. Turns out they are in Guntersville until 10/13, so we drove over for a quick look. It was neat to see replicas of two of the three ships that Columbus and his men used to cross the Atlantic and bump into North America.

The Nina and the Pinta and others of their era are such small vessels. If you click on the photo, you get a better idea of the size of the ships in comparison to the visitors on board. The Nina is a full-size replica, but the Pinta is a bit larger than the original. The beam (maximum width of the deck) of the Nina is only 18 feet. It is amazing to think of the early seafarers crossing vast expanses of ocean in ships narrower than my family room is wide. When I was 11 and and visited Plimouth Plantation, I saw the Mayflower II, the replica of the Mayflower that carried the Pilgrims to the New World. I could hardly believe those brave people had survived their voyage on such a tiny ship. It was so small that it seemed like a toy, especially when compared to the U.S.S. Constitution, "Old Ironsides," that I had seen earlier that summer at Boston Harbor. A few years ago I had the same feeling when we visited Jamestown and saw replicas of vessels that regularly crossed the Atlantic transporting food, animals, equipment, and other necessities for daily living for the folks living in the colonies.

I made a few more photos of the Nina and the Pinta, but I recommend visiting Giraffe Head Tree's post "The Nina and the Pinta" and "A Special Columbus Day Visit" at Sunny Side Up for some really neat photos.

The Nina and the Pinta will be in Guntersville until about 1:00 p.m. tomorrow before heading up to Chattanooga, so if you have time and are in the area, go take a look.

Work, Work, Work

Yep, work, work, work. Seems to be keeping me from putting together even the occasional post. I really must get in gear and get something posted. In the meantime, perhaps a photo from a short trip up to our hometown in Tennessee back in June.





Family Farm: neat old tree in the front yard of the old house that my husband grew up in