***Remember; you can click on photos in the blog and see a much larger image.  This will give you a particularly dramatic view in the panoramic photo of Cleveland stadium below.***

Cleveland Indians
TRIUMPHANT CONSECUTIVE WINS--

The Cleveland Indians today smashed their way into the American League history books with their 21st consecutive win, beating the Detroit Tigers 5-3.

Who knows where this stunning performance will end but, at this rate this year's world series could be an anti-climax.

The Indians tied the American League record of 20 consecutive wins at their home field Tuesday night, September 12th with a 2-0 victory over the Tigers.

I enjoyed Tuesday night's game with a group of folks from my Bellville church; Storyside and hosted by our lead pastor Micah Pelky, second from left below.

That's yours truly on the far left, then Pastor Micah, Jeremy Overholt, son Brian Wolf, Pastor Adam Dinkard, Shane Allyne and Eric Wickham.

The Progressive Field, Tuesday night photo (top) was done from our seats in left field with my cell phone's panorama feature.

SOOTHING TO THE SOUL--

A hungry bird's approach to my feeder this sunny and still morning gave me reason to be thankful to God for the quietude just outside my computer room's window.

The background is the surface of my acre and a half pond.

The photo was done through two panes of window glass with a Canon Rebel digital, single lens, reflex camera and Canon's marvelous 70-200 mm, 1:2.8 L IS USM lens.  The camera was hand-held with my elbows propped on a desktop using a manual exposure of 1/400 sec., F 5.6 at ISO 400.

With the lens focused on the feeder and the window glass very close to the camera, that closeness and the lense's shallow depth of field rendered any imperfections in or on the glass invisible by being completely out of focus.

The shutter speed was short enough to arrest fuzziness from any camera movement but not so short to arrest motion in the bird's wings.  The F 5.6 aperture was slightly underexposed but made a pleasing image under the harsh, back lighting.

I watched the alignment of my composition through the viewfinder with my right eye and winked quickly back and forth to watching the activity surrounding the feeder with my left eye.  That way I could see the bird's flight in time to trip the shutter before it landed at the feeder while maintaining accurate camera alignment.

A tripod would be a wise choice for less experienced photographers under these conditions.

I'm not sure of the identity of the bird but White Breasted Nuthatches, Chickadees (SP) and Tufted Titmice were present in abundance.  The parenthetical SP means it could be either a Black Capped or Carolina Chickadee because we are directly on the line between the ranges of those two birds.  They are hard to tell apart but local birding experts tell me we likely are seeing the Black Capped variety here.

A delightful side effect to this frenzied feeder activity involves momma Wild Turkey and her brood of three, half-grown youngsters showing up multiple times daily to clean up the mess of dropped seeds created by her smaller avian friends.

Life is good!    😊

(A recreated copy of our story originally published August 22, 2017--and inadvertently erased)

YESTERDAY'S ECLIPSE--
Some Celestial and Spiritual Majesty

As I grappled with making this image with my cell phone I was longing for a couple of thousand dollars worth of photography equipment that was lounging quietly--at home.  A digital, single lens reflex camera and a fine quality, telephoto lens would have made quite a difference in this image.

That's the eclipse, an upside down moon-shaped sliver dead center in the photo, as close as it got to totality in our area.

Yet, as I fiddled with presenting this image I began to like how the vastness of space was visually enhanced by its overwhelming volume compared to the shadowed sun.

Then, why did the clouds not obscure the event entirely?  Actually they made it possible to take a safe peek at this unfolding miracle.

I also pondered what actually was happening just a few hundred miles south of here where, at totality, the moon appeared to be precisely the same size as the sun and, in precise alignment with it.

Imagine, our sun is about 400 times the size of our moon but the distance between these two bodies was exactly what it needed to be to make the moon appear to be the same size as the sun, the size it needed to be to exactly cover its partner in this celestial dance.

How did that come to be?  Some would say it is a random happenstance.  It just so happened that the ratio of distance and size was precisely what it needed to be to cause totality.  An amazing coincidence they might try to convince themselves.

Others would say it has to be the work of an intelligent designer.

Thank you God.

CHILDREN: DON'T DO AS I DO
Do as I say, please

We were geocaching at the fairgrounds in Wellington, OH and had to hike .18 mile along the other side of this parked train; struggling for footing in the steeply sloped ballast.

When we finally got aligned with the cache's location we discovered it was still 150 feet into the woods, evidently only accessible to us by a bruising treck through rugged undergrowth.  I was wearing Bermuda shorts and Sue had only sandals for footwear.

We could see the train's engines and hear their silence sooooo we both scurried under the couplers of two cars and down the opposite bank to an adjacent road then began the long walk back toward our parked car.  That required us to travel to the end of the parked train, walk around it then continue our reversed course in 81 degree heat.

I kept finding a slice of optimism for a sultry Sue by reminding her she was establishing a day's record with her Fitbit that would do most folks proud.

I couldn't hear her response.

Which likely was a good thing.

We also took comfort in the fact our children all were raised far beyond the age where there was little danger they would be foolish enough to mirror our behavior.

Lookin' like it will be a few years yet before we will be content to sit quietly in our rockers, I mused.

If we live that long--I could hear someone stammering.