Harvest Moon and More!

If you were out tonight, it was hard to miss the full moon. We were supposed to get rain, and, in fact, the humidity is a little high and there are scattered clouds, but it is clear overhead. Since this is the full moon nearest the autumnal equinox that occurred a week and a half ago, it is called the harvest moon. Supposedly it allows farmers to work into the evening with the benefit of light from the full moon. In addition, since the the ecliptic, thus the path of the moon is moving northward, in the northern hemisphere the moon rises only 20-30 minutes later each night, instead of the normal 40-50 minutes, providing additional evening illumination. This snapshot was taken within 30 minutes of being full, about 10:30 Tucson time (full moon was about 11pm). It was taken with an 8" Celestron and Canon XSi (ISO 400) at prime focus mounted on a tripod (no tracking). Exposure was 1/1250 second, thus freezing the moon's apparent motion due to the rotation of the earth.

There is news on the moon! In a few days, the morning of 9 October 4:31am Tucson time (11:31 UT) NASA is sending an impactor into a permanently shadowed crater near the Moon's south pole in an attempt to detect water on the moon. It is very unlikely anything will be visible to the unaided eye, but they are thinking the expected plume will be visible in a 10"-12" (25cm-30cm) telescope. For information regarding observing the impact, or for links to the mision and finder charts, go to their observation page.


While out, I also pointed at Jupiter, bright and high just west of south. All 4 of the moons discovered by Galileo 400 years ago were visible in this exposure - same info as above except 1/60 second exposure(click the image to enlarge). From left to right is Europa, the overexposed disk of Jupiter, the innermost moon Io, Ganymede and the outermost Callisto. It is really hard to show the moons and still show details on Jupiter's disk, but in reality, a DSLR is not the best way to image the planets, especially without tracking! Nowdays, amateurs are doing amazing things with video clips of the planet with small camera or even a webcam, then stacking hundreds or thousands of images to average out the atmospheric turbulence. Check out the efforts of my friend Tom Polakis a couple weeks ago - astounding results with a 10" (25cm) telescope. Check it out, as well as his other planetary images.

The Cats' Bedrooms

I got back late from the astronomy club meeting tonight and the usual plethora of kitties were nowhere to be seen underfoot - they had already gone to bed! Melinda got a new quilt for our kingsize and they obviously approve with 4 of them actively involved in holding it down. They usually don't swarm like this till the weather turns colder... Of course, there will likely be another (Marley) joining the crowd once I turn in - he likes the attention, not just the napping.

Of course, Mia has her "own" bedroom, sometimes shared with the resident cat sitter. Tonight she was hanging out in our not-quite-unpacked suitcase from our trip. She is the only one athletic enough to get over our almost-catproof fence, and we would much rather see her hanging out in "her" room than roaming outside the backyard wall. She also doesn't particularly get along with others (they are jealous of her escape skills), so it is just as well she likes how we decorate her room and stock it with food, water and litter box. We don't dote much on our animals, do we?

Return to Reality and Old Business

Late yesterday found us winging our way back to Tucson. It was a boring flight - took off on time and 3h45m later landed on time. The flight was packed and it was just so ... unpleasant. I would almost rather drive for 3 days than fly through the darkness for 4 hours. We both passed the time reading books we picked up at O'Hare - me with Craig Ferguson's new memoir, and Melinda with Ted Kennedy's. But we got a real greeting at home - 8 cats waiting to jump us as we walked through the door (Pixel and Lance showed more reserve). And a few hours later there were 5 in bed with us - good thing we have a kingsize! They were just so glad we were staying!


Sister Kathy reminded me in a conversation before leaving Illinois that I never posted pictures from our family get together on September 20th in DeWitt, IA. So here I am making amends by posting those highlights. Turns out it was brother Jim and Karen's 23rd wedding anniversary, so we held an impromptu party complete with cake and the usual pizza buffet that is so easy with any gathering of Ketelsens. Note that I was told not to show Karen's face, so you only get cake and hands...







My highlight were my two great nieces. Marsha's daughter Mya is normally so quiet and withdrawn that she hides behind mom or grandma if you you say anything or look at her. This time she was quite gregarious and after spinning herself dizzy, she showed me some of her modelling poses and had lots to say.

Mallory's daughter Alivia is mostly the opposite - friendly and talkative and was her usual smiling self with bright eyes.





Of course, the wedding album came out, and Melinda is always on the lookout for "olden days" pictures of me. Here I'm escorting my mom and dad down the aisle - I must have been an usher... Likely one of the last pictures of me and the folks - Mom died of liver cancer 18 months later.

And oh yes - another highlight was spending time with my "other mom" - my Aunt Velma Ketelsen. Growing up, their family (my Dad's brother Arlo, Velma and their 7 kids) and ours spent so much time together, they seem an extension of our own family. Anyway, she had driven herself to the anniversary party and had set her own curfew to leave well before dark. Well, even with Daylight Savings in late September, she would have had to leave at 6pm or so. I volunteered to drive her, since it wasn't far out of our way, taking Highway 64 back to the Chicago Suburbs. So we got to spend 45 minutes on her drive home, talking old times and believe it or not, Obama's health policy!

The last detail

Today is our last day here, in St. Charles, for this visit. We fly back to Tucson this evening, and into a whole other home improvement construction zone!

Yesterday, being the last day to work on the house (laundry and packing today), Maj was here and ready to put newly painted windows in place. That took some puzzle solving skills (lots of pieces of trim to go up and hold the sashes in place), but we successfully completed that task without much difficulty. After the windows were up we pulled out something that I had been saving for this house for the past 3 years. Shutters! In case you haven't shopped for indoor, wooden, shutters lately (not custom made) - they just don't exist anymore. Not that they've gone out of fashion, but you just can't find them at the local hardware store anymore! Shutters, in fact, have been known to increase the value of a house (when on the market for sale) drastically. They add a warm and cozy feeling to a room, and provide privacy as well. This house was just screaming for shutters when I moved in - back in February '06! Since I couldn't find them in the stores, and generally they are too expensive when found in garage sales, I turned to eBay for my search! I lucked out on these. I got them for a very reasonable price, the guy selling them lived about 100 miles from here (so I could pick them up and not pay shipping), and he was taking them out of his 100 year old house! These shutters aren't 100 years old, but they are probably a good 40 years old and in decent condition. I picked them up, brought them home, and they have been stored - waiting for the right time to put them up. Completing the new bedroom told me that it was time to put up the sets for that room! After a fair amount of creative engineering, Maj and I were able to find the best way to mount them on our windows - and (as they say) viola! We couldn't have asked for a better match in color to the wood, they fit really well (no trimming involved), and give the room the exact feeling that I was working toward. I'm hoping we can get the flooring down on the next trip so we can then start moving furniture into the room. I'm taking home fabric samples from the two comforter sets that will work in there, a paint chip, and measurements to make valances for the windows while we're in Tucson. While I almost hate to see this project end, it's exciting to think of the next rooms to be done! The possibilities are endless and we are only limited by what we imagine that we can't do.

More Flora and Fauna

The weather has been dull lately - threats of rain have persisted for days, and a cold front passed yesterday with gusts to 40 mph (60kph) today - no chance of new images! So I'm culling out some more from my previous excursions to our local forest preserve.


First up is a critter I've not seen before, even though they are supposed to be common throughout North America - the Red-Banded Leafhopper, Graphocephala coccinea. Probably the reason that you have likely not seen it is that it is small, only about .25" (6mm) long and thus easy to miss. Strolling along the prairie path at Tekakwitha, I somehow managed to spot it on the leaf of a Milkweed (I was looking out for Monarch caterpillars, so was paying close attention to the Milkweeds), and it was quite content to pose proudly while I fiddled to get closer and focused accurately. They feed on plant sap and if threatened, can jump long distances with their hind legs. I only spotted this one example, but got lots of images...





I spotted our friendly black squirrel again - this time he ran up a tree acorn in mouth and was content to feed while safely out of my reach. We had spotted him a few times last year, and even posted him about him then with a picture, again, acorn in mouth. I suspect they are territorial, as I've always spotted him (upwards of a half dozen times now) always within 50 yards or so of the same spot - the SE corner of the Tekakwitha Woods adjoining the parking area. They are a melanistic variety of the eastern grey squirrel, and a black squirrel can be born to grey parents, but the black is certainly striking in it's appearance. It is thought they might have an evolutionary advantage on the northern edge of the grey squirrel range because they have increased cold tolerance (emit less heat than greys), and are harder to spot in denser northern forests.


We are starting to get some nice fall colors, lots of yellows and golds from maples, and reds from the Virginia Creeper vines in the woods. But the most striking reds are right at the trailhead off the parking lot at Tekakwitha of the Staghorn Sumac. My local plant guidebook (Kane County Wild Plants & Natural Areas) says the seeds taste like lemonade if you can get to them before the birds, but I've not been brave enough to eat any... At left is the Sumac, at right a Creeper leaf among the usual yellows of early Fall.







Last up is a family infestation of a single Milkweed plant. I knew it was not a Milkweed Beetle, and when I visited the nature center at Tekakwitha, the woman there IDed my pictures as the Large Milkweed Bug, Oncopeltus fasciatus. Only the adults have wings, the nymphs (immature) bugs show the wing growth at various stages. With the identification, my Internet search indicates there are 5 molts of the nymphs from egg hatching to adulthood, and these images show 3 of the stages, from the barely visible wing stubs of the smallest, to the fully developed adults. Milkweed is their primary food source and they are part of a small group of insects that can tolerate the toxic sap of the Milkweed. They concentrate the toxins in their body, and predators well remember the bad taste that results. Their bright colors then teach the predators to avoid similar colors, saving monarch butterflies from similar fates.



And I almost forgot Bruce, our resident groundhog here at Riverwoods. We've seen him almost daily as he feeds for his Winter hibernation, oftentimes looking like a boulder in the yard as he pauses to watch for danger. Ironically, you can get much closer to him in a car than in person, so this is from a drive-by sequence as he sits near his burrow as I pass. He seems healthy and happy, though we've not seen any buddies or babies around either. At one point he made a run for it under our shed, which is fine by us - I know not everyone here at the camp looks at him kindly, so we'd be glad to host him under our shed if that is what it takes for him to be safe... Its always nice to come home to a friendly, if not shy, face!

98.9% done!

Well, here we are, five days after the start of the real work on our new master bedroom. Each day's end we have marveled at what we have accomplished and today is no exception!

On day 4 (Thursday) we bought, primed, painted (and then some trim was stained) trim for the ceiling, wainscoting, and baseboards. We also bought the ceiling fan/light that we wanted to put in the room. That day also found us sanding, remuding, sanding again, and then priming the new drywall before then applying a coat of satin finish polyurethane to all of the wainscoting. It was a very long day - and in fact longer still when Dean still had trim to put finish coats on last evening. I couldn't let him work alone, so I put the first coat of color on the upper walls. I've been looking forward to this step! Clearly, it would need two coats - but it's great to get that first one on to get things exciting!

Today, day 5 (Friday), we hit the room by 8:30am. While Maj and Dean continued painting trim, I got moving and put the second coat of color on the walls. Giving that a little time to dry, we took breaks and planned our "trim attack"! First up - white ceiling trim. We've done this same style before, when we did the the sunroom renovation project. Dean took charge of the cutting station while we measured and handed the boards to him through the window. Dean is so precise in his mirror lab work, and that carries over into cutting trim. He did a great job! Maj and I did the measuring and nailing in place, and it seemed like we had the ceiling trim (two separate pieces to create a bit of a step in the profile) done in no time. Next up: wainscot trim. The inspiration for that part of the trim came from a house I was in, in Cape Cod, one time. We used three separate boards to create the wall cap, a shelf support, and then a narrow (3.75") shelf that goes around the room. The most difficult part of that was making sure that all was level and even. We love the look of the completed trim though! Granted, we will need to do finish coats of paint on the ceiling trim pieces, touch up the cut ends of wood with stain, polyurethane the wall cap and shelf, fill in little gaps here and there, about a days worth of little chores like that. The biggest part of the job is done though! After finishing with the trim, and getting the cleanup done, and tools put away (thanks Maj!), we opened the box with the new ceiling fan/light! Neither of us had ever installed a fan before, and we don't have a flat ceiling in this room (or any where in the house, for that matter!)....so don't tell us, we know that the fan is on an angle! The fan went up very easily, however, and we are happy with the result! We have guests coming this weekend, so that means that we need to have an extra bed ready. Dean and I moved the mattress and boxsprings to the extra bed into the new room tonight. He and I will sleep in there on Saturday night, for the first time! The bedding that you see in the picture is the bedding that will remain in this room (I think). I had bought it for this room a couple of years ago, and I think it will still work nicely in there. We will be moving the bed out of the room on Sunday evening, in preparation of working on the little finish up jobs (mentioned before) on Monday. We have been discussing the floor and have made some good decisions about that - but that will have to wait for the next trip. Since we have been working non-stop this week, it will be nice to have a couple of days off to enjoy visiting with David and Joan when they arrive tomorrow! Due to using a wide angle lens to take the picture of the mostly finished bedroom, the size of the room appears distorted, in reality it is very roomy! It occured to me that not everyone would like to have a somewhat 'rustic' looking bedroom. Most of the wood in the wainscoting is old, beat up, stained in areas, and even have a few paint drips (80 year old paint drips) on it! One of the things that I felt strongly about, when moving into this house and planning renovations was that we stay true to the house. Some improvements would have to be made obviously, but to use as much of the old/original wood as possible keeping it true to what it was like when it was built (only stronger and better now). It's amazing the 'jewels' that can be found! The wood in this bedroom was hidden behind very cheap and flimsy paneling that had been put up well over 25 years ago. The side that the paneling had been glued to was ruined by the adhesive, however, when the boards were pulled out my sister noticed that the back side of the boards were in decent enough shape to be reused. Not only did it save us some money (reusing what we already had), but it kept a little bit more of the original cottage alive! No one who owns an old house does so because it's easier or cheaper. Old houses are constantly in need of protecting and pampering, but the pay off is living in a piece of local history!

Home Improvement Progress

The Johnson Sisters and I are working full time on rebuilding the bedroom, and the progress in the last 2 or 3 days is amazing! The ceiling was finished Monday, drywall work was started and finished Tuesday, 2 coats of primer on the ceiling Tuesday, mudding of drywall, finish coat of paint on ceiling, and beadboard staining today. Add to that the ancillary work of window glazing and window trim painting that all got finished, we're pooped! Here are some pics to go with the descriptions.

First up are Maj and Melinda posing proudly in front of their drywall job. Again, they were the power tool wielders, I helped some with measuring and cutting drywall, but the sisters did all the fastening.



With the drywall finished, I got started priming the new beadboard ceiling while Melinda started mudding and taping drywall and Maj moved to window trim painting. Primer work was uneventful and boring, and surprisingly difficult on that second coat when it was tough to see where you were going and where you've been. It continued today with painting. Originally it was supposed to be 2 coats also, but with the great priming job, it looked like a single coat was going to do fine. At least the paint, with it's slightly warmer tone, was easier to keep track of where you were. I was a little sloppy with application - the floor is going to be covered, so a few splatters didn't matter. Maj is definitely in the danger zone in this shot!




After the final ceiling paint today, the girls moved to staining the new beadboard to better match the older aged beadboard. They started with some nasty-looking mystery goop that is actually stain from decades ago that Maj pulls out, diluted down with turpentine, and uses as needed. A little goes a long way - some is brushed or wiped on with a towel, allowed to soak in a little, then wiped down when the desired stain is acquired. They did a really good job matching the original beadboard (from the 30s!), though the odor of turpentine is pretty strong tonight... The stained woodwork gets a coat of polyurethane tomorrow.




Here are a couple images showing the finished ceiling paint job and stain work on the new beadboard. You can compare to the top image to see a view from the same angle before staining. There is still a lot left - windows are glazed, but need cleaning and painting before installation with trim work (storm windows are installed here). We need to find and install a ceiling fan where the center light fixture is located. I mentioned the polyurethane work on the wood, and the drywall gets a coat of "chinese red" after priming. The floor will get covered by luan plywood, at least temporarily, and there is trim work to install around the base and peak of the walls and around the top of the beadboard on the walls. I think that is the plan for the next week, anyway...



And of course, with all the work going on in the bedroom, the rest of the house is like the staging area of an invasion force. A shot of the living room tonight shows window trim with drying paint center, air compressor to the right, tools and compressed air lines to the left. A temporary situation with the questionable damp weather we've been having outside. More work tomorrow!