Happy Halloween Y'ALL

BOO!

First Soggy Month Since May

Well, as so many know, it rained again. The official total at DFW International for a 24-hour period from 06:53 on October 30 to 06:53 on October 31 (today) was 2.24 inches of rain. Add that to the 7.67 total fell just a few days ago and the soggy total tallies up to 9.91 inches.

Needless to say, Dallas only received a little less than half the amount of  the near 20-inch totals Austin area received. That's why their Round Rock is round--all that water keeps swirling around grinding that old rock down and down until it's round. Of course, that's why Austin is weird and keeps getting more weird.

Rain, glorious rain.

Leave It To A Retired Fireman

There are a lot of pecan trees in Dallas City Parks. Irving has their share of them too! In fact, it's hard not to find a pecan tree on public property in Texas, let alone private land. The point being, yesterday a retired fireman with his dog, allowed me to take a picture of a very neat gadget he was using to pick up pecans.

Over the years about this time you can see people with bags stooping over and picking up pecans. Back breaking work, no? Well, this contraption saves all that and is actually a neat invention.  Keep in mind that I only discovered this invention yesterday, today I saw two more people picking up pecans with home made gadgets. Until yesterday, seeing people use tools to pick up pecans had never been witnessed before.  One was as simple as a Campbell soup can on the end of a broom stick. Of course, you never see things like that until you discover something neat. Then you find out that there are all kinds of home-made contraptions. Some, of equal ability. Some,not so equal.

The way it works: You roll it across the ground. The wires seperate when they hit a pecan shell. The pecan drops into the wire and then returns back in its normal shape. To emply, seperate two wires with your fingers and shake into the bucket. Dang. Why didn't think of that?

What separates this neat invention from the others home-made or not, is the fact that you net only pecans. No leaves, no sticks, no rocks, The fireman had a 5-gallon painter's can nearly half full when he showed me how the contraption worked.

North Texas Begins To See Fall Colors-- Only On A Faster Track Now.

Fall colors have started to appear in North Texas as they usually do around the first of November. It seems that this year,  however, they are on a fast track to change rather than the slow change usually seen.

Final Totals from Rain Event

With the last reporting of .03 inches of rainfall at the 06:53 reporting by the National Weather Service at Dallas/Ft.Worth International Airport, the keeper of the official rain gage for the Metroplex, here is a breakdown by the 6-hour reporting totals.:

October 22 18:53-------------0.39-inches
October 23 00:53-------------2.18-inches
October 23 06.53-------------0.33-inches
October 23 12:53-------------1.70-inches
October 23 18:53-------------0.16-inches
October 24 00:53-------------1.46-inches
October 24 06:53-------------1.33-inches
October 24 12:53-------------0.09-inches
October 25 06:63-------------0.03-inches

Total rainfall 10-22-to 25
06:53 reporting hour is         7.67-inches

NB-- notice that there is no reported rain fall at the October 24 at 18:53 or at 00:53 on the 25th. No rain fell at those reported hours but fell after the 00:53 hours reporting. That is the marked decline of the storms  rain fall as the cold front moved across and the moisture from Tropical Depression Patricia was pushed farther south toward the Gulf and the Houston area.

October is traditionally the wettest month in the Metroplex. Up until this time we had no rain but a recorded trace for October. The past three days was everything it had been hyped to be as you can see from the totals.

Double that and then some just south of us  and totals were showing up as 17.67-inches in Corsicana, Texas. The rushing waters washed a BNSF train of gondola cars right off the tracks and put it on its side.

No rain is forecast until this coming week-end. Oh! Boy!

The Rain Is Winding Down

As of 06:53 reporting at DFW International (the official weather reporting station for the Dallas/Ft.Worth Metroplex) 7.55 inches of rain has fallen. There is another 0.09 of an inch not included in this update, but will be included in the final total.

On a side note-- Tug boater Mike should be in the air heading to Toronto and then on to home base Halifax, NS. at this writing. At least we gave you some transition weather between Texas heat and your winter season already underway for your return home. 

Latest Update on Rain Totals

At the 21:53 update, another 1.25 inches from the previous update totals. DFW has recorded 5.85 inches up to this latest update with 2-5 inches predicted for tomorrow thru Sunday. 

Update on the Rain Totals

At the 12:53 update at Dallas/Ft.Worth International, 4.60 inches have been recorded. Currently, we are in a dry period wave. That just means there is much more to come tonight, tomorrow and Sunday.
Hurricane Patricia, the largest Hurricane ever recorded with winds at 200 MPH and a Barometer registering at 25.97, the lowest pressure ever recorded due to move inland. It will then cross the mountains of Mexico and get picked up by the jet stream, bringing the moisture into Texas. It's gonna be a weekend under the roof.

The Rains Have Returned

After 4 months without rain and  after the record month of rain in May, the rains have returned.

As of 22:53 today, Thursday, 22 October 2015, the rains started about 13:30 this afternoon and DFW International has reported a total of 1.86 inches of rain with two more days of solid rain coming from Hurricane Patricia in eastern Pacific near the Baja of California. Totals look to be very impressive by Sunday when the rain begins to taper off. Flash flood warnings are up.

Will update throughout the weekend.

Emirates A380 Just Arrived at DFW.

The Emirates flight was not at Terminal D late this morning. Since they fly daily service, everyone was wondering what was going on. Obviously, with the flight just arriving at a quarter after 10 tonight, either a schedule change is in the works or something else. The Qantas flight was right on time and graced the skies as it made the wide turn to the final. The field was full of people snapping photos for the first time. For aviation buffs, it's still the thrill it was the first time you saw that plane of your dreams come in and land. Awesome.(Click on anyone of the images to enlarge).

The DFW Firefighters were practicing and training.

UPS was just about to make his turn but said hello first!

Qantas A-380. It's not a Doug Parker, that's for sure!

Methodist Outreach

It is the third year now, that the good people at Arapaho United Methodist Church, at the corner of Arapaho and Coit, have allowed me to photograph their pumpkin patch. It's always a great honor to do so. Why? Well, half the sales go their mission program while the other half goes to the Navajo Indian Nation in Arizona,  an outreach mission program of the church. My hat is off to the mission committee and is one of the main reasons that I have plugged their pumpkin patch in this blog. Besides, One of mom's sisters married a Methodist minister and stayed with his congregation in Arkansas for nearly his entire career and mom devoted a lot of time to the Cherokee Nation  in Oklahoma, which was dear to her heart. Funny how things come full  circle. So, go buy your pumpkins at the church's pumpkin patch this year. I'll tell you a little secret  why their patch is set apart from all the others....I can't tell you the secret but I can tell you it's red and has four wheels and a handle. ;<{} If you want a little history on the Navajo Nation , here is a link:     http://www.navajo-nsn.gov/history.htm

Here's some pictures of this years good looking pumpkins, too.

Amen!!

---and the crop looks very, very good.

There are several displays like this one, which is always very creative.

15Oct edit for clarity.

First In-Flight Migration V Sighted

Whooping Cranes and Sand Hill Cranes both migrate over Texas on one of their migration routes south. Flocks are not always massive flocks of hundreds of birds, but a flock or 30 is well within range. Ironically, the migration V was flying directly over the 18/36 runways at DFW. It was beautiful to see natures air force  vectoring over and around one of the busiest airports in the world. Such a sight. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up along with the goosebumps on my arms.

Wishing a larger lens was in my bag but this does confirm the citing. Click on one of the images to enlarge.

They moved with the grace of an airliner as if they were on an approach frequency. Click on the image to enlarge.

A TIME TO GO and A TIME TO PASS

A new island created from the May floods. The pelicans like it.

Look closely to see a couple of faces. Taken 10-6-2015

Yes, there is another face here, too and it was taken 20 miles away about 10 days ago +/- a couple of days

A time to go and a time to pass and the time to pass was the past two days. Going  downtown during this period from all reports was totally  insane. Seeing a couple of movies filmed would have been fun. Seeing the vintage 1963 cars  used in the Franco film would have normally been even  more of a magnet, to wit:

There has been massive traffic jams and not all of it was the Horseshoe Project where I-30 and I-35E mix up the east-west and the north-south traffic. There was also  two movies filming at the same time. One staring James Franco in Dealey Plaza, the other for a television series, so I'm told. The other reason is the 128th run of the State Fair of Texas in  Historic Fair Park. You could not get me to be on either end of Main or Elm or Commerce Streets for nearly any amount of money. Notice that I did leave that option open. That's called covering your bases, I believe. The Rangers are in the playoffs, too, so riding the trains, either Dart or the TRE to Ft.Worth to catch the shuttle to Globe Life Park was out of the question. So, as much as I try to give equal time to the venues that I shoot in normally, this week was just better to let downtown pass at the moment.

There are changes that occur in each of the little venues  and  when you go to check them out you find changes that are constantly evolving. So it's worth the effort to make the circuit on a regular basis. Strange as it is, three years ago statistics found that most of my images that sold were within two miles of home. The last two years that pattern has changed. My biggest sellers are textures.  It ignites that pattern change in my shooting as well. Now,  every shoot does not end until some new textures have been included in the days shoot.

Over my morning coffee, after checking e-mails, the next thing  that I do is to check the list  from several photo stock agencies  as to what they are looking for to fill their customer's  top  searches.
My Project List, an on-going list, it's never completed, comes from those top searches from media moguls that are newspaper, magazine, journals, web  designers, blog writers and many other forms of graphic arts. Just this past week several  of my images turned up in print. It is always a joy to see someone using your work to illustrate their own work.