Red Alert! Shields Up!

Got some friends together on Sunday to try out Artemis — a “spaceship bridge simulator” game where each person takes on a different role and we work together to successfully complete the mission: helm, weapons, science, engineering, communications, command.  We did have some “technical difficulties” and some “minor disasters” (our ship sometimes completely destroyed) but everybody enjoyed the experience — it was a lot of geeky fun!

 IMG_0332

Darlene was busy working but she was there in spirit — particularly after she sent a photo of herself in uniform.  (Yes, those boots may not be “Starfleet regulation” — but I wholeheartedly approve!)

IMG_0327

Moon-Jupiter Conjunction

A nice conjunction of the Moon and Jupiter tonight — meaning that they appear very close together in the sky.  With binoculars, you can see our moon, Jupiter nearby (appearing as a small disc) and several of Jupiter’s moons (several points of light around Jupiter) all at once.  Pretty cool.

I tried to capture what I could see through my binoculars using my 400mm lens plus a 2x teleconverter on my DSLR but I wasn’t able to get a sharp image with my lightweight tripod, even with a delayed shutter release.  (I have been meaning to get a heavy tripod for this sort of thing.)  So this was the best I could do before the sky started to get a little cloudy with moisture — and I never got so far as finding an exposure to catch Jupiter’s moons as well:

More fun than watching a lawn grow?

What’s more fun than watching a lawn grow?
How about watching a lawn removed and replaced:

   

This is work-in-progress to transform my front landscape from the usual lawn-centric, high-maintenance, manicured look to a more natural grass/meadow landscape — and save my oak trees in the process.  It’s been taking a while but the end result will be something of a meadow garden using more native plants, lots of ornamental grasses and requiring much less maintenance and even less water once established.

The local company doing the work is Terra Nova Ecological Landscaping.  Here’s their blog.

Here’s some meadow garden examples: