November Sky, 112810

Kathy borrowed my camera while I was at work Sunday (Nov. 28) and took these pictures of the sky.





Kansas has the best skies in any season.

Turkey Day 2010

Since Kathy and I were both off both Thursday and Friday this year at Thanksgiving, we decided to go the whole hog, er, whole turkey, and roast a big bird with some of our favorite trimmings.



Besides bird, we had dressing, roasted brussels sprouts, cranberry-sweet potato bake, olives, cream cheese stuffed celery, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream topping (that and the olives, the only store-bought, unaltered items). Wow, it was good and we were stuffed.

I Mooned Again

Happy Little Fall Colors

I decided there needed to be at least a nod to actual Fall here, so here's some other things I took pictures of the other day out at the old TSH grounds.


Crabapples, shrivelling on the branch. (Edit: This picture is on the KPR website the week of 11/28/10).


Leaves and sun, what could be finer?


Tall trees! The white one is a sycamore, they get huge. But don't put one in your yard, they are really too messy and too big.

The Continuing End

I still have a lot of pictures of what has been done (or, rather un-done) on the old Topeka State Hospital grounds. They are on Facebook right now, and will soon be in my Picasa albums. Herewith, a small selection. These show the demolition of the old Engineering building behind the Auditorium, which was behind Center Building, now completely gone. The Auditorium is the larger building still standing as of right now, but with the roof pretty much removed.

Ducks, Dog, Day's End

Some friends I hadn't met yet from Gage Park a couple of days ago.

Well, actually, the ducks weren't all that friendly, and kept turning their tails to me.


This cute little dog named Maddie, though, was a real charmer.


She didn't want to look at the photographer lady, only at the squirrels, and even though she's 12 years old, she chased them heartily up the trees.



Just some nice colors in the water, a hint of fall, like there was in the air.


And, some folks having a late summer picnic, some new friends and some old.

Day Moon Like a Potato Chip

The moon was up in the middle of the day yesterday, looking like a big white potato chip stuck to the blue sky. And there appears to be a discontinuity in time/space at the clock tower.

More Statehouse Crane

The crane looms over the dome of the Statehouse. It will be there about a year, I'm told.



The counterweight end. When there is nobody in the cab, the arm is loose and swings in the wind like a weather vane, to prevent the winds from stressing it.



The cab where the operator spends his day. I'm told that once up there, he doesn't come down until his shift is over. Brings up some questions I really didn't want to think about.



The dismantling of the red crane that was used to assemble the blue crane.



And, the Native American statue on the dome draws a bead on the crane workers...ready, aim...!

Cheryl's Book!

I have a new book. It's Cheryl Unruh's new book, "Flyover People: Life on the Ground in a Rectangular State."

The book is a collection of some of her columns written for the Emporia Gazette over the past several years. She writes about the beauty and strangeness of Kansas, and about growing up in a "flyover state." When it came out late last month, she brought me my own personal signed copy, and I humbly discovered my name in the acknowledgements too. Wow.

The lovely photo on the cover is the work of Dave Leiker, Cheryl's husband. His photo site is linked on the side here, and you should look.

They are so far available in Topeka only at the Southwind Gallery at Framewoods, which is at 3074 SW 29th St. (29th & Oakley), across from the Brookwood Shopping center. They are also at Town Crier in Emporia, The Raven in Lawrence, and many other places. Check her site, Flyover People, for more locations. You can also order them online at Flyover People, here.

I have a new book and it's good. Get you one, too.

Statehouse Crane

The red crane, which is pretty good sized itself, is being used to put into place the pieces of the blue crane as part of the Statehouse renovation project that's been going on for some years now. The blue crane, when completed, will be the largest free-standing crane in North America. So I decided this was a Topeka Event and needed to be here. The workers that are waaaay up there putting together this giant Erector Set, if they have any fear, they don't show it. Just looking at where they are and what they are doing makes my knees wobbly!

Must Moon Again

At Lake Shawnee again, the Moon of August 24, 2010. The clouds were thin and thick and made the Moon kind of weird sometimes. The wind was up a bit, and the play of the silvery moonlight on the lake was especially nice, though hard to capture.