My new Glock 30 .45ACP Pistol sits on a spooky table tapestry that shows up around this time each year. You can click on the image for a close-up view.

Once again, the leaves are falling and the pumpkins in the patch are ripe. It’s the time that all restless spirits set forth in their annual ritual of calling on the living - and demanding treats. Since the fifth century BC, Halloween has been celebrated as a cross-quarter day, a day halfway between an equinox (equal day / equal night) and a solstice (minimum day / maximum night in the northern hemisphere). With our modern calendar, however, the real cross-quarter day will occur next week. Visit Astronomy Picture of the Day for a spooky Ghost Nebula and more about Halloween.

We’re looking forward to the visitations of all the little goblins and spirits at our door tonight. We plan on posting some spooky pictures here tomorrow.

The lighting was just right last Sunday when I took this shot of one of the Cherie Hibiscus blossoms. Evidently, this bush likes the warm weather we had last week and is still delivering these nice flowers daily. This one was especially pretty and had no visible flaws or blemishes.

Found on the Internet from an old Sunset Magazine article:

A warm tropical paradise with gentle ocean breezes is what hibiscus (H. rosasinensis) brings to mind. The state flower of Hawaii, this evergreen hibiscus has long been a symbol of the beauty and lushness of the tropics. If you live in a mild-winter area of the West, you can bring a bit of paradise to your garden by planting hibiscus.

I’m not a southpaw, but when shooting left-handed yesterday, I managed to get eight 9mm rounds on the target at 25 feet with one round squarely on the bullseye. Not bad for a girl who just started regular target shooting a little over a year ago.

I know what you’re thinking. “Did he fire six shots or only five?” Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

When I saw this picture that Damsel took today while cleaning our guns, it reminded me of the famous line from Dirty Harry.

Of course, some of that description of the gun would be inaccurate. First this is only a .357 magnum, and far from the most powerful handgun in the world. Next, this Smith and Wesson 686 has a seven-round capacity, not six as in the .44 magnum version Harry used.

As far as feeling lucky? We do. We had a very good day at the range today and are glad that we have the opportunity to shoot at least once a week. This week, we will have an extra session at the range when we finally get our new pistols after the unnecessary California 10 day waiting period.

A little change in the weather today brought some badly needed showers to drought and fire ravaged Southern California. It also brought cooler temperatures and the gusty winds calmed down.

We decided to prepare a gourmet dinner for an autumn afternoon. Grilled pork loin cutlets with baked acorn squash, braised cabbage and a gourmet dressing for which Damsel created a custom recipe. Maybe we’ll publish the recipe sometime.

We worked together to prepare this dinner. I was in charge of making the breadcrumbs for the spinach dressing, baking the squash (I use the outdoor BBQ as an oven) and grilling the pork loin cutlets. Damsel prepared the braised cabbage and gourmet dressing on the stove top.

Topped off with a glass of Kendall–Jackson Chardonnay or a Sam Adams Oktoberfest Lager, we gotta tell you, this was really good. We had to take a nice long walk in the rain after this sumptuous autumn meal.

I left some red.

Looking like it should be much closer to the horizon, the almost full moon last night was tinted distinctively yellow. Like the green lunar cheese is really Cheddar. The reason, of course, is smoke particles from the catastrophic California Firestorms filter out blue moonlight, thus making the moon look yellowish. This was the color of the moon when Damsel mentioned it in her post about the smoky sun.

I took this photo last night using my little Canon A710IS on a mini tripod. Click for a closer view.

By the way, tonight, no matter where you are, if you have clear skies, you should go out and look at the full moon at perigee.

Last Sunday at the local indoor firing range I took this shot of Damsel punching holes in a silhouette target with the S&W 908 9mm semi-automatic pistol. On the right side of the photo, an ejected 9×19mm brass case and it’s shadow hovers in mid-air just before it ricocheted off of the partition onto the floor.

The wildfires burning here in Southern California are many miles from our house yet the smoke in the air reduced the sun to a dimmer brownish-yellow ball. Objects on the ground appeared dim and yellowish. I have blue carpet in the living room and the sunlight falling on it would make it look greenish-yellow. Last night, the moon looked like a great pumpkin in the sky.

I snapped this picture of the sun surrounded by the thick smoke about mid-morning yesterday.

It’s a busy day for us today - wash day at home and moving day at work. I’m starting on a new project in the next building. We’re not going to have much opportunity to post anything requiring serious thought, so I’ll just throw up this target from yesterday’s 9mm session at the range. We had fun shooting and sometimes we would hit the middle of the target.

Excellent for shooting pictures and firearms, that is.

I took a bunch of pictures today after our excellent session at the firing range. Many more of them turned out excellent (in my humble opinion) than usual. It was difficult to post any one of them, but since my little S&W 442 .38 special revolver is my choice for personal protection (I have no favorite gun), I decided to post this close-up of the right side of this pretty little revolver.

We went to the Botanic Gardens today for a mum show and sale. As usual, we also walked out into the gardens. Not far from the Red and White Dahlia I previously posted, we saw this dahlia variety that reminded me of a fireworks skyburst. Click on the image for a larger view.