This week was rather uncomfortable… I had a nasty cold most of the week, and cancelled almost every appointment. But one afternoon I decided it was a good time to put together a little kit as a reminder of our Japan trip earlier this year. I bought a kit like this in Japan, of Kiyomizu-dera, one of my favorite temples in Kyoto. I had so much fun with that that I went online and bought another kit; this one of Osaka Castle. Osaka is where Cherryl and I met, and the castle was a fun outing for us then (50 years ago!)

Osaka Castle has been restored, and frankly, looks way better today than it did 50 years ago. So anyway, here is my little model of the newly restored Osaka Jo. I love how the little cardboard pieces are laser cut so precisely… the fit is amazing and it’s lots of fun to assemble.

In case you missed it, here are a couple pictures of Kiyomizu-dera and a link to my model of it:

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Special thanks to my brother-in-law Steve, who texted us the other night, excitedly telling us that the Aurora Borealis had come to visit Lincoln! We threw on coats and went outside to check it out.

Now I know everyone in the country took pictures that night, and has already posted them on Facebook… But I’m putting mine up anyway, because it was such a magical night.

The first picture is of the house across the street. It was impressive enough that we walked to the end of the block (I in my slippers.)

This greeted us at the end of the block… So we decided to drive a few more blocks east, where there were less artificial lights and maybe more Northern Lights.

By the time we walked back to the house to get the car, the lights had changed significantly.

So we drove a mile or so east, where the city lights are much dimmer. Wow! Amazing display! God was busy that night painting the sky!

Another fascinating detail – while we were watching the display to the north, right behind us, on the south side of the road, we heard a Great Horned Owl! He just hooted at us the whole time! There was some kind of tall radio tower, maybe 60 feet or so, and it sounded like he was perched half way up. But no lights at all, and no luck trying to take time exposures of the tower. So while we could hear him clearly, he remained invisible…

I tried some pictures with the iPhone, and some with my “real” camera. I didn’t bring a tripod, so used the car as my tripod for most of the shots. The picture below is a phone pix, and you can see my camera as a dark spot on the roof of the car.

The colors would slowly shift, like the whole sky was breathing.

That made it hard to leave, but eventually we headed home.

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Just today, Cherryl saw this Cooper’s Hawk in our backyard. We watched for a while, and at one point he flew to the tree in the bottom picture, and flushed out maybe 8 or 10 little birds. He didn’t catch any, so just sulked on top of the fence for a while.

We feed lots of little birds, and it looks again like we indirectly feed some bigger ones as well.