Greenfield Lake Ducks, Sky, Beach and Jacket Progress

Greenfield Lake is beginning to look like fall and I loved the picture of the Cypress trees knee deep in the alligator filled water!

This Great Blue Heron took off while I was watching from his hiding place in among the Cypress.

It was just beautiful there at Greenfield Lake Park with many trees taking on their bright colors.

My second favorite duck -- Northern Shoveler - was there in abundance.  Both males and females but they wouldn't let me get anywhere near them!  There were places where the trees were filled with Great Egrets.   Cormorants and Anhingas were  also there in great numbers.  I spotted a couple of Pied Billed Grebes as well.  I have been seeing them lately at Carolina Beach Lake as well.  I had to use my little camera with the 35x zoom to even see these birds, they were so far away!

A couple of the females -- I love their big bills!!

Couldn't resist taking a bunch of pictures of this almost full moon last week.

This is a "sun dog" caused by ice crystals.  It is a rainbow completely surrounding the sun.  The colors are more muted than a regular rainbow but the red is closest to the sun.  They occur on our chilly days.  I have only seen these down here.

There was a preponderance of Moon Jellyfish on the beach.  They have these four bright pink circular things in the middle which are gonads!  Shows what a jellyfish thinks is important!!  No circulatory system or digestive system is present!!

I am slowly but surely making progress on the jacket pictured previously.  Each of these strip sets is just 3 inches wide and  this picture shows the four strip sets contained in the jacket with the darker two being the more prominent ones.  I was shocked to learn that the jacket pattern was done by a woman who just taught a class at my home GVQC guild in Rochester!  I had seen the jacket just because someone had "liked" the site in FB.  Sorry, I missed the class now!

I cut two squares (3 inches by 3 inches) from each of the strips and placed them together to see how they look.  I think this will be okay!

One thing that wasn't suggested in the pattern but which is downright critical with this is the checking of your 1/4 mark on your foot or sewing machine!!!  I did a test and found that my 1/4 mark on my machine resulted in 2 3/4 inch wide strips.  I quickly placed down some tape at what I measured as 1/4 inch and tested again.  Perfect!!!  Both Sharon Craig and Jan Krentz emphasize this checking in their classes.  Even a slight variation when multiplied by four or five can mean disaster!