For us, Labor day had always meant BBQ chicken. That started in 1959 when I was a wee lad and got brought to Red Rooster Day in Dassel MN. We continued the tradition when my son was born and brought him as a wee lad.
Even while living in other states, we grilled chicken on that day. Since moving back home to Minnesota, we still grilled chicken, as my standing in line for anything days has seen better days. We grabbed my wife’s Mother and headed over to my wife’s sister’s place. The town we live in is about 6 blocks square so getting from A to B to C is like a minute at most.
And instead of BBQ’d chicken, I BBQ’d ribs. Something I picked up a couple of years ago and since we lived in New Mexico for awhile, theses ribs make your eyebrows sweat real good.
My wife’s sister’s Son showed up with his wife and 6 kids and my Pastor and neighbor came over with his wife and 3 kids and then a friend of the Nephew showed up with his wife and 6 kids. It was a small house full of kids and they were angels, all of them. Much good fellowship and laughter.
The transition of seasons is always interesting to witness. Sunrises and sunsets are a bit more vivid. Last evening was a classic. A storm front was on its way and we had a perfect blend of clouds and open sky as the sun went down. My drone has a battery that will keep it in the air for 30 minutes or several smaller flights within that time frame. The flight controller, which is a hand held device that flies the drone, has a battery that will last for a couple of hours. I had made a flight about a week and a half ago and hadn’t used the drone again until last evening.
When I booted everything up, as the sun was setting, so in a bit of a rush, I noticed that the flight controller was at 20% battery life and the drone at 63%. I sent it aloft and reached picture altitude which for me is around 300 feet. About the 6th picture into my session, the flight controller went into “Warning, Warning Will Robinson” mode and commenced squealing at me to land right NOW. I pressed the “Come Home” button and the drone started descending in rather a hurry. I thought it a bit much as I still had 13% left in the tank. Got the drone back on the roof and fetched the pictures. It was worth all the calamity.
I mentioned yesterday my interest in the sky and weather; I guess I would have to say bird watching has become a favorite of mine also. I have been truly blessed with the ability to notice details and patterns. My brain was not wired for math, and a possible consolation prize for not understanding zeros was that I am able to notice a track on the ground or a flash of color in the trees with no problem at all. It certainly helped to put meat on the table back when I hunted and now to identify birds at our feeding station.
Once again my Raspberry Pi helps out with this. I have a Pi and camera that live outdoors, under our bay window, that point at the bird feeder and we can watch that video feed on our laptops while sitting on the couch. My rule with technology is that it works for you, not you for it. And while that was good and all, I wanted a much more closeup look at things. These Pi cameras can record at up to 90 frames per second, so I put a motion sensor on my Pi and told it to turn on the camera at its fastest rate whenever a Hummingbird showed up. I moved my Pi to about one foot from the hummingbird feeder and turned it on. And this is what it recorded.
At the end of this video you’ll notice the hummer in the forefront perks up and notices another hummer coming in fast and hot from the top right of the screen. These guys are amazing in their mobility and ability to notice things, and I have to say I am a bit jealous at that.
Give glory to the Lord for He has created all things, said better here: Revelation 4:11 Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
All things, even those rioters that have caused such misery and destruction. God created those guys like he created you and me and those hummingbirds I love to watch. I think we should consider those guys, who clearly have not been doing the Lord’s work, are probably prisoners of war.
What war you ask? The war between the Light of the world and darkness. They have been captured by satan and doing his work. I just want you to try that concept on for size and search the bible and see what it says to you if you are in disagreement with them as prisoners of war. Since you are reading this online, there are many places to search the scripture. BibleGateway and Blueletter Bible are a couple. As I said before, make technology work for you. Search and see if these unpleasant people have been created as creatures of God and deserve to be prayed for at the very least. This is what Jesus said about people of Jerusalem: Luke 13:34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!
Hopefully this will make you look at people you don’t like with different eyes, and that is something Jesus would want.
I have always been interested in the sky and weather. Growing up in Minnesota during the 60’s and 70’s I was able to witness awesome blizzards and snowfall and during the warmer months, observe tornados from my backyard. A real treat was a couple of comets that we could see with our own eyeballs.
Moving forward into my adult life and still keeping my eye on the sky, I acquired a couple of drones. We were living in Southern Kansas at the time and the sunrises were spectacular when seeing it from 500 feet up. Plus with 2 drones, I could see it in stereo. The glory of the Lord was evident in each one prairie sunrises that I had witnessed.
These days, I have pared my drones down to just one, but added a little device that is called a Raspberry Pi. It is a micro computer about the size of a man’s wallet. You can do many things with these Pi’s and my favorite thing is to add a camera to them and tell them to take time lapses of sunrises. And they do, I just have to remember to get the pictures before they get overwritten by the next morning’s batch.
Previous to this, I had been placing all these images on FaceBook, but since I own this domain and pay for it, I figured I would start putting them here. So, here we go…
This morning’s very windy sunrise.
And here is an hour and fifteen minute time lapse taken from about 5:30am to just before sunrise.
That little blinky dot in the middle right and rising is Venus.
