Bent Tree in October 2001

Rod and Brenda went up to Bent Tree for a rare two-day weekend. The weather was beautiful and the leaves were very nice.

We went up to work on the house - we are finally climbing out from the disasters of last winter with the flood from a broken boot on the plumbing vent stack. Mark and Marty put tile on the basement floor, and this weekend Rod worked on the molding around the tile floor. But we got some time to relax and walk around the area.

At sunset the leaves were being backlit be the sun and seemed to be almost on fire. At left above is a view from our upper deck, and at right is a view from Chestnut Cove Trail.

We caught the sunset backlighting the trees along Chestnut Cove Trail near the steep hill leading to the house. We got fantastic sunsets for two days in a row.

The backlit colors were so bright that it made everything glow. Brenda's hair looked like it was on fire.

The sun was setting over a mountain ridge over Jasper and Rod had a clear view of it as it sank. Knowing the possibility of the green flash, he kept the camera on as the sun disappeared from view. To his amazement, he did see the green flash for the first time in his life. The green was visible on the video in only three frames, or 1/10 of a second. This frame is the best of the three, but the green is barely visible at the top of the sun. It was more evident as he was looking throught the viewfinder, but not as dramatic as many stories about the green flash.

We enjoyed breakfast with Jim and Mary Tanner at the house on Sunday morning and were sitting and talking with them when this pileated woodpecker showed up in the hickory trees at the front of the house. It was the first time I had seen one at the house, and only my second time to see one at all. Jim said that they saw one about once a month near their house in Big Canoe, and that one had even pecked on their house on one occasion.