Monday Mystery

Last week's mystery object was more difficult as there was nothing to give an idea of scale.



I can quite see the possibility of it being a horn of some sort, but, in fact it is only one inch long.
Kris was correct. Well done. It is a claw, one of Penny's dew claws. I don't know whether all breeds of dog shed them. Penny does occasionally and so did Bobby the Lurcher. Only the second one I have found in the seven years she has been with me.  Look closely and you will see the bottom end of the old claw is hollowed out. This is where the new claw was growing, partly inside the old one.

Thank you to all who had a go at guessing.

Here we go with a new close view

 

of what?

Please leave your guess in the comments.
They will be revealed, along with the answer, next Monday.

St. James' Church spire, Louth

On Friday's video I pointed out how the spire of St. James' Church, Louth, towers above the town.

 

As I have mentioned before, Louth is in a valley. The tower and spire of the church were made tall enough to be seen from surrounding villages.

Not for the first time we went for a walk down one of the old farm tracks in the village. From the entrance to a field it is possible to see the Lincolnshire Wolds and the spire of St. James' Church. After all the recent rain the atmosphere and viewing were clearer than I have seen on previous attempts.

A wide view


It is possible to make out the spire but by zooming in you can see just how far the tower and spire rise out of the valley about four miles away from my village..



Also viewable from the edge of the village is one of Europes tallest masts.

Belmont TV mast


Built on high ground it stands 1154 ft (351.74m) above the ground.
The mast is about 10 miles away from me.

Wet, Wet, Wet

The rain arrived about 5.30 a.m. on Thursday and didn't stop for 24 hours. My weather station recorded a total of 52.8m mm of rain, a bit over 2 inches.

Thursday
 

Friday morning
 
 
As far as I can gather the average for the whole month of November here is about 70mm. It was not the sort of day I would choose to travel to town voluntarily but I had an optician appointment. In fact I had two appoints booked for yesterday.  The other being at the local medical practice.

As always I videoed my car journeys. This is a few clips from the visit to Louth.
It is by way of an experiment. I used a Mac app called VideoSpeak to add some comments.
Not my voice but one chosen from dozens available in the app.



In the app you play the video, stop it where you want a comment and type it in.
Then choose a voice which will speak the typed words.

Music soundtrack is Riders of Rhythm Force. A track given away many years ago on a PC Home magazine cover CD.

All Fall Down

Autumn colours on trees last for such a sort time.
One day of strongish winds and most fall to the ground.

Monday Mystery

Last Monday I showed



Congratulations to Ragged Robin and Kris who correctly identified it as part of



an orchid flower. In this case it was a phalaenopsis orchid.
My thanks to all who made a guess.

I wonder if anyone will be able to identify this week's mystery object



Please leave any guesses in the comments.
They will be revealed, along with the answer, next Monday.

Airborne

I was so pleased with the ease with which I could control the simple drone I've already invested in a slightly more sophisticated model. The LE-IDEA IDEA10 WiFi FPV Drone uses GPS to maintain its position in the air and has a built in wide angle view camera for photos and video.



As the arms and propellers fold up it fits very neatly in the carry case provided



Today I had my first test flight with it.

short video


still photo


The controller has the facility to hold a mobile phone which can be used to see what the camera sees and to control the flight. Something to try another time when I have had more practice. The drone has three flight speeds. Its slow speed is somewhat faster that that of the simple drone I bought.

There is a pre flight routine which has to be gone through to check and align the gyro and gps which takes a minute or two.

Spilt Patterns

Colourful patterns shown in spilt oil or petrol on the wet road surface:











The only colourful part of a really dreary day weather-wise.
It was raining when we woke up and it is still raining as I write this.
Not heavy downpours. Just fine drizzle which is just as effective at soaking the unwary walker.