November's wintry air, sky and color remind us that life is certainly and perennially seasonal. "Around, and around, and around we go . . ." on the merry-go-round we call our earthly existence. We're reminded that although we go through many changes as we get older, it seems the earth renews itself every year and will continue to do so after we are gone.

Anyway, our Monthly Challenge themes were Bare Trees, Thanksgiving and Transportation - a real hodge-podge. Let's see how we fared.

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Old Davy will start us off on a humorous note with a few Thanksgiving photos of corkscrew cuisine. I might make this an assignment some time: Make a cartoon of one of your pictures. It's a lot of fun and easy to do if you have a 'Brush' tool in your photo software. You can caption it if you have a 'Font' tool, as well. Try not to let this poor dead and soon-to-be-toast turkey gross you out. He really isn't feeling a thing. Nikon D90, 12-24mm lens.

The teenie weenies are the rage here with the girls - me, not so much. I ate two and put two back in the crockpot, I think. Those are the happy faced ones! Nikon D90, 12-24mm lens.

After taking pictures at Cosumnes River Wildlife Preserve Thursday morning, I grabbed a few while driving home. If your window glass is pretty clean and you don't have any reflections and don't look through the viewfinder, and just hold your camera out and guess at the best place to point it, who knows what you'll get. Caution! This is an unsafe and probably illegal procedure. I don't advise it for anyone else! You can shoot your eye out if you're not careful.

This next shot is of my favorite row of poplars on Peltier Road on I-5, about 15 miles north of Stockton. With November being so warm all the leaves hadn't fallen yet, but a few trees had dropped most of them. This picture was pretty blurry at 70 mph, so I played with it a bit, added unreal colors and tried to make it as striking as possible. Nikon D5100, 55-300mm zoom lens.

Another grab shot out the window features my Transportation theme entry. A lot of people had to work on the Holiday. Nikon D5100, 55-300mm zoom lens. This is a great lens. I'm so glad I have it.

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Don's Transportation theme photo sports a restored classic. This is his neighbor's '36 Ford. Very nice shooting angle and background color, Don. Nikon D300, 18-200mm zoom lens set at 18mm (my guess).

Don's final photo is of a bare birch tree, with "Just a few die hard leaves hanging on." Good composition and angle. Winter will soon knock off those remaining leaves.

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World traveler, Ginnie, rounds out our entries for November. "Meg, Cath and Stacey were in charge of food this THANKSGIVING.  It was great.  My only contribution was turkey and gravy. The Martha Stewart method works best for me: turkey covered with cheesecloth, basted every half hour with melted butter and white wine. Yum.  No flash, just the halogen light from the hood, had to lighten it up a bit."

Ginnie drove all the way to the Grand Canyon to find a Bare Tree for our Challenge. What a girl!!!! Great shot! Good contrast and composition. And check out the color array. Very nice.

Another Canyon capture tweaks the Transportation theme a bit. Just say your spirit can be easily transported to praise God for the wonders and beauty of His creation. You can also say that one step too far and you can be easily transported to the next world. Yeow!

Ginnie's last photo is a freebie. I've lost her email that explains all about how she got this picture, so maybe she'll tell everyone more about it. It was taken out the window as they were driving by the big solar array at Carrizo Plain. Pretty cool - or should I say hot?

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Now that was fun, wasn't it, boys and girls? I know how busy everyone is in December, so we'll have a hiatus/break so everyone can focus on the reason for the season - God's wonderful gift of His Son, the Lord Jesus. Messiah, Savior, Redeemer, King of heaven and earth, in spite of the evil we see around us.

Merry Christmas to all and Happy New Year. May God's blessings be on you and your family this holiday season.

Old Davy and Barbie