Last night, for the first time ever, I was reluctant to photograph the Moon.

-40C/F weather wasn't to blame.

You see, the last time I tried to do so, my beloved K7 went flying off the tripod, pulled by the weight of the telephoto lens, smashing into ice. Perhaps, I didn't fully check the tripod screw, perhaps, one of the tripod's legs was loose, perhaps, it was all that ice—or all of the above.

Apart from a dislodged lens mount and a cracked manual viewfinder, its injuries don't seem too severe, but it's still at the Pentax hospital waiting for parts.

The logical part of me said that I've had that camera for a number of years, shooting in torrential-downpour conditions here in the Rockies, dropping it on Mount Takao—Pentax cameras are quite sturdy—but eventually something was bound to happen. The irrational part of me considered it another link in the chain of all else that had gone wrong at that time.

My solution (with a touch of paranoia)? I kept the K3 around my neck and used...a tree as a tripod! Not ideal, but it worked well enough on bulb exposure to capture the classic crescent:

In the past, I've used fire hydrants, large garbage cans, fences, dogs...I'm a veteran of tripod ingenuity! ;)