The sun in my backyard

I've geared up in hopes of taking a picture of the eclipse in three weeks. And I've been trying to get used to taking pictures of the sun.

From our back deck this afternoon, the sun is behind trees: those dark areas on the sun's disk are not sunspots; they are out of focus branches and cloud.

On April 8th, I intend to be not only where the eclipse will be total, but out from under any nearby trees. I can only hope there'll be no clouds.