The Last Fiddler

It's Saturday night as I sit at the computer to write something for Sunday's blog post, and through social media, I know what act is about to take the stage at Almonte Celtfest momentarily. It interests me because we attended the Celtfest weekend for 15 years. In the early days, it was mainly just a Sunday afternoon concert. Presently, it begins on Friday night, continues on Saturday afternoon and evening and then onto and through Sunday afternoon. The curtain will come down with everybody singing The Parting Glass. It's a great event.

We loved it in our time, but that miserable pandemic came along and essentially cancelled it for two years. By then, we were further into our 70s and the thought of lugging lawn chairs and picnic baskets around a hot, sunny hillside in search of a patch of shade felt like a little much. I miss it somewhat, but I take joy in 15 years of memories. We have moved on to a different phase of life, and we appreciate it for what it is.

I looked through some past photos. I think everyone of which appeared in posts back in those days  

This first photo is of the very last act of Saturday night of our final concert in 2019. I have thought that it was the final act that we ever saw but there would have been others on the following Sunday afternoon. However, I don’t remember them, so Ashely MacIssac’s performance stands out as the final act for me. It’s very fitting because he is a world class fiddler who left me feeling that I had been in the presence of musical genius.

Next is another photo from 2019: an inspiring native group who were not exactly Celtic but close enough. Now that we have AI, I put her on a different and better stage for her performance had not been lit in the earlier, daylight.

The whole stage in 2018, not re-edited

also 2018, a drummer with another group, slightly re-edited 2026

from 2017, slightly reedited in 2026

fiddler from the same band as above but in 2016,

a Quebecois French band, Le Vent du Nord

Finally an exceptional drummer from 2010, stage background added

Orphan Photos 4

Two flowers from the Community Garden at the museum from mid-June. The blanket flower is a merge of 5 photos to try to simulate a multiple exposure.

A heron in a sea of green, taken on the day of the solstice. Happily, s/he occupied a little gap within the greenery.

Also on the solstice: a rather nice evening sky from our bedroom. I like the darker cloud that frames the top of the photo.

A mirror selfie from June 19th.

That was Canada Day

We have been experiencing quite a heat wave, so we had no intention of partaking in any of the Canada Day events. I did wear my maple leaf shirt around the house, even when watching Wimbledon.

Eventually, some people did see the shirt although they made no comment. Jonathan and friends had gone out for a walk and ended up here to hydrate and cool off. And eat chips and skittles.

After some games, the four of them put their heads together to finish our jigsaw puzzle. 

It's really Sue's jigsaw, and not ours, but I do occasionally try to help a bit. I was glad for the kids to fit the final pieces.

Back to Canada Day: the town's outdoor festivities would not have gone all that well. In addition to the heat of 33C/91F, there were several downpours (see photo). How disappointing for the town and for those who made an effort to attend, especially the kids!

patriotic shirt and stormy weather

They did go ahead with the fireworks after the rain stopped, and I did try shooting with the phone, but it did not do well in that kind of situation. These ↓ are some of the better shots, if you please. I was dubious about getting anything, so I am not really disappointed. I don't mind posting them here, but I am not sure if I would post any of them to Flickr although the third one isn't too terrible.

Storm Chasing in Eastern Ontario

It's not exactly Kansas here, so I was surprised to learn that some Ontarion's have taken up storm chasing as a hobby, for most of the province is not exactly thought to be the tornado belt, but nevertheless, Connor Mockett lives here in Eastern Ontario, and he does identify as a storm chaser. He declares so right on his Facebook page.

I had never heard of him until Tuesday evening when we had a humdinger of a storm that included a red tornado warning blaring over our phones.

one of Connor's fb photos from Tuesday
somewhere during this storm chase

Danica was wondering where exactly the tornado was spotted, bit the notifications was probably just informing us that the conditions were right. Indeed, our town was mentioned as being in the storm path, and we found that Connor had been out chasing it "For the first time in my entire chasing career, I can say that was the first time I was terrified of how strong the lightning was. Driving down Dwyer Hill towards HWY 7 from Kinburn was easily the craziest lightning drive I have ever experienced, I seriously thought my car was going to get struck. The cloud to ground bolts were so incredibly intense. I'll never forget it."

This is one of his clip from his chase.

 

He arrived here in Carleton Place where he ended his chase.

I am surprised to learn that "Ontario averages 18 tornadoes a year and they usually occur between May and September. That number, over the 30-year average, has earned Ontario the crown as the tornado capital of the country." 

They mainly occur within a corridor that stretches from Windsor to Ottawa. More occur in Southwestern Ontario, but more are beginning to occur here in the Ottawa Valley. From what I can gather, most do not reach category 4 or 5 stage.

Some stats from the American Tornado Alley (from AI and/or Wikipedia)

Kansas averages 81 tornadoes per year, 2nd only to Texas who averages 135 per year. Average annual number of tornadoes per 10,000 square miles per state between 2004 and 2023. Kansas averages 10 tornadoes per 10,000 square miles per year, which is tied for 3rd place with Iowa and Illinois

The states with the highest number of F5 and EF5 rated tornadoes since data was available in 1950 are Alabama and Oklahoma, each with seven tornadoes. Iowa, Kansas, and Texas each are tied for second-most with six The state with the highest number of F5 and EF5 tornadoes per square mile, however, was Iowa. Since 1950, the state with the most violent (EF4/F4+) tornadoes is Oklahoma with 68. 

I was once out in a tornado, or very close to where it hit in Canada's Tornado Alley by Windsor and Sarnia. It was at a field day event at my high school. The event had to be cancelled in progress, and we soon discovered that nearby houses had been flattened. This included the house of two sisters that I taught. One sister was home at the time and was just dragged into the cellar by her brother seconds before the house was levelled above them. I know this because she wrote a composition about the event in the English class that I taught.

PS: Shauna reports that Connor Mockett has chased the region in the USA Tornado Alley, but he is a new contact for me.

It's Our Birthday

It's Canada Day, and we celebrate our 159th Birthday. We aren't perfect, but we do pretty well, eh?

Come late June, Sue festoons the garden with all sorts of mini flags.

On one of my night snacks and reset saunters, this is how one of the pots, looked to the camera.

This gif turns Sue's arranging into a dance. Can you learn that step: right foot back and forward again, left foot slightly to the side and raised just a bit.

Happy Birthday to us.

As a bonus this morning at 6, I looked across to my monitor. It was showing a streak of sunlight and also the sun. I’ve never seen that before. I shot from my chair. 

Fireworks Experiments

For the past few years, I have taken myself and my Canon to the trail bridge and done my best to photograph the fireworks beyond townhall. 

The photos turned out well, but last year I determined that I wouldn't do that again because the mosquitoes were ferocious, and also my photos seemed to be getting worse every year instead of better. I vowed to return to shooting from our bedroom with the daycare centre in the background. I had photographed them that way for a couple of years before I decided to shoot from the bridge with townhall in the frame, as above. The original daycare photos had worked before as you can see below.

Canon photo from my bedroom in 2023

I wondered if I were to shoot from the bedroom again, if I might be able to take the fireworks from the bedroom photo and superimpose them onto another scene. So I took some current daylight phone photos when we were out for a walk to bring home and experiment.

phone photo 2026

Obviously I had to darken the photo to emulate night, and then I composited the daycare photo shown above. It works pretty well although when I export to Blogger the photos lose some resolution and become darker.

merging 2023 fireworks with current photo after darkening the latter

Next is another composite looking toward town hall. I figure that there should be a reflection on the river, but I am not artistic, and I don't what it should look like although I made an effort.

The above photos looked to the main bridge from the trail bridge. Then, I turned about and shot toward the back bridge. In real life there wouldn't be fireworks over that way, but in the digital world, I can make my own reality. I made a different sort of guess with the reflection. (I am not using AI for these composites btw.)

Here's one more bit of alternate reality. I turned to face away from the river and along the trail bridge. Once again, I made a choice about reflections, thinking that the pavement would pick up something. I am just flying by the seat of my pants as it were.

Whatever we think about the reflections, I was pleased to more or less complete the vision that I had in my head. To wit: I composited several 2023 firework photos with several 2026 daylight phone photos, and I think the results look fairly realsitc.

Recent Evening Wanderings

It's summer, so on some nights when I can't quite settle, I will go downstairs and grab a few arrowroot cookies. I find that doing something other than lying there sometimes resets me, and I may get to sleep better afterwards. It being summer, I sometimes take my cookies out front and enjoy the relative evening coolness. I may even find my phone and take it with me.

Neighbour runs a few lawn lights and they photographed fairly well for casual shooting. It is possible that the phone might even work better than a real camera for some handheld night photos. Whatever the case, these is what I got that night.

On another night, I just took photo of our porch from the outside and one of Sue's bear inside the porch with patches lighting up from the rotating light.

One night, I went for an actual stroll a bit earlier. I made it to the park where the low sun behind me just caught the trees across the pond in front of me.

In case you are wondering, I do nighttime wanderings on my own. Sue gets to bed much earlier than I, and even if she isn't abed yet, she is ready to turn in soon.