On the Trail Bridge

Yesterday morning, I sat in my chair as usual, and among other things, checked your blog posts as usual. Unusually, I saw that I had completely omitted checking the blogs on the previous day. How does that happen? I worked my way through most of them without skipping too many although it was a relief to come across the occasional recipe post, which I don't read, because the list was long. Some of you have many more readers than I do, and I don't know how you manage to keep up with a big blogroll. But good on ya, I guess.

I actually have a few more photos from our Wednesday walk, all taken on the trail bridge.

I thought that placing Sue against the yellow background tree might make a good photo, but I did have to remove the fence to achieve something close to what I wanted.

You can see the fence in a similar photo that she then took of me. I kept the one with the bench for possible use on Flickr, but I was mostly interested in the closer portraits on that day. (The order, below, is reversed from what I want.)

Here are two photos of what we saw on the bridge, first looking west and then east toward the little back bridge.

I came across this image in one of the blogs that I follow. It's a spitting image of Jake and very timely, except in his case it is not 10 minutes but 7 weeks until his owners return.

We May Need to Succumb

Today in 2022, we turned on the furnace, and if you look at the temperatures inside the red (below), you may understand why we might be succumbing soon this year. (Note: the first day in the image was yesterday. Also note: temps are Fahrenheit to make it easy for our American friends as most Canadians, at least those of a certain vintage, can work both systems.)

It's not zactly balmy, eh? Especially this coming Saturday. Sheesh!

Sue completed and submitted the fourth of her seasonal photos of 2026. They are all taken looking downriver along the Mississippi from the downtown bridge with a larger copy of the recent autumn photo included. She is already thinking about next year's location, which may be from the far bridge that you see in the distance below.

Meanwhile, we did take Jakedog for a little walk on the bridge trail. The day was overcast, but the colour was still worth a look, and Jakey loved that trail.

Speaking of Jake, he woofed me awake at 6 for potty and breakfast. We have to go outside with him in the cold to light the steps because he can’t see in the dark. Same at 9pm for his final bathroom break of the day. He’s been on my lap since then, and it is almost 7am. Six weeks to go. 

Yay or Nay

When I posted this photo last week . . . 

. . . someone suggested that it might look good in black and white.

I did try it, but I thought it looked better when I kept the orange leaves on the stone stairs.

I did keep the awning in its original colour at first,  but I thought it looked better in mono with the text coloured orange to match the leaves.

Yay or Nay?

Addendum

As an afterthought, I asked Gemini to replace the windows with ones without reflections. I think it's an improvement, but you can be the judge of that too, if you like. 

It is little jobs like this that would be a stretch to do manually and it is an example of AI being very useful in quickly doing the grunt work in photo editing, assuming that the grunt work would even be possible.

Thanksgiving Remakes

Sue and both experimented with putting our little Thanksgiving group through AI. You might recall that the original was a street scene. I think Sue just asked for an park in autumn on Chat GPT.

Later, I was more specific with my instructions to Gemini with the photo into which I had composited myself.

Put the people and dog on a woodsy trail in autumn with orange and red leaves in both the trees and on the ground.

In addition to the scene, I was able to specify the dimensions of the photo. I chose 16x9.

We Had Our Little Thanksgiving

Sue was greeted with this message on Monday morning, which added a little extra pleasure to Thanksgiving.

It is genuine too, from the outfit that plows our driveway and has done so for a number of years. 

Later in the day, they dropped the prize off and posted this.

We'll have to see how we will use it. I would certainly like to share some with our university student, Danica, to help stock her fridge, but she will be away again until later in the month, and the gift is tied to our local store.

Meanwhile, there is not too much to report about our little Thanksgiving get-together. We ate, went for a walk, and Jake was fussed over.

Before posting, I decided to add me with a straight manual photoshop manipulation.

I might try to AI us into a nicer scene, but I am going to let it go for the time being and post as it is right now. 

Monday Musings

I have a note on Google Calendar that this is the day that we turned the furnace on in 2020. The 12th is the earliest day since I began to record this event. The latest date is November 01. I don’t know when we will capitulate this year, but it won’t be today.

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On some days before we turn on the furnace, I live on the edge, but it will go up to 17/63 today, and it will be warmer in the house. I have a heated throw for my chair at night, but I haven't had to turn it on for a few nights. We have a little heater for the bathroom to pre-heat for a shower, but I didn't need to use that this morning either.

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Thanksgiving weekend is when many trailer eateries close for the season. It is only five-month season for many, and goes by quickly.

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Danica had reason to message us fairly early on Sunday morning. She is not a notorious sleeper-inner, but I was surprised nonetheless. She explained that she was going to work at her former job here in town, and she explained that she had also done so on Saturday.

I expressed some surprise that she would be working two full shifts on Thanksgiving weekend, but she said that she wouldn't be getting many hours this week at the university bookstore.

I am impressed by her sense of responsibility.

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In an effort to escape the holiday rush, I was off to the grocery store for Thanksgiving provender shortly after 8, yesterday, almost as soon as it opened.

When I was done with the grocery shopping, I thought that it would be nice of me to bring coffee home for milady. Figuring that the drivethrough would be jammed, I decided to pre-order via the handy dandy app.

Wouldn't you know? I had to login again because my phone had done an update, and I would then have to verify that I was me. Once I entered my email, they sent a message with a code. Unfortunately, my email app simply spun and spun. They resent the code, but the spinning continued.

In the event, I drove through, but the line wasn't too lengthy, unlike the previous day when I couldn't even get into the parking lot on a beautiful and busy Saturday when it seemed like everyone was seizing what would possibly be one of the last few nice days, especially on a holiday weekend.

Weather is changing rapidly, and getting out and about soon won't be as appealing.

My main point is that I hate that business of trying to login like that when I am on the fly.

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Dog continues to be dog, which means addled. He continues to want my chair and/or my lap early each morning and late each evening.

He needs to go out at 6am to do what doggies must do, after which he gets his morning dish. That's fine; he doesn't require extra prodding to go out then.

However, for his final outing at 9pm, we must carry him out because he just doesn't wanna. And we have to go out with him, especially at night, not just to carry him out, but to either carry him back in or shine the flashlight on the step so he can find the step in his near blindness.

Anyolehow, here is is with me one morning: the two originals plus a composite to get us both looking at the camera in one image. In case you are wondering, I can do this kind of compositing manually and have been doing so for a long time. All I did was swap my head.

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Tomorrow, I shall probably recount a bit about our family Thanksgiving get-together that will take place this afternoon. I know that you won't exactly be spellbound, but it is part of my life that I record here.

Saturday Pie and Autumn Colour

Saturday was our pie pickup for TG, the proceeds going to youth clubs this year. As is often the case for the TG pies, it was a splendid day.

The route doesn't change, so the photos are not very different year to year. I took these on the way home.

In the afternoon, we took Jake for a walk in the park. Colours across the river were looking pretty good with some reflections.

Sue took one of me walking the crazy dog. However, if we want to go for an exercise outing, we must do it sans dog because walking Jake is a long and interrupted event with copious pauses to sniff along with a prodigious amount of leg-lifting. It is certainly more fun for Jake than for us.