Shorts Silliness

Look at the couple in the park, about to walk into the woods. She is wearing a jacket; they both are. But he is wearing shorts, of a light and flimsy material. It's 11C/52F and windy out. She is being sensible but he is being . . . Je ne sais pas quoi.

He had the phone glues to his ear but just seemed to be listening.
She was holding the dog leash.

Kids do the short thing for some reason although I don't know what that reason is. More men seem to be doing it this year. But this fellow was no spring chicken, and seemed like a late 60s senior. Old enough to have nourished his brain sufficiently by now. 

Sue had been looking for a photo depicting both orange and release. She figured out something and directed me, her human tripod, on just how I should shoot the shot.

Success! 

Unblocked

I should report that after 6 weeks, my ear unblocked about 10 days ago. The trick was to take a lot of decongestants for 3 days — keeping to recommended max dose, of course. The doctor also prescribed a higher dosage of antihistamine tablets. Along with the Omnars nasal spray, the protocol worked after six weeks of even more reduced hearing.  

It was my second bout of the year, so the doc advised that I should continue use the nasal spray from here on. That sound like a lot, but my here on is getting shorter, so . . . 

I took a pic of the process of extricating the decongestants from the packaging. I had opened one of the 2 at this point.

There was a thin backing (right) on the blister pack that had to be peeled off before pushing the capsule out. It required a little bit of picky dexterity to find the corner and to begin peeling. I said to myself that this could be difficult for older people.

Then I realized what I had said and smiled to myself.

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I got back into a photo folder of our 2009 trip to Vancouver to visit PJ. I decided to make a quick poster board without any reediting or without very much designing. I just plopped the photos onto a virtual canvas in Photoshop and sized them to suit. 

Fall and Hydrangeas

We did our Sunday walk to Dark & Deadly. When I say, usual, it is not habitual, but when we do go, it may very well be on a Sunday.

Opposite the cafe is little copse if that isn't too grand a word. At this time of year, it looks like a nice autumnal corner. It is just behind one of those bigger pharmacies that are more than just pharmacies, but you would never know it from this side.

Pleasant, isn't it?

Soon after, we drove over to Sha's to store some things in her freezer since the dog is coming with frozen meals for five weeks. Unfortunately, her freezer is kaput; somehow, Sue is figuring it out.

We also discussed Thanksgiving, which is next Monday. Danica will be home for it. I love turkey with all of the trimmings. Sue and Shauna like it, but the kids are meh. So, we're not going to do it: maybe for Christmas, maybe not. Sha will make lasagna. We'll have apple pie and ice cream and whatnot.

I'll drop another picture, this one from Saturday on the trail. I stopped by a hydrangea. It's an amalgam of two photos: one of the scene and another as a person walked through it. The person photo wasn't as well composed, so dropped him into the scene photo. No AI required for that except for a little blending help in the end. The person adds a point of interest in my opinion; some would say that he anchors the scene.

Oh here's a photo of the same fence and hedge from the other direction and from around the corner. It is from earlier last week when Sue was out for coffee with a friend, and I walked alone. There was not a lot of colour looking in that direction and at that time.

Sunday Miscellany

 It is 4C out at 7, and my window is open this morning, but I am toasty under the heated afghan. 

I always mistype morning (except now) but autocorrect never corrects it.

We’ve begun fall cleanup. The backyard is done. The front can stay for awhile. 

We’ll be getting a dog this week — doggy-sitting for five weeks. He’s old. What have we done?!

The dog will keep us from doing some of our normal colour-peeping drives, but we got to the sugarbush last week, and we can enjoy the colours here in town. 

Over the past months, I have written and trashed two posts about The Oak Ridge Boys — don't even ask, or I would have to create and trash another one. There were other posts in draft form — 18 posts in all. I trashed half of them, including the Oak Ridge Boys. There are a few that I might still post. 

I have some October-Halloween images in the queue. This is my most recent — a figure from Dark & Deadly reimagined. It is saying, “Come to bed, my darling.”

The original photo

Speaking of Dark & Deadly, it may be time for another visi. Maybe today and maybe for a breakfast sandwich too. They serve them piping hot, much better than the chains’ servings. 

Almost finally for today: a photo of a house as we peeked through the trees from the trail. There are pumpkins on the porch. 

Absolutely finally: from out walk yesterday.

Riverside Park (mostly)

I will begin with a shot that almost qualifies as an orphan by now. It isn't terribly special, but it got noticed by the right people on Flickr and so was viewed more than 4K times rather than the usual 100 or so viewings. I captured this young lad tossing the basketball in our neighbourhood park.

Now for more local autumn colour from Riverside Park: tis the season after all. 

No longer in Riverside Park but looking downriver from Gillies Bridge on our bridge trail walk.

Into the Sugar Bush and Back

It drizzled when we began our trip to the sugarbush. It drizzled when we got home. It drizzled at all times between. But it was our day to go, and so we went. On the one hand, the colours can look quite saturated in the rain, so the familiar trip was very pleasant. On the other hand, the lack of light tends not to highlight the autumn colour in photos. However, I will show you what I took, so you can know, as best you can, what it is looking like in these environs.

There was not much reason to stop in the drizzle along the way, but I forget from year to year that there is also not much place to pull over on our rural roads anyway. Once we were almost there, I was able to pull off to capture this little scene with the big ladder and the one colourful tree. It's a little puzzling, eh?

Right next to it, along the road, I liked the fence and the colourful row of trees. I do like this photo, but it is really the only one from the day that I feel that way about.

We ate our pancakes, French toast and maple sausages, but we didn't bother walking around the compound in the drizzle and were soon on our way home. We did stop along the sugar camp driveway on our way out of the property to capture this bend in the road.

I also captured an image ↓ of the glacial erratics off the side of the driveway. If you have been here for any length of time, you have seen them before. If you're new, I can tell you that they are boulders that were dumped by the glacier, probably 10 to 20 thousand years ago. (I will let FG confirm or correct my guesstimate.)

On the return trip, I did find enough room to pull off the main road at Playfair where OUR Mississippi and not The Mighty Mississippi River crossed. It's the same river that much later flows through town.

I walked back toward Sue and the car, which you can see on the right. We drove straight home from there.

It was a pleasant outing which has become part of our autumn ritual. As we had left the premises, I told the cashier that I would see them in spring, and she wished me a good winter. 

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Oh! Ed left instructions to make an emoji, but it posts like a big photo here. It also takes its own line in FB Messenger, but it shows as a regular inline icon in text (Messages in Apple).

If you have an Apple phone go back to his comment on yesterday‘s phone. In fact, I will repost below to save you the trouble. All questions should be directed to Ed, who is smarter than I, which is not necessarily saying a lot, so don't get too puffed up, Ed. 😇

"Do you have an iPhone? If so, the message app has a menu where you can create custom emojis. Hit the plus button to the left of where you type your text, scroll down to "Genmoji" and have fun."

Orange

Yesterday, think.stew posted of the lack of orange emojis for our Truth and Reconciliation Day.  I asked AI to create, an emoji of a bald man with a dark beard wearing an orange short, and this is what it gave me. But it is just an image that I don't know how to make into an emoji.

This would be my icon, not Stew's.

I did wear an orange shirt yesterday, and in the evening, we went to the bridge to photograph the orange lights, but the first thing we noticed was the Every Child Matters flag flying over the Roy Brown memorial at half-mast.

The Every Child Matters flag is a symbol of remembrance and awareness for Indigenous children affected by Canada’s residential school system.

The Every Child Matters flag features a bright orange background, symbolizing the impact of the residential school system on Indigenous communities, and often includes an eagle feather, which honors and recognizes all children who were forced into these schools and those who lost their lives as a result of abuse and neglect. The phrase “Every Child Matters” serves as a tribute to the innocent lives lost and acknowledges the ongoing healing of survivors. (Copilot)

There is no way that I can photograph the bridge lights differently than I have many times previously, but I don't think that I have ever photographed the orange display for Truth and Reconciliation Day, so here we are.

Today, we shall be off to the hinterland on our annual autumn excursion to the sugar bush. It may be rainy and not the best day possible for the outing, but it is otherwise the best day for us. Whatever the conditions, hopefully, I will have a few autumn photos for you tomorrow. Maybe Sue can do some shooting on the route while I do the driving. It might be quite pretty in spots as the car zooms by the countryside.