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. 

Into the Hinterland

Shauna will be visiting her friends back in Sarnia for her summer hols, so she has decided to take some maple products as a hostess gift. It makes sense because our county styles itself as the Maple Syrup Capital of the province. The closest sugar camp, Fultons, is only about 20 minutes north of us. Sha does work for a living, and Fultons is only open for a few hours twice a week, so she asked us to run the errand for her.

Once we leave town we are soon into rural Ontario. There being an interesting sky, Sue wanted to stop for a photo, and I took one too, just for you folk. Look at the rough road, which caused a bit of a rattling ride for our car with non-viable shock absorbers.

Fortunately, the road soon became less bumpy although it remained gravelly.

Then, we saw a young deer just off the side of the road. We stopped at some distance for a photo, but after awhile, when it didn't bound off, we inched closer, so I got a pretty good photo.

We inched forward even more, and it remained in place.

We were actually the ones to move on, and soon, we came to Fultons.

A most pleasant lady greeted us.

We looked around and selected what we needed, mostly maple bbq sauce, before taking a somewhat less bumpy route home.

Orphan Photos 3

These orphan photos have been lingering for a little longer than I had thought: not terribly long, but I was surprised to see them still in my blogger queue.

You might recall my recent photos of the rainbow lights on the bridge. This nearby house caught the corner of my eye, so I strayed over for a better look. I love the lighting and the curving path. While I would have liked to get the whole doorway in the photo, I was already trespassing, so I didn't venture any farther.

On a walk with Sue by the abandoned factory, I photographed the window along with the alarm. It's an interesting juxtaposition, and I also like the vegetation emerging from the window.

A photo of failed expectations: no shifting this lot in that car.

While others were fishing for free without a license on Father's Day weekend, this lad found a quiet spot to check his phone. He was well-framed and in good light.

Someone asked to see the flowers on the silk lilac tree-bush that I recently posted about. When I walked back there for this photo, the fragrance was almost intoxicating. They are definitely not like regular lilacs, but they are just as fragrant or maybe even more if that is indeed possible.

I could go on, but I that is enough for now. I will likely return with more orphan photos in the near future. I do accrue photos at quite a rate after all.

Three Selfies and Three Hats

Wednesday, was a day for selfies and also for one cute photo of a marvellous ice cream vendor, Doesn't she look marvellously joyful?

We took that on our coffee walk, our third of the season, where we sip our coffee by the kids' play structure at the end of the walk. Ice Cream Lady had just served, a group of high school kids whom I think had just completed their final exam.  She told that she was off to a birthday party. Good for her. She's delightful, and she has created a pleasing business for herself.

While there, we took a selfie. Hey, it's been awhile, so we're allowed. Really.

A little later, I picked up Danica to drive her to work. Since we hadn't taken a photo at our Father's Day visit, we took one in the car.

Believe it or not, I also had to get JJ to work that afternoon, and since I had also missed an FD photo with him . . . 

I have realized that I wore three different hats that day, but the shirt was a constant.

PS: I stumbled onto Michelle’s Ice Cream Carnival Facebook page by accident later. 

Back and Front

Early-ish yesterday morning, I poked my nose into the easement, which desperately needs mowing. But there are flowers — erigeron aka fleabane — along part of the fence.

They are such pretty little things, and I can't bear to mow them down just yet. It's not that anyone really sees them back there, but I am still reluctant. On the other hand no one really sees the current mess either, so there's really no hurry.

Meanwhile, out front, the daisies are beginning to open. I am so pleased to have daisies again after a longish absence. I don't know why they failed previously, but I hope this plant flourishes for many a year.

There are only three flowers open now, but there are lots of buds.