Flower Report

Last week, I decided to take a picture of the single, remaining daisy flower. I am pleased that I inserted the plant last year and that it returned this year because an earlier effort some years ago failed.

Then, with daylilies quickly diminishing, I decided to get a last last bloom photos of them too. They come and go so quickly that I missed the final flower of the one variety, so these may not be the absolute final blooms of our other two varieties, but they are darn close to that.

While we still have many echinacea flowers, I must tell you that they are dull and not vibrant at this point in their life cycle. They may be even less bright than how this photo renders them, but I am happy that they linger still.

The present highlight out front, however, is the yellow coneflowers whether you called them brown- eyed or black-eyed Susans of even rudbeckia. Like the daisies they were a good addition last year. Although they are coneflowers, they look as a fresh as daisies, so to speak. :)

Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta) and brown-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia triloba) are both popular North American native wildflowers in the aster family. Black-eyed Susans feature larger, solitary 2–3 inch blooms with a dark, prominent cone, while brown-eyed Susans produce a bushier plant with smaller 1–2 inch flowers and lower 3-lobed leaves.

Of course, Sue's potted annuals continue to flourish and will continue to do so for quite some time, but I forgot to take a picture, and it's just 5 o'clock here, and it is still dark, so no pic.

Out back, our mighty Joe Pye reached fence height and beyond and bloomed a few weeks ago. It is remarkable to me how it grows from nothing to more than 6' every year. Suddenly around mid-August the bees get interested and have just this week returned to do their work, oblivious of nearby humans.

This is not a recent iPhone photo but one taken with my Canon several years ago. iPhones don't do well at photographing quick-flitting bees at any sort of distance.

In the house we are having a baby. The flamingo lily that I showed you recently is beginning to sprout another flower. The first flower has been all alone in the months since we were given the plant.

This is a variation of the photo that I showed you last week.

If I look closely now in this next photo, I see a tiny bit of red to the middle right of the stake.

Here's a closer look.

How exciting to be a father again.

The Banner Flags of Bridge Street

Our town hangs banner flags* downtown along our main street. Around the end of June and beginning of July, the banner flags are, appropriately enough, resemble our actual Canadian flag (as previously and fairly recently posted). 

Come November, the banner flags will honour veterans of past wars for Remembrance Day. I haven't posted about those for some time, but maybe I will again this November.

Currently, the town exhibit various artists and their works. These four hang just outside of townhall along with two glorious flower baskets, of which there are plenty along the main drag and elsewhere in town too. I made sure to get the flowers in the photo too.

In addition to those that are hanging, the town has also planted some in flowerbeds. I liked this one, with the foreground blue flowers that almost seem to blend into the scene.

Sue liked it too.

There are many, many more banner flags flowerbeds and baskets, but you'll have to take my word for it after seeing my samples.

* I asked Google what I should call items that are like banners but hang vertically. Google said banner flags.

Hose and Squeegee

A young fellow captured our attention outside of townhall. I have never seen anything quite like this, but I don't suppose it is unique, and most people probably have seen this sort of work being done. 

You can see the whole procedure in the next photo, or at least you can if you look closely.

The lad has a squeegee attached to a very long handle. At the moment of the photo, he was cleaning the second-storey window. Fastened to the pole is a hose, so he is able to both wash and wipe the window.

I don't know how he would manage to clean the side windows because he would have to start from an even lower position. He might have room to erect a platform of some sort down there where there is more room down by the river than here on the narrow sidewalk.

The Puddle Incident

While walking in the park, I wondered if I could find a reflection photo with this puddle, for I have said that one should always investigate the photographic potential of a puddle. Of course I seldom do, but I was beginning to look when sue placed her coffee cup on the edge.

I took the shot, I don't think the cup added much if anything.

So, I moved the cup closer to the centre.

Eventually, I got one photo that is okay. Just okay, but very us. The green is all reflection of tree leaves.

So, remember to have a look next time you pass a puddle. It could be worth it. If not, you could have fun trying.

↑↑ THAT ↑↑ was the post, BUT since we encountered another puddle on the next day, I might as well expand the post.

Once again, there was nothing significant to be seen in the puddle, but I did put Sue there, and since Tim's is in the background, I can talk about that a little in the process. Here is that photo, for no particular reason.

Once we got inside to order our coffee to take on the rest of the walk, there was a longer lineup than usual. 

When the gentleman on the right heard Sue and I talking about the drive thru
being the faster than coming inside, he reminded us the time when
a rider rode his horse through the drive thru.

At Tim's the cars in the DriveThru get served more quickly than the customers inside. Although, they have just added two of those new-fangled order kiosks inside, I wasn't in the mood to experiment. I know that the kids prefer them to an actual human cashier no matter how short the line, but I am not there yet. \

When I travelled recently with Shauna, however, she saved us quite a bit of waiting time by using the kiosk. Sue says that at busy roadside restaurants, Sha will order from the car via her app. I do have that app for payments, which saved me on coffee in each of the last two visits for a total of $4:50 because I had accumulated points, but I haven't used it to order ahead of time. I have resolved to try it next time I have coffee with the boys — that is if hell frees over, and I happen to remember.

Anyway, the length of the line was deceiving because four of the old people were together, so it didn't take very long to be called to the counter, and we were then served by a pleasant young lady who asked if we were having a nice day. We continued on our walk through The Junction and found a bench to sit on by the play structure. We didn't take any more pictures, which is really quite remarkable. Not even a selfie. What is the world coming too‽

Father Goose

Fear not. I do not intend to report on every little bicycle ride that we take, but Sue thought of me as Father Goose on this one.

Although Sue and I did get on one ride without company, L was out to greet us as soon as opened the garage on the next day. Then, he got his brother, J out too. With me being followed, single file by two boys and Sue riding shotgun, she thought of geese out for a promenade.

At one corner she had us all make the same gestures for her post of the day: stop, left and right.

I liked the right signal best for photo purposes.

A little later, on a long section, I sprinted ahead, got off my bike and took a video clip of the three of them approaching.

Caturday 93: Sabine and Sarnia

We visited and spent time with Sabine twice this week because her humans have decamped to Southwestern Ontario for a week. Shauna takes the kids there to visit old friends in the place of her youth. They stay with her school friends who always take care of the kids well, and they have a pool, so the kids like to go too. At their present ages of 17 and 19, I am not sure how much longer these visits will be feasible, but they are enjoying them while they can.

Sabine is always quite happy to see us, and both Sue and I invariably snap a picture or two. I have two that I like. I took them with with the phone, of course, and I processed this first one right on the phone, cropping a lot. Ideally, both eyes would be in focus, but these, like most now, are just fun snaps, and I like the result quite a lot.

I also edited this next one on the phone, and I thought it looked good, but when I saw it on the computer, I didn’t like it, so I scrapped the phone edits and processed on the computer. Once again, I cropped, and in this case, I also asked Photoshop AI to fill in a nicer background (its choice, not mine this time), for I had shot while prone on the floor, and other than Sweet Sabine the scene was pretty sketchy. I like how Sabine looks, though.

One thing that I miss about Sarnia is chips under the bridge where the water is blue and when day is sunny and warm  A visit to the waterfront is always on Shauna's todo list when she visits  

And . .  . just so you all know, that is the St Clair river at Sarnia with Port Huron, Michigan on the other side. Before 911, we would cross regularly without hassle, but then everything got stupid. Things are even stupider now. Shauna sent this photo to show us the painted stones at the riverfront: something that began during C19, apparently. 

Our Persistent Ancestors

I have come across concept this persistence hunting concept in various anthropology podcasts, and when I came acroos this article, I decided to write a little post. Despite the linked article, I am just writing from my general memory and not the article itself. This is my unscientific and very sketchy memory speaking. :)

Furred animals don’t deal with heat as well as our furless species. This was very true in the African heat of ancestral times. It's hard for furry bodies to dissipate the heat. They largely adapt by laying low during the highest heat. Our ancestors, however, lost their fur and were able to cool themselves by sweating, and so they could actually be active during the day.

Our forebears also became bipedal which is a very effective way of getting around. Bipedalism plus the ability to sweat and cool themselves enabled early hominids to become good at travelling distances. They were built more for distance endurance rather speed.

The belief is that they learned that they could chase a potential prey over a long distance as the prey, say a gazelle, would have to keep resting to not be overcome by heat. 

When our ancestors eventually caught up with the exhausted animal, they had their primitive tools to complete their mission. I have seen persistence hunting re-enacted in a modern video in which, as far as I know, they did not actually dispatch a critter.

Well, that is my very unsophisticated description and explanation from what I recall. Please do not forward this to anyone who can explain this in proper scientific terms :)

However, I will leave you with a substantiating quote from the article.

The San people of southern Africa still show how persistence hunting works: up to this day, they run under the scorching heat of the sun, sweating consistently to cool off, and tracking the footprints of their prey, until they find them collapse from heat stress.

These types of hunts are not about speed; they are not sprints but more like a marathon. It is a battle of endurance, stamina, and internal temperature control, which our species has millions of experience in.

Years and years of persistence hunting likely further developed some traits that predate it, like bipedalism. By using their two legs more, our ancestors were able to unlock the ability to cover more ground with each step, withstand the repetitive stress and impact of running, and have a larger, more efficient lung capacity, which allows more intake of oxygen.

https://webpreneurships.com/before-fire-or-tools-humans-outran-their-prey-to-stay-alive-a-survival-skill-known-as-persistence-hunting