Caturday 2

Lacey is an aloof puss although you wouldn't think that from these pics.

She loves her treats, and I have used them to get her comfortable to be with me on my recliner. This remains the only spot where she will visit a lap, but I get protracted visits both morning and evening.

She accepts petting here and even seems to enjoy it. But pretty well only here although I can get away with little petting in a few other spots.

But in this chair, she will snuggle down for quite a long time.

The main problem with this is that she pins down my right arm each and every time, which is limiting. In the first pic below, you can see my right hand, for I am right-handed, struggling to access the keyboard of my tablet. It's a recurring theme. You can't see it in the photo, but there is a little table on the right where I can keep my coffee among other things. But, oh no, I can't get to it and must revert to putting it on the floor to my left.

When I was first taming her, I would put a treat on my shoulder, and she would retrieve it. It remains a goto spot.

She's a Charmer

As you already know, because I keep posting about it, Danica celebrated her 12th birthday with us yesterday. The real party will be today when her brave mother will have a bunch of girls over for pizza, whatnot, and a sleepover. But the kids still love their grandparents, and we had our little, understated gathering with presents, cake and Chinese takeaway yesterday.

Aside: I told Sue this morning that I must have Chinese every night now because I actually slept for 8 hours last night AND only had to get up once during the night. Both are some kind of record

Back to the narrative. I took many pics, this time with my little compact camera. I seldom use it, but it's small size plus its built-on flash work well in tight quarters. It's actually a very decent compact camera. I wouldn't say top-of-the-line but it does trend to the higher end.

But I am not going to report on the whole party, not right now anyway. For this post, I am going to stick with candids of Danica turning on the charm at the drop of a hat when the camera turns on her. Needless to say I find this charming and delightful. I don't know anyone who can do it to this extent.

Danica's Birthday Card and Collage

I didn't want to post these images until we had given her the hard copies, but this is the card and also the composite that I made for Danica's birthday.

The front and back

Inside

The collage of various photos taken throughout her twelfth year.

Twelve Today

Born 12 years ago today, my love for this girl is deep. I could not ask for a more wonderful granddaughter.

Three Days Old

Since I happened to land on the number three, above, I decided to keep the theme going, below.

Three Months Old

Three Years Old

Two x Three Years Old: she had her ears done

Three x Three

Four x Three: Well Almost

Returning to the Scene

After visiting the flooded tree and posting that ↑↑↑ photo plus a few others, I knew that I wanted to return when conditions were better.

I had photographed this flooded tree at sunset area two years before and captured this ↓↓↓ which I like, but I wanted to try again.

Sue and I went for a stroll in the park in late afternoon, but I had left my memory card in the computer. So, I returned again in the evening, which I had planned to do anyway.

It was very flooded last night. Someone said that the water rose quite a bit between yesterday morning and afternoon. Concentrating as much as possible on capturing reflections, I got the two photos below. They are taken with the sun a little lower than above which did eliminate some of the funky flares, although I still like the above photo.

Processing was mild (above), mainly photoshopping some of the debris in the pond for a cleaner image. For whatever reason, I decided to used a panoramic crop of modern tv dimensions. Any other processing touches were quite mild.

Below, is slightly different view in which I warmed up the colour balance a little compared to the above photo, but it is still only lightly processed.

It was good to get out after a few days of not feeling too great. I mostly just stood around waiting for the sun to get lower, and that was quite pleasant, almost a meditative thing although that is exaggerating my state of mind a bit. We are into a few more days of rain, so hopefully, I will get another opportunity when the skies clear again.

Experience and Committment

We had Doug the roofer and handyman here on the first and so far only nice day of spring on Saturday. With temperatures soaring to 17C/63F and the sun shining, he picked a good day to do his thing.

He had been by in early November to try to get a handle on our problem, but with snow already on the roof, there was little he could do other than promise to return in spring.

So, what is the problem? Water is leaking into the garage (right photo) and also into the sun porch (left in photo). It has been going on for a long time, well over a year, and no one has been able to fix the leak. We've had more than one roofer up there, and patching has been done, but the problem has persisted.

In desperation, Sue contacted a friend who has lived in the area for a long time, and she recommended Doug. He is an older fellow. He looks older than me, but perhaps he is just weather beaten after working in the elements for most of his life. But he is spry and gets up and down the ladder with ease.

He took his time and studied the situation carefully from both inside and outside the garage. Other roofers hadn't even checked from the inside but just started smearing caulking or whatever substance wherever there might have been a possible problem. But Doug took his time, looked all over, studied the situation to identify the exact problem as best as he could and fixed most of the problem.

But we had an absolute deluge the next night to the point where basements were flooded (not ours) and some roads even had to be closed. Did his patch hold? Mostly. We did have a trickle in what would have been a flood just a few days before. He returned when it was still wet and he could trace the remaining leak, and said that he could now sees exactly where the remaining problems lies. He promises to return for the final fix on a nice day.

You have to appreciate an older fellow who is willing to take his time and do his best to get it right as opposed to a younger run-and-gun fellows who want to get in and out as quickly as possible. Certainly, the years of experience help too.

A Bit of Spring Flooding

On two consecutive days, we found ourselves parked at the far end of the park near the community boat launch. As it often the case in spring, there was flooding beyond the parking lot by that certain tree. I have seen it flooded much more than this, but every year is different.

Both days were on  the dull side, particularly the second day, so I converted the photos to mono.

This is the first photo. The water was too disturbed for a good reflection, but the lone gull added a point of interest.

There was a reflection on the second day, so I photographed both the tree and the reflection and, except for converting to mono,  I processed minimally to capture the bleakness of the day.

While I am at it, here is a photo off to the side of this temporary pond. Once again, there is a gull, and I like the little island in the foreground. I think the three patches of grass on the lower right diagonal make for a leading line and a repeated element. I mean it (and the others above) are not stellar photos, but, to repeat a refrain, it is nice to get out and shoot something.