175/40/6

That's quite a date, eh: 175/40/6?

For the past months I have been stepping on the scales on Sunday morning. This Sunday, the scale reported 175lbs dead on. That is a 40lb loss that took 6 months. Hence the 175/40/6 title.

I lost much of that poundage in the first two months before I really began weighing myself, but I did know my initial weight. I think it has since taken me a month and a half to lose the last 5 pounds, or maybe even just 4 pounds over slightly longer because it is slow going now, and that is okay at this point.

I didn't have a particular goal in mind when I started this way of eating, but lately, the 175 figure has been in my sights, and I didn't want to report until I reached that weight. I don't know why 175 is more significant than 176, but that's how it feels, right? It's the same with anniversaries; being married for 50 years is so much more impressive than a mere 49 years.

Who knows if there are more pounds to shed? If I were young and needed to be in tiptop fighting shape, I might theoretically be able to hit 165 or perhaps slightly lower, but alas I am not young and I couldn’t fight my way out of a paper bag, so I am quite satisfied with 175/40/6.

One thing has been made remarkably and almost frighteningly clear to me is that there is a very fine line between losing, gaining and plateauing. I recently, despite sticking pretty close the plan, gained a pound one week and another in the next week before I lost them slowly over the following two weeks. It's a near thing and a lifelong struggle, it seems.

Picture Yourself

Our extended heatwave broke overnight on Thursday. The temperature went down to 10C/50F and the wind blowing through my window was so strong that I was getting cold under the blanket that I had dug out of the cupboard in anticipation of the cooler weather. In the middle of the night, however, I had to get up and shut the window. Crazy, eh?

The cooler temperature meant that we didn't have to rush to get our morning walk in early, and when we did go out, we took a new-to-us route that would be too sunny and hot on many days. After driving downtown (it's not far) and parking at the Wool Shoppe, we walked over to Tim Hortons and ordered coffees to go.

The entrance at Tims has red trim, and with red being Sues' theme for the week, she grabbed this shot. Too bad that I wasn't wearing red on this day. But I like the perspective.

Having procured our drinks, we headed toward The Junction recreational area, but we stopped on the way to photograph red fire trucks at the police and fire station.

We continued on the the park, found a shady bench, and watched the children playing on a red structure. You shall see that shortly, but I withhold the photo momentarily.

As we were sitting there enjoying a beautiful day with the children also playing happily, Sue got a message from her sister, Heather, the contents of which are not important. She decided to send a a selfie photo of our pleasant situation to Heather, which she did.

I, however, noticed that Sue switched out of Messenger into her camera app, to take the photo, and then switched back to Messenger to send it. I told her she could save a step by accessing the phone through Messenger itself.

What I didn't know is that you can do a picture-in-picture that way. I discovered this accidentally. Feel free to ask, “What’s with the long face, AC?” Answer: I’m not sad, it’s camera distortion. 

And there is the aforementioned red play structure.

Oddly, we can only do this effect with in Messenger and not directly from the Apple camera app. It doesn't quite make sense to me because Messenger, obviously, uses the Apple phone.

So there we are. You can take a selfie+scene in the Messenger app. To do so, activate the comment box, click the camera icon at the side, and just select the DUAL option when the app opens up. Once you are done with Messenger, be sure to also save it to your phone.

Go ahead. Try it, and post it. And may your face not be distorted in the process.

Fie

Fie on't! Oh fie fie! 'Tis an unweeded garden

That grows to seed;

I was sure that I posted about our northern neighbour last year, but, of course, \ I couldn't find the evidence. However, every year until this year, she has purchased at least one new flower pot and hung it proudly from her little porch. And every year, she neglected to water it — at all! It dried and died in short order. This year, wisely, she put in a fake fern, but there are still neglected pots on the ground below.

So much for the northern neighbour, but we have a new southern neighbour. She's a teacher in her first house. We were expecting to see the pride of home ownership displayed. Well, there definitely is some pride, for she planted nice flowers in a bed out front, and she planted a nice row of flowers in a little raised border along her back fence. But then, she hasn’t maintained her plots well.

I splash a little water on her front patch when I am out giving my plants a drink, so it is doing alright. But that poor back border!

To be fair, her property hadn't been well tended for awhile, so it was already weedy. She and her friend did weed the raised border between the bricks and fence ↓ before planting, but the roots were there and the weeds grew back very rapidly. She made an effort to weed again, and you might possibly discern that the weeds in the very centre of the border are slightly less large than the others. But she and her helpers didn't get very far before they abandoned the project, and there has been no further work — not even watering.

We had also hoped that a new, young, fit neighbour would maintain the front lawn, most of which is hers. After my last mowing in early June, we informed her that I would be unable to mow until almost August. It got pretty ratty before she mowed, but she did mow — once. So, dear Sue has got down on the ground and at least trimmed the edges several times. 

That being said, I was, however, pleasantly surprised when I checked the easement outside of our back fences but, technically, within our property boundaries. For 20 years, I have been the only one to attend to the easement. Somebody has to do it, or at least should do it. Lo and behold, when I recently checked, she has mowed her patch.

Mine and even more so our northern neighbour is a different story. I last mowed six weeks ago before surgery, and it's awful. The weeds have taken over.

However, the most egregious issue is the bushes of trees or whatnot that are growing  behind the northern property. They emanate from growth on her backyard side of the fence. I can do the mowing, but I will have to get JJ to help with the bushes, which have escaped from her side of the fence. 

Isn't that awful?

The question becomes, once we have cut down the bushes should I just toss the debris into her backyard, or should I transport it all to the town yard for recycling. While she deserves to have the debris tossed into her yard, we would have to look at it for however long, maybe even until kingdom come.

Next week, I will be out of my recovery period and on one bright day will doubtless be out there mowing my back section ... and hers.

Les Bluets

A fellow blogger wrote about picking her own blueberries and making a pie. I jogged my jiggly joggily brain to recall what my friend, Nick, recently told me about his experience with blueberries. 

I love blueberry pie.

As a boy, Nick lived pretty far north in the province of Quebec. It’s an area noted for its wild blueberries, but I never knew just how abundant they are until he told me about his experience.

His father would make a big deal about picking blueberries to supplement family income, and Nick was conscripted to labour in the natural and untended fields. The blueberries grew wild, but Nick's dad knew where to find them, and he actually bought his first car for the purpose of collecting and hauling blueberries. If I recall correctly, Nick said they paid a thousand dollars for the car.

It was Nick’s description of the picking that impressed me most. He reported that the blueberries were so abundant in season that he could walk through the blueberry fields with buckets and his side, and the pails would simply fill up with blueberries as they brushed against the plants.

On my own, I recalled that people from that general region of Quebec are sometimes nicknamed, Les Bluets, or at least that was my memory told me, so I googled to be sure: 

In Quebec, "les bluets" refers to wild blueberries, which are a significant part of the province's agricultural landscape, particularly in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region. While "bleuet" can also refer to a cornflower in standard French, in Quebec, it's strongly associated with the wild blueberry. (Google AI)

Beyond the AI descriptor, Google provided more detail.

Wild Blueberries: Quebec is a major producer of wild blueberries, with the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region being the heart of this industry, accounting for 77% of wild blueberry production. The term "les bluets" is often used to refer to these blueberries, both in a literal sense and as a symbol of the region. 

People of Quebec:

The term "les bluets" can also refer to the people of Quebec, particularly those who identify strongly with their French-Canadian heritage and the province's unique culture. This usage is often associated with a sense of pride and belonging to the Québécois nation. 

Cultural Significance:

The wild blueberry is a symbol of Quebec's natural resources and the connection of its people to the land. The term "les bluets" evokes a sense of place and cultural identity, particularly in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region. 

Linguistic Context:

While "les bluets" is a French term, it is also used within the context of Quebec French (often referred to as "joual"), which has its own unique vocabulary and pronunciation.

Random Recent Photos

Today, with little else going on in this torrid weather, I am just going to drop a few photos from the past week or two.

For the past few years, we have been delighted by volunteer petunias growing here and there in the backyard. They grow right out of the mulch because there is landscaping cloth over the soil. In this photo by Sue, with appropriate, text added, the volunteer plant is to the bottom left. There are others elsewhere, but I think this one fits in nicely with the other pots. 

We photograph each other on walks. The next three photos were taken in the park, the first of Sue by a property that backs onto the park where the lady has a spectacular garden, mostly of big, beautiful flowerpots. The two of me are from a garden within the park.

The spotlight effect was done in camera as one of the Apple portrait options. 

AC lost in the flowers.

Guess who doesn’t want to bend too far.

There is a chipmunk living in our backyard, close to the daylilies by the fence. It was our first close encounter and s/he didn’t seem overawed by the gigantic two-legs  

Finally, for today, this a storefront on main street, the Carleton Place Gallery.

It's been hot, but I think this is the last day of this particular episode although there is not exactly a deepfreeze on the way. Maybe I will get some fresh photos or blog fodder in the coming days.

Beating the Heat and Meeting the Queen in Her Lace Finery

We are in the middle of a heat wave, but it did cool down more than usual overnight Sunday. In addition, we also got out earlier than usual yesterday morning. We had already been getting out earlier lately, but we walked well before 8 yesterday.

We also took ourselves out of our neighbourhood over to the back bridges where we found Queen Anne and her lace (Daucus carota) was blooming widely and wildly.

It was profuse behind the unfortunate, dilapidating, historic machine shop. (Nothing but phone pics today,)

We could see it later by the river as we looked first to the trail bridge and also back toward the old shop by Gillies Bridge.

And there was more of the Queen’s finery to see looking toward the old McArthur Mill.

After the walk, it was still delightfully cool, so we picked up coffee and took it to the park. Since Sue's photo prompt combined ‘red and leisure’, she decided that AC sitting leisurely on a park bench with red hat, red shirt and red coffee cup would fit the bill nicely. The clothes weren't staged for the photo; I just frequently wear red. The cup, however, was staged because the cups they gave us were a special blue for Tim Hortons camp funding week, so we begged for a traditional red cup, which remained empty for the photo.

Sunday Morning Macros

Are you tiring of my macros? If so, I don't blame you, but after my Saturday evening effort, I made a few more photos on Sunday morning.

It was hot again! and we would eschew our walkie again! so I stepped out for a few minutes and grabbed some quick photos, such as this daylily. They just began to bloom yesterday.

And ... another echinacea photo.

This is my first rudbeckia, yellow/orange coneflower, photo from my own garden in a long time and maybe forever. We did have some failures quite awhile ago, and I didn't replace those plants, but we are trying again this year and in a different spot. I hope they endure this time because I appreciate them greatly.

Sue has flower pots located here and there. I showed you a photo of the one situated by the sidewalk not too long ago, but this is just a section of that same pot. It's a really nice, colourful display, although my shot isn't perfectly focussed.

Here's a bit of another pot. It has struggled a bit, so Sue has recently moved it to a sunnier spot. We hope for the best.

I retreated indoors and awaited the men's Wimbledon finals. It was a pretty good contest but not elite. The two players, Sinner and Alcaraz, apparently put on a show for the ages just a few ago on the red clay of Paris, but Alcaraz wasn't quite in top form on the green grass of Wimbledon. It was still completive, however, unlike the ladies final the previous day.

Meanwhile, this Monday is going to be another very hot day, but it’s not too torrid now, at 7 o’clock, so I think we’ll head out for a short walk very soon, for we’ve been missing it for a few days. You have a good one.

Front Garden Macros

The common orange daylilies, Hemerocallis fulva, are blooming profusely and have been for about a week. You might call them by one of the names below.

Hemerocallis fulva, the orange day-lily,[3] tawny daylily, corn lily, tiger daylily, fulvous daylily, ditch lily or Fourth of July lily (also railroad daylily, roadside daylily, outhouse lily, track lily, and wash-house lily),[citation needed] is a species of daylily native to Asia. It is very widely grown as an ornamental plant in temperate climates for its showy flowers and ease of cultivation. It is not a true lily in the genus Lilium, but gets its common name from the superficial similarity of its flowers to Lilium and from the fact that each flower lasts only one day. Wikipedia

I've taken some phone photos, but, frankly, I don't feel like posting them.

Those fulva plants are out back, mostly out of sight by the back fence and behind the bushes, but yesterday the cultivars out front began to bloom.— just a few. Once again, I took phone photos during the hot day, but I didn't like then either. However, I did get an okay shot with my Canon plus macro lens last evening.

We've had three different varieties of daylilies in that tough patch by the driveway where not much else wants to grow. They've been there for about 15 years now, and all three cultivars look similar, and I don't know which is which.

I had actually prodded myself to go out last evening after seeing this echinacea macro from earlier in the week. For some reason I seem to favour echinacea photos before they bloom biggly. Please excuse the use of the scientific term.

There are about 20 echinacea plants out there, all really from self-seeding, and some are on the lawn, outside the actual garden. We've perhaps let them go too far, but at this point, we are not very serious gardeners, so we shan't over-worry.

Blather, blather: you do go on AC. Cut it short.

So here are two more photos from last evening. The sun was down, or almost, so they don't have the light of the previous photo, but I like them anyway.

Daisy Time Again

Aside from that recently posted walk to the woods, I haven't usually been taking my camera on our strolls. I do have a phone after all, and Sue has hers, and she gives it quite a workout. However, I stuck my macro lens on again when we went out on Wednesday.

The pink echinacea coneflowers are in bloom in our garden and looking very pretty, so I took a few photos before we walked around to the park. There, I found yellow rudbeckia coneflowers, and I squeezed off a few more photos. Neither my pink or yellow coneflower shots really did it for me, so I am not going to post them.

But as I have discovered recently, there is something about daisies. There are two rather nice clumps in the park, so I took some photos, and I quite liked how they turned out. For those in the photographic know, I settled on an aperture of f5.6 and found that it seems to be a good compromise for handheld macro photos. I don't mind the subtle texture behind the flowers in this first photo. In fact, I rather like it.

There are two insects or partial insects in this photo. I notices neither, but one is tiny

and the other is half out of the frame.

The water droplets appealed to me in this next photo, but I also like the three flowers in the composition, three components often being a good compositional number.

Wonder of wonder, I did see the insect in this ↓ photo and captured it quite deliberately. Hurray me!

This ↓ is the same photo as that ↑ but just cropped differently into a square format. Do you have a preference?

After the walk, we watched more of the Wimbledon tennis coverage. In the hot weather, this a good time for AC to be in the AC. Speaking of heat, you know how Alexa gives us weather warnings. Usually, it's something like a heat warning until 10pm. Yesterday, on the 10th of the month, the warning was until July 17. Today it will be a humid 31C/86F. Let me emphasize humid — that's the killer, that is.

Into the Woods

We've been taking our little constitutionals earlier these days in an effort to beat the heat. Sometimes we succeed on beating it; sometimes we don’t.

One morning we drove up the the patch of woods on the northern edge of town. That's me walking the access trail beside the woods, which are off to the left and also way ahead in front of me.

There were all sorts of wildflowers in bloom along that ↑ path. I had brought my macro lens and took many photos. Macros are not easy to do without a tripod, but one does one's best. There is a choice to be made. I could open the aperture to blur the background, or I could stop down the aperture to get the subject in sharper focus but also see more of the distracting background. I went for the smooth bokeh in this photo, so most of the flower was not sharp. Pretty colour though.

There were daisies aplenty, so that is what I shot mostly, or at least made the best photos. I did a little better with the focus on this ↓ one, perhaps because the flower is flatter, with less depth.

I am happier with this ↓ photo because there is some colour in the background: Just a bit, but I think it helps.

Finally, I spied a daisy whose stem extended all of the way out of the gloomy background so that the flower could catch the sunlight. I closed the aperture a bit in order to get the stem in focus too. By George! it worked. I really like this one with the stem snaking in and out of the light.

Eventually, we got into the woodsy part. There were no flowers to speak of, but, by golly, there were insects, and by gum there was heat. So, there wasn’t much of us for long. 😄

We turned toward home, saying to ourselves that the woods will probably be lovely in autumn.

How I Sometimes Watch Wimbledon

We are deep into the Wimbledon fortnight. Sometimes, I want to catch up with the score on another match while we have the telly tuned to the match that we most want to watch. That's when the trusty iPad comes in handy.

Tablet fore, tv aft

I can't really watch both for long, however, and the closer and brighter tablet pulls my eyes, so once I have caught up sufficiently, I turn the tablet off and focus on the tv once again. 

You may wonder why I don't just change the tv channel for a minute, and of course, I have done that, but fumbling with the remote and then getting back to where I began can be a rigmarole. I find it easier to reach for the tablet, and I don't lose track of the main game while I catch up on the other game  

We’re getting near the end now. Not counting doubles and juniors, which we don’t watch, there are only eight players of the 256 players remaining, four women and four men. The women will play their semi finals later this Thursday morning, and by about noon EDT, only two ladies will remain in the hunt. The men will do likewise tomorrow.

It’s okay because we finished our last bowls of strawberries last night at supper. While there are more strawberries to be had locally, we will await next year’s tournament and crop, knock on wood.

Unhappy Landing

It was Monday morning. As usual, I was up hours before Sue. Eventually, she came into my den to make the coffee, the maker of which is on top of the little fridge just opposite my chair. I was playing one of my games at the time: One Word Search.

She interrupted my game to ask me to use my unmighty muscles to pull the tab on the new quart of cream, which I did. She doctored her coffee and went to her room to enjoy it and do whatever she does on her computer and tablet in the morning. 

Moments later she came back and showed me her cup.

Yes, that ↑ is an AI image, but she really did have a dead fly in her mug . . . after taking only one tiny little sip.

I thought it post-worthy. Some might disagree, but that morning cuppa is pretty darn important.

Dr Google Reassures AC

We were watching Wimbledon on Saturday morning when I noticed a curtain of jagged shimmering across the top of my right eye.

What was I seeing? Did I rub my eye too hard? I didn’t recall doing that, but as the sensation continued, I found myself becoming concerned. My vision is somewhat crucial to my well-being after all.

This jagged shimmering continued for some time. Even while it was happening, I began to consult Dr Google.

Seeing a shimmering or flashing light in your eye can be due to a few reasons, with some being harmless and others requiring prompt medical attention. It's often a result of the vitreous gel inside your eye pulling on the retina, which can cause these visual disturbances. However, it could also be a sign of a more serious condition like a retinal tear, especially if the flashes are sudden and accompanied by other symptoms.

The shimmering stopped after 15 minutes or so, maybe even less, but in my anxiety, I wasn’t timing it. So, I will take it to have been the harmless type resulting from a pulling of the vitreous fluid.

Both Sue and I experienced something related many years ago, and we each had our condition checked out at the time. Back then, it was more like sudden flashes, almost like lightning bolts. For both of us the diagnosis involved a shifting of the vitreous fluid. Although Saturday's experience was different — a sustained flashing curtain rather than a sudden bolt — I am choosing to believe in and take solace in the probability that it was a harmless occurrence.

It was very alarming at the time, but Dr Google was there to reassure me. Good ole Dr Google.

Mournful Monday

When I scanned this slide, I had to laugh.

It was the early 70s, and Sue's friend was getting married. She's the one in the middle. Sue was a bridesmaid, and we were hanging out with the bridal family in the morning before the ceremony.

There were nerves, and a certain amount of alcohol was consumed. The parents were shocked that we weren't also imbibing.

=================

I had been going to simply post the photo, but I decided to get a little serious and go on and tell a little bit more about Val and our relationship with her.

Val was a longtime friend of Sue’s, going back to high school. I knew her somewhat then from church and better for many years after Sue and I got together. We kept in touch regularly through the years, usually with single Val visiting us. Her marriage did not last beyond a few years. 

We only visited her a couple of times after 2005 when we moved here to Eastern Ontario, one time as her health was deteriorating. Thankfully, Shauna was able to drop by and visit Val in the hospital before Val passed away. She had suffered several strokes, the penultimate one leaving her functionally blind. She loved to use the computer but was unable to after the first stroke. More than once, I tried to help her set the computer up so that she could navigate it, but we did not achieve success.

Val had a hard life. Except for the time around the wedding, she was obese and was mentally fragile, but she was a good friend and a very generous person, and I am glad to have known her.

A Happy Moment at Her Wedding
Sue was the middle bridesmaid

Pizza and Fireworks

On Monday we ordered our monthly pizza. It must have been a busy night, for it took more than an hour for our supper to arrive. Further to that, it must have been a busy night because the pizza arrived sans sauce. I didn’t even realize what was amiss at first because it still tasted pretty good, but Sue figured it out.

It took me until Friday to go in to see them about it. I had the verifying photos that Sue took to prove my point. He told me they don’t make pizzas without sauce unless I had ordered it that way. 

When I showed him the bill, he offered me a half-price pizza. I declined because I hadn’t received the pizza that I had ordered. I was willing to come away empty-handed rather than pay for more pizza.

He then said that he would make me a new pizza at no cost.

"Do you want it now?"

I didn’t really and asked if he could give me a coupon. He said they weren't set up for that, but that he would remember me when I called in. I doubted that, so I said that now would be fine.

Fifteen minutes later, I left with a hot pizza.

I thanked him. I said something like, “We all make mistakes, but you corrected yours."

At home, after pizza, I went back to my fireworks photos, which I have not been too thrilled with. I cropped this bunch  differently, much tighter, They are what they are, which is about as profound as this old fella can get. Unfortunately.