It Wasn't All Bleak

It is the final day of November. At the beginning of the month, I wrote of November being The Bleak Month. Of course, I was thinking, primarily, of the loss of leaves and colour, but November doesn't have to be bleak in spirit. For example, the recent family tree decorating party was a happy event that I don't need to rehash, having thoroughly hashed it already.

A recent trudge along the trail by the arena, however, does reveal the frequent exterior bleakness although the sky and fallen leaves do yield some colour.

That ↑ is the trail where we sometimes take a short offshoot to see what is happening down by the river. Behold! there was ice.

As far as we could tell, this was the only icy section both upriver and downriver, where the water is shallow and runs slowly. However, we know what is coming.

You will doubtless recall that there were breaks in the environmental bleakness. We had two snowfalls that brightened the landscape for the time being, and the overnight third one adds brightness this morning even though it is still otherwise dark outside. There was also that glorious hoar-frosted morning. And don't forget the Christmas lights beginning to spring forth.

Of course, I feasted pictorially on the glorious tamaracks, and there are still a few needles hanging on some trees: the one in the background left at the far end of the pond, for example. Very very few on the nearest tree though: poor thing.

Not only do some of the tamaracks still hold a wee bit of colour, but more and more Christmas decorations and lights also continue to appear around the streets, like the house 3 doors down. 

For the young families, Santa visited town last night in the annual parade. I no longer attend, But Danica and her beau did. For lack of a current photo, here is mine of Santa and Mrs Claus in November 2010.

More of Grandma's Smocking

Recently, I mentioned my mother's smocked Christmas balls, and someone wanted to see more. By the way, we still tend to refer to my mother as grandma like we did when our kids were young. Sue has always been Amma to our grandkids, so there is not an identity issue.

Here they are a number of pictures, all done by Sue, except for the first one, I think, when we trimmed the tree.

Two Things

Thing 1

The Cystoscopy proceeded as per usual, except between dousing my vital parts with a cold disinfectant (I guess that is what it was) and leaving me in stirrups in the cold examining room for what seemed like a very long time before the doctor arrived, my hindermost parts were starting to more than a tad chilly. lol

Here ↓ is the doc's conclusion. It leaves me confused. While I am super pleased about passing the physical inspection, which I was able to follow on a big, sharp monitor, I remain confused about the extremely frequent urination. Hopefully the meds will help.

"He has had an excellent result from his bladder neck incision and Mitomycin-C injection. He is having worsening storage symptoms and I think there may be a component of overactive bladder here so I will treat him with Myrbetriq. Follow-up in 3 months"

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

Thing 2

Having taught all of the varieties ↓ in my 30 years, I understand the sentiment. Aside from the spelling, there is also the pronunciation issue. Do you say the first syllable as in ME, May or MEG?

Second Snow

I am posting for the second time today because they are backing up in the queue. I have set my post-time to mid-afternoon when we should be settling down to a restaurant lunch with daughter after an examination by the urologist at the big hospital in Ottawa. I wonder what he will have to say and if I will want to report on that tomorrow or if I would prefer to bury my head in the proverbial sand. Time will tell.

We had our second significant snowfall of the month on Sunday: significant enough but not to the extent of the first one with plows not being required for the most part.

Our snow tires were not installed until Tuesday, but we took a chance and did a little driving about regardless.  Sue required river photos, so off we went. We didn't have to drive far in this town, and we were careful. We are Canadian after all.

We parked the car close to the river downtown, but I was taking pictures of this planter before we had walked but a few steps past the little art store.

I don't know whether Sue used the photo that she was taking in this next scene, but it shows what she was working with. The day was almost monotone anyway, so after the planter photo, above, I converted all of my subsequent pictures to black and white, often with a little toning added in the later photos.

This is a rather historic building by the bridge and opposite town hall. Who knows how many pictures I have taken like this almost-historic structure over the years, but I decided to take one more, and I am pretty sure it won't be the last one ever. The falling snow is visible as it is in most of the photos. While I emphasized softness in the other photos, I decided to show texture and contrast in this one, so it looks a little out-of-step with the rest of the images.

Looking across the bridge, I snapped a photo of the old mill, including the fence because fences are useful for one my Flickr memes.

From the main bridge we drove to the little, back bridges where I photographed a variation of other similar photos that I have taken over the years. As often as I capture this scene behind the old Baines building, each is unique in some way. I liked the curvy, snowy path in this one.

Finally: I took a photo of a bit of the north-facing riverbank in the falling snow. The two tall, stark trees, almost in the middle of the frame, drew my attention.

Sue captured me taking the above shot. Look beyond colourful me to see how b&w our winter world can be even without converting to mono. 

Despite our long and formidable winters. We don't often get out to take pictures when the snow is still falling, and I rather like the soft mood and effect that it creates.

Tires and Coffee

The time had come to get our tires changed — all season tires off, snow tires on. Following one of my shorter nights — only 4:40 according to Sleepwatch — I needed a coffee. I drove through the drive through on my way to the garage.

Boy O Boy, did I need a coffee

It wasn't my first caffeine hit of the day, but it was the first good one and only the second overall.

In an effort to economize, we recently switched from the increasingly expensive Belgian Chocolate mix that we had been consuming for years to a big can of Tim Hortons, which was satisfactory. But, when Tim's coffee was no longer on a good sale, we opted to try a well-known, ubiquitous, cheap brand that shall not be named, but I will say that it comes in a predominately blue packaging. Said brand is not very good on the first drop, never mind the last one.

So that is why I went through the drive through, after which I drove to the garage, handed them my keys, sat down and revelled in sipping my drink while I waited.

There were four other fellas waiting for their tire change, and like me, they were all on their phones. It seems that not so very long ago, I would have picked up whatever magazines were on offer to pass the time. Now, waiting rooms can save the cost of most magazine subscriptions. Mind you, providing us with wireless is an expense.

Meanwhile, movie filming was transpiring on main street. Pamela Anderson is a vaguely recognizable name to me. I don't know the fella, but apparently is name is Michael Cera, and also, apparently, I should know who he is.

If you are interested here is a link to a CBC news video. I wish that I could just pop the video in directly, but you have to click through. Of the many pizzarias in town, they briefly interviewed the proprietor of the one we patronize.

(https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/michael-cera-pamela-anderson-spotted-at-film-shoot-in-carleton-place/vi-AA1R4Slc?ocid=socialshare)

The Party Edits

As is her custom, Sue created several collages from the tree party. Collages are an excellent way to summarize an event.

I played around with two edits of my own — both converted into mono with a bit of toning.

The Beloved One: sipping tea.

Prize photo: mama giving her baby boy a little snuggle.

When I look at the last photo, especially, I do believe that the Tree Decorating Party is now firmly established in family tradition and will go on and on, even as the attendees change in the future as they have in the past.

The 45th Tree Decorating Party

I don't know if it was quite the 45th version of the family's tree-decorating get-together, but it was close to that. What with kids' jobs and commitments, we met at an odd hour — just after noon on Saturday — instead of the typical late afternoon. It was so early that no one was tempted to drink wine. However, yummy snacks were consumed with gusto, especially by the bald, bearded blogger.

Below, Jonathan and friend look on while Danica adjusts the star. The lights have already been strung, and ribbon has been wrapped around the boughs. The ornaments will be hung next and last.

The Ornaments

As is the custom, we opened the box of my mother's smocked balls. She smocked one per year for many years. I chose the red one. 

Jonathan hung one of the smocked ball. Wouldn't my mother be chuffed to think that the great grandson whom she never met would been adding a piece of her handiwork to the tree, perhaps 30 years or even longer after she created it? Since Mom can't exult in that, I will in her place.

Meanwhile, Sue availed herself of a cuppa, and Shauna found a moment to give her boy a snuggle.

I almost forgot this 6 second clip of the decorated tree flashing its lights. Sorry it's crooked. I know how to edit photos, but videos are beyond me.

Fogless Frost

. . . although the morning had blessed us twice already, we were up for being thrice blessed and headed off to the trail bridge. While the fog had dissipated, the frost remained and did not disappoint. Onto the bridge we ascended where two pedestrians provided an anchor point in the scene. Little did they know that they would be seen in far-flung places, perhaps even in the antipodes.

From the trail bridge, I looked back to the little bridge and to the mill.

Looking down, from one spot I saw a man riding his bike in the freezing weather. From another, I spied a frosted little bush surrounded by rocks on the riverbed.

I also took a couple of closeups when we were nearer the vegetation where the bridge was over the land.

What a delightful morning it had been.

Moar Hoar

. . . off we drove from our neighbourhood park, where there be tamarack tress, to Riverside Park. You probably won't recall, but I said in yesterday's post that I hoped to capture the birches on the far bank when they would be softened by the fog. Yeah no, that wasn't going to happen with the fog being so heavy.

The far bank is pretty well obscured

I promised to explain why fog-plus-frost isn't as photographically perfect as one might assume. Fog is great, and so is hoar frost, but we found that to some extent the fog dulled the frost. It's as though the fog took a bit of the shine off the frost, so to speak.

There was a time, at the country cottage around Thanksgiving, that my sister-in-law, Heather, woke us early to walk about the fields to behold glorious hoar frost on the trees and bushes. It was bright out, and the frost was sparkling. This wasn't that. Don't get me wrong; it was very very pretty but it didn't always show up terrifically in the photos.

You can see the frosted trees a bit in these two photos, however.

Closeups, as in the berries yesterday, showed the frost better, but holding the phone close with cold, shaky hands and in a breeze, does not always yield the sharpest of photos, Nevertheless, here is one effort. Although I wish the foreground leaves were sharper, the blurry background works well enough.

Meanwhile, Sue and I did get a photo or two of one another.

With a little processing magic, the trees show up quite well in hers of me. I like the edit. Sometimes, you edit a photo to make it look like you wished it really were, and to be fair, in our minds it really was like this.

It had been a sudden, early morning adventure in below freezing temperatures. We were cold and needed to recharge. We stopped to pick up Tims coffees on the way home where we then did our usual morning thingies. The fog dissipated, but the frost remained, so after recharging we proceeded out again later in the morning . . .