The Other Trail

There are three trails in town, two of which go through the town on their ways to points beyond. When I write about the neighbourhood trail or the Mississippi Riverwalk Trail, it just a local trail. It begins (or ends) in the park near us and parallels the Mississippi for about 2 km, which is only a little longer than a mile. When I have shown wooden boardwalks, it has been of this trail. It is close and convenient and is only for pedestrians and cyclists.

The other trail that we even more frequently use is the OVRT: Ottawa Valley Recreational Trail. It is along the former CPR line, which was still in use when we arrived here in 2005. The economic crisis of 2008 put an end to the trains, so it was converted into an almost 300km trail. It can be used by snowmobiles and what I will call trail buggies in summer, which I guess are kind of golf carts. Maybe they are exactly golf carts; I don't really know.

Whenever I mention the bridge trail, we are on the OVRT. We saw the new sign on part of our coffee walk. 

We had another of those coffee walks recently, but I refrained from posting the same old thing. I think we've done two coffee walks without posting although when I recently posted the photo of Sue by the puddle with Tim Hortons in the background, that was part of that walk.

Carleton Place is the red dot in the middle of the 300k trail

I really write all of the above to post this recent photo of the third trail: the Trans Canada Trail.

The initial gif at the top and this photo were taken on our little section of the Trans Canada Trail.
We rode sans kidlets that day.

The Trans Canada Trail passes though Carleton place. Yes, it then goes across the country. You can see that it really is a trail here, but you would then have to pick your way through Carleton Place before finding an actual trail again. It does connect with the OVRT though.

Obviously, you can ride this trail a heckuva long way. When we were younger and even more foolish, still in our late 50s, we did ride it the 24k/14mi into Stittsville, but that was far enough for us. There are long railway grades along the loose trail, and we never had the desire to repeat such foolishness.

As a matter of fact, we had only ridden maybe 100 metres on this day when we stopped to take that photo. Ferocious insects, late season blackflies, we think, came out to feast on Sue without mercy. We quickly turned about and headed for home.

Of course, you will forget all of this about the trails, which is entirely appropriate, but at least I have given some context for the picture (and gif) in this post and about our walks or rides in general.

Evening in Mono

Sue's daily prompt required an evening photo in black & white. The lady doesn't like prompts that require late-in-the-day fiddling and faddling, but off we went to the neighbourhood park.

I decided to follow suit. When I do present a mono photo on this blog, it is a conversion of a colour photo. This time, however, I set the phone to b&w mode. That enabled me to see the composition in b&w before pressing the shutter button. I did not have to convert when editing; it was already b&w.

What I could see in mono on the screen was the sky looking pretty dramatic. The sky didn't look overly dramatic in colour with my naked eye but it did on the screen, so that is what I emphasized with my shot.

However, apart from the sky, other photo ops were lacking, so we drove to Riverside Park, where, upon entry, I immediately spotted this possibility.

As we entered the park along this path, I could see that people and dogs were coming, so I held the phone and waited for them to walk into the scene. The photo has a leading line with subjects well positioned in the frame.

I took one more photo at Riverside of the boys fishing at the dock, but of course it would have been preferrable for them to be actually casting their lines. I could have waited, but I might have waited in vain, and the mosquitoes were getting somewhat active.

I did fulfill the mission of actually shooting in b&w rather than converting from colour later. One does see the world a little differently in mono,  and it was the sky that really popped in some of the photos, more so than it would have on colour.

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

Flamingo Lily in an AI Setting

Weeks ago, our neighbours passed this plant on to us. It sat in the sun porch and has now made its way up to my den to adorn what was Lacey's podium. I took this photo in great light, but what a terrible setting!

I'd had no idea of what the plant was, but Apple informed me that it is a Flamingo Lily, a type of Anthurium plant. It has remained like this, with one single flower, ever since the plant was passed onto us.

Anthurium plants are native to the tropical rainforests of Central and South America, where they thrive in humid, warm environments under the forest canopy.

Flamingo lily care requires bright indirect light, warm temperatures (60–85°F), and well-draining, chunky soil. Water the plant when the top 1 to 2 inches of soil feel dry, and maintain high humidity to keep the glossy leaves and bright blooms healthy.

However, the main thing for today is not so much to talk abut the plant but to reveal the before and after photos. You've seen the former ↑ and this is ↓ the after.

I removed all of the distractions, just keeping the plant and pot before asking AI to put the pot and plant on a nice desktop with a large window behind that included a lake in the scene.

I don't do a lot of AI generation, but it is fun to dip my oar in periodically. 

AC Transfigured

At a recent stop at the Dark & Deadly cafe, I did what I often do and took a snapshot of one of the characters. Without doing a before and after, I will show how the finished product looked after I added a hellfire background (AI) although I don't recall the exact descriptive term that I used.

I liked it well enough but then had the notion to replace the skeleton's skull with my own head.

While the fire was an AI interpolation, the head swap was completed via old-fashioned, manual photoshopping.

Back in the Saddle Again

I am not sure when we last got the bikes out, but I know we didn't bike at all last year and possibly not the preceding year either. My last cycling endeavour pulled a muscle in my leg, I think from going up an incline too rapidly. We've been out twice now, keeping to smooth roads for the most part while pedaling gently and avoiding inclines as much as we can.

On day 2, I recorded our route and mileage. It's not impressive, but it still felt good.

We've been riding with the cute neighbourhood boy whom we keep between us: me in the lead and Sue keeping watch at the back. So far, it is good to have him with us because kid-sized bikes can’t go as fast as big bikes although we wouldn’t be booting it anyway at this point in our lives. 

We have our phones mounted, and Sue managed some photos to take some photos.

Here's a larger version of one of the above pictures as we cycled through the neighbourhood park. 

It feels good to get back in the saddle again. In my early days of blogging I wrote about our rides periodically if not frequently. We enjoyed riding pretty fair distances. It's different now, of course, but it is still a pleasant activity. As we approach our 80s (we are both 79 or will be very shortly), we feel secure in our balance and hope that our bodies allow us to continue this activity in its present, reduced form.

Resurrecting the Fiddle

Sue had another post for brown week that also called for hands. She chose to use my old fiddle for the brown part of the prompt along with my very own personal hands. Once again, these are her photos but my edits. I present this one first because it didn't work out as well as I had hoped.

I thought to render the photo b&w except for the violin, but I don't think that it worked for the hands. Oh well, we move on to try other edits with other photos.

For the next photo I made sure to darken the background a lot but keep the relevant part colourized. I am content with this image.

It was difficult to just get my hands and the fiddle both in the photo while eliminating distractions, so Sue had me hold the instrument differently and not as if I were playing it.

I think Sue used the last photo for her group, but her edit would different than mine. I post that conclusion pretty safely, even without having compared the two results.

The story with the violin or fiddle is that it has sat unused for a decade. When we first moved here, seeing as this is an area with a fiddling tradition, I did take some lessons and even showed up at a jam or two. Finger and back issues kept me from practising as much as I should before causing me to shut it down entirely. I did have quite a bit of enjoyment with the instrument for about five years although an old guy who couldn't practise as much as necessary never became very proficient.

My body, being what it is, and the instrument requiring a tuning and perhaps replacement of strings, I did not attempt to play a single note on the day of this photoshoot.

By the way, for those who don't know, a fiddle and a violin are exactly the same instrument, and so I used both words in this post. Fiddling is a certain style of music.

Saturday Morning

We weren't sure what to expect on Saturday morning after our neighbour informed us that we has a flat tire on Friday evening. Should we call CAA for an on-the-spot repair or perhaps even a tow, or should we try to fill it and take it into our tire guy just about a mile down the road?

We opted to fill it using the electric pump for our bicycle tires.

It worked and I was at the garage by about 8 o'clock. The big worry was whether we would need a new tire, and if so, should we replace the whole shebang. On one hand, the tires are hardly new, but on the other, our mileage was still relatively low because we are low-mileage kinda folk.

What with the many thousands spent on the roof and house this summer plus more than a thousand either spent or already committed on car repairs (mostly brakes but more too), I wasn't terribly keen an another major financial outlay.

It turned out that we had picked up a decking screw and that it was removed and the tire patched for a relatively modest sum.

Still early, we drove downtown to purchase two blueberry scones to go. Then, we drove through Tims for coffee, and we took our goodies to the park where we found a picnic table where we could enjoy our comestibles. Both the coffee and the scones were quite wonderful.

There were few passersby in the park, but there was much activity on the river with races being run via commands from a loudspeaker near us.

I took a short clip of one race beginning. What it does not show, in the interest of time and bandwidth is the jockeying and instructions to get the craft lined up in decent order. It took a fair amount of patience and cajoling, let me tell ya. (Edit; I see that the video is unavailable for some reason.)

I also took a couple of photos.

For fun, I asked AI for a watercolour version of the second photo. Curiously, it added a sky.

We walked a little, and Sue made friends with a dog.

After sitting on another a bench for awhile, decided to head back to the car because it was looking a bit like rain. The drops began to fall just as we got back to the vehicle.