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.

Through the Brown with AC

Sue's prompt on a recent day involved brown and through. There is brown on the girders of the old railway overpass and in the rocky walls, and we do walk through the tunnel by times. Since I am in a mood for hubris today, I am going to show you a lot of me. The photos are hers, edits mine.

Off to the south side of the tunnel, there is brown in the tree trunks and path, and I will be walking through the foliage up above.

And to the north, there are places in the little Hackberry Park for Sue to shoot through the brown trees to lil, ole me.

The good thing wss that I was so far away that I didn't have to smile my silly smile for these photos.

Happy Saturday and a fine weekend to you. 

Orphan Photos 7

The first two orphan photos go back to June. On two nights, we walked to the park when the sun was beginning to set in the west. The elevated trees to the east caught golden light from the lowering sun from the opposite direction. There was a lot of reflection in the pond, but it was messy and even distracted from the lit tree, so I cropped most of the pond out.

When I returned two nights later, I just focused on the reflection, and I like the photo more. We often want to include everything in a photo, but the better photos tend to leave a lot of things out.

Early in July, we sighted the heron from the trail bridge. This was my third heron photo of the year, all of the same heron, I presume.

The next photo is from mid July: a coneflower in the park. As much as I like all coneflowers, the two-toned ones really appeal to me.

Finally, when we walk the bridge trail, we sometimes pass this house at a point where the trail crosses a street. It's not spectacular but I do see it as a pleasant house.

Oh, I do have one more. It's a photo of dandelions from five years past. I think that five years makes it an special orphan.

Tennis X 2

This week, for our second tennis watch of the summer, I am back to watching the game via my tablet on my lap while Sue watches it on the far television (photo below). Sue is more far-sighted and also sees brighter than I, so she can track the ball on our less than wonderful tv, but I tend to lose track of the ball after the serve. Meanwhile, my tablet has a great screen, and I can easily follow the play. (BTW, I did try to brighten the tv display last year, but the results weren't great, so I just returned it back to normal.)

For some reason, I am able to follow the ball fairly well on the old tv during Wimbledon but lose track of it at other events. Having written all of that, I can sometimes follow it in this tournament as well; it seems to depend on the brightness of the day.

This way we can still watch together. There is sometimes a little difficulty getting the two streams to jive, but I can usually finagle around the problem with a little judicious pausing on whichever stream happens to be ahead of the other.

Currently, we are watching the Canadian Open, properly called the National Bank Open. It is one of the nine Masters 1000 events that rank below the four grand slams but above the other tour events for tour points and prize money. 

My computer monitor is also up to snuff, so when Sue trundles off to bed, I watch it in my den.

One odd thing is that even though two devices, tablet and tv, are synced, I often get different commercials, or at least the commercials are played in a different order. I find that very weird. At first, I feared that the streams were out of sync again, but when play resumed, all was fine. This is not a one-off; the commercials play differently on the two devices each and every time. As I already said, weird!

Coffee Walk 6

Yes, it is Coffee Walk 6, but I did spare you walk 5 after posting #4 on July 06. You're welcome.

Do you ever have days when your underwear doesn't sit right? When we stopped to order our coffees, I nipped into the washroom to try to adjust. It helped, but it didn't fix the problem entirely.

It was a cloudless and very sunny day, but we did find a bench with partial shade, farther from the playground equipment than where we usually consume our coffees.

A selfie. You knew that I would have to do it.

On the table right in front of me was an interesting squiggle around a knot. It looked like someone had been sketching, but it was all natural.

We had passed a new, blank sign at the beginning of our walk, but on our return, there was a fellow applying masking tape. It turns out that he is an artist who showed us a sketch of town things what he will paint in due course. I put his card in the corner of the photo,

I thought that it would take him a long time to complete the project, but he had it all mapped out, and he was taking a picture with the mayor for fb later that afternoon.

I will have to have a closer look on Coffee Walk 7, whenever that might occur. Speaking of coffee, I'll soon be off to meet with the photo boys at Tims. I didn't drink coffee until I was in my very early 50s. This is why I started — to be sociable. Now, as you well know, I have my generous share of the brew.

I crossed out soon, above, because it's only gone 4, and I won't see them until 9. I had a great sleep for almost 4 hours, but then it was clear that I was done, so I got up, had some cereal, and sat down here. I am not enthralled about the short night, but here we are. Maybe, I will get back to sleep for while.

Keeping it Real

We weren't more then 10 minutes into a new-for-us tv series — one of the somewhat older US police shows that we had missed when it was current. I pressed pause, looked at Sue, and said, "You know what is wrong with this?"

Of course she knew. The young female cop in charge was about 30 and gorgeous. While it is pretty problematic that any cop would rise to the top at that age, it is even more unlikely that she would also be a knockout.

According to this article, Why Americans Love British TV, one thing that Americans love about British tv is that the characters looks like real people.

Vera is a senior police detective who looks like she has paid her dues. Her character is believable. 

And doesn't Inspector Ellis also look like she could actually be an experienced detective?

It's true about the men too. Neither Lewis nor Hathaway were exactly heartthrobs, and they probably look better in the poster than they did in the show.

The actors mostly look like us, like real people playing pretty realistic roles. I am not even going to talk about plots and scripts except to say that the Brits don't usually treat the viewers like children but like adults with brains.

British seasons are short, much too short. We are left wanting more. American seasons are long. I often find myself thinking enough is enough.

Of course I am painting with too broad a broad brush, and there is decent American programming, but I think you know what I mean and likely concur to at least some degree.

Weekend in the Park

When we walk the park on the weekend, we witness more activity than on weekdays. For one thing, there are always a number of people fishing. I take pictures of them, but I never like them, so I discard them in the bin of my forgetfulness.

On a nice day, there are water activities, often including dogs. While I binned one of a man walking his dog, both of them right in the river, I do have this ↓ one of a dog on a SUP, and this wasn't the only pooch getting such a ride on a warm, sunny day.

The lady stood up a moment later, and off they paddled.

Can you tell that the dog ↑ is wearing a lifejacket? When they embarked close to us just near the foreground, I saw that the dog's lifejacket had a handle on top, just like a suitcase. If the mutt were to fall overboard, it could fairly easily be hauled back on board by gripping the handle.

Many people consume, um, comestibles in the park, but a couple just off to the right of the above photo really had it figured out. And here they are.

They took their chairs, devices, dog and even wine right down the embankment and passed the time almost obscured from view. They were really living their best lives on that day.

The Frisbee Event

Yesterday, we came across a border collie chasing and catching a frisbee in the park. Using a phone in telephoto mode is definitely not the best instrument to catch a dog jumping and catching a frisbee, but I got one okay-ish result after many ill-timed efforts.

When I got home, I cropped and eliminated distractions. While the action and distance renders the subject is a  little bit fuzzy, I am happy enough with the outcome.

I did take a couple more photos, and I decided to incorporate two others with the catch, above, into one composite.

Both the event and the edit were fun.

A MIssed Selfie

It happens once or twice a week from both kids, but it is coming to an end for one grandkid.

Danica is booking the month off before heading back to uni in September, but she will be living there this year and not commuting. In the interim, there is a vacation to take with mom and JJ, and her apartment/room to get ready for the fall semester at Carlton U in Ottawa, so she won’t be working this month. 

The baby is leaving home and us.

sniff

I did get her to work, but she wasn't a happy camper because she had forgotten several things, including her lunch for a long shift.

I said that I would came back and take her to Tims for lunch. We used to take the kids there every now and then when they were little and we were the daycarers. So, it has been awhile, but it was nice to reprise one more time.

Sue and I picked her up at 3 and just drove the very short distance to Tims.

That evening Danica posted this.

Yes, a homeless (I don't think that is right word anymore) man asked us if we had money for a sandwich. I don’t carry much cash, but I was willing to buy him a sandwich. I said so and headed to the cashier with app in hand. He was specific and requested beef and cheese. I asked if he would also like a coffee.

"Yes please: large 2 creams and 2 sugars."

I placed the order and paid with my app. It came to $10 something. I went back to the table while he waited for the order to be processed.  

With the interruption, we didn't think to get around to the selfie.

Darn. 

One Chicory Bloom: Three Takes

I'd seen photos of chicory recently and also seen chicory in the distance as we have been  driving around, but when we passed the abandoned building by the little back bridge, there were blooms aplenty. I didn't spend much time with them, but I did snap a few of one flower that I could capture on its own.

I used portrait mode to give me the blurry background. We call that bokeh. Bokeh is the aesthetic quality of the blur in out-of-focus areas of an image. It is created using a wide aperture lens, commonly producing soft, pleasing circles of light. (Mr Google)

An even slightly blurrier background might be preferrable, but that was as far as portrait mode would take me. I switched to normal mode which would really show the background detail, but then  I managed to soften it well in edit, proving that you can sometimes fake with software what otherwise might require a high quality lens on an expensive camera. While it might not be good enough for a pro photographer, it is good enough for me in this phone stage of my photography.

I did take another photo in portrait mode when the wind kicked up a bit. With some selective editing of the background detail, I like the result well enough to post here if not on an actual photo site, such as Flickr.

As she often does, Sue had caught me in the act of shooting these photos.

The Credit Card Mixup Again

Almost two weeks ago, I posted of The $343.17 Mishap. I will try to do a very condensed recap and then post the follow up.

I made the error of paying my Visa bill to the wrong account: an account that was effectively dead, and yet, somehow, wasn’t. With no actual credit card, we had no way to access the surplus. It required two long telephone calls and one long todo at the bank, to have TD send us an actual credit card which we would use until we had effectively recovered all of the money.  

That was than, and it all seemed settled when we received a mailing form TD that obviously contained a card.

When we opened it, there was a problem. It was a debit card, not a credit card.

What?! We don’t have a bank account with them. What is there to debit? Then, I thought that it might be a pre-loaded card with our funds. That was not the case. It was a card to nothing since we have no accounts.

Furthermore, the accompanying letter said to use our existing PIN.

For one thing, we had no account to PIN to, and for another, whatever PIN that we had more than two decades past was totally erased from our memories.

Back to the bank went Susie and Johnny, hoping to find the same teller who had worked through our silly situation once already..

Nope: not working that day. Let me tell you that it was extremely confusing for two confused seniors to explain a confusing situation to an also confused new teller.

After a lot of going over and over it, she finally understood and suggested that the easiest solution was for us to close the account and be issued a cheque.

To accomplish this, she had to call the institution which passed her around from pillar to post and all of the way back again with many a “Not my department,” response.

Eventually, and I do mean eventually, we were told that it would all be done. Our account was now closed, and a cheque  would come to us in three weeks.

UPDATE

I wrote that two days ago.

Would you believe the credit card came in the mail yesterday. 

If we had waited, we could have begun spending the balance. It was that debit card that threw us. Why would they send us a debit card when we had no bank account and no password? It remains a puzzle.

So . . . there’s nothing to do but wait for the cheque. If it doesn’t come in due course, we have the physical credit card just in case it is still active and the funds are still in there. 

The situation remains bizarre.

Orphan Photos 6: Riverwood

After posting yesterday of our recent day trip to see Brain and the lavender, I remembered that I had put aside some old photos of Riverwood some time ago and just left them there awaiting a propitious moment. Riverwood, by the way, is what we called Brian's place back in the day because it has 130 mostly forested acres with a river running along the eastern property line.

I will just post them in the order that they appear in the folder.

Sue took this of me in 2016, roaming around with my Canon. Unless stated, all of these photos are from 2016.

Way back in 2011, I crawled up the ladder to the top level on the old barn (not the red barn that you saw yesterday). I am pretty sure that I re-edited it at some point a few years later and stashed it in the folder until now.

A panorama stitch of probably three images from as long ago as 2005 but re-edited more recently with more modern software. That long ago, we would sometimes sleep in that yellow tent down by the river (far left).

The house (I often call it a cottage) as we began to drive down the driveway. It has been re-sided blue now, but I didn't think to take a recent picture.

Inside, the living room was cozy at night. It also looks different 10 years later.

One evening, Brian and I shot the stars. I think I posted a number of such photos at the time but not this one, and I thought it was worthy of posting too.

A favourite picture of mine of Sue and Heather with Heather tossing spent milkweed remains at Sue.

This building was once a planer mill back in the days when they logged this area. When Brian refurbished it, he named after us with the planer becoming playner to suit our names. It was protectively screened from the insects, but those screens have fallen into disrepair now that the clan no longer gathers there. It makes me a bit sad.

This is the fence line in autumn. The road runs parallel to the fence off to the right. All of the trees in the distance are part of the property.

I posted many Riverwood photos over the years and probably most of these at some time, but having just revisited the place, I thought to share them again now before deleting them from that particular folder.

Saturday Trip

On Saturday, Shauna and I drove 2.5 hours to visit my ex-brother-in-law, Brian, at his very rural abode. I hadn’t seen him for 8 years, mostly because of the ex designation and all of the concomitant complications therewith. As is evident by all of the green on the map, there are a lot of trees to pass by on the route from us in Carleton Place (right part of map) to Brian's (orange marker in Kawartha Lakes). Shauna took the somewhat quicker dark blue route, but Sue and I would often drive one of the two light blue routes when we had oodles of time at our disposal  

It was good to meet with Brian after so long and also good to see the property once again, for we have spent many happy recreational weeks there in the past. Of course, I had to take pictures. It was a terrible day or time of day for photos, but after 8 years it was a necessity.

First: people and dogs. There have always been dogs, but these two were new to me, and we got along well. Griz, the one on the left, both top and bottom, expected me to go on a woodsy walk with him (bottom left), but that was not to be. Leesi (bottom right) was the more touch-friendly one of the two.

In two of the above photos, we were standing in a lavender patch. Brian has created a lavender garden, actually two, over the past three years. It's a pretty impressive feat in the geographic conditions (soil and climate) that he has to deal with.  He has taken some marvellous photos in sunrise light, and maybe I will find and post one at the bottom,  but I did what I could on that day. The photo at the bottom left of the collage is of the secondary lavender bed.

Another thing that Brian has just begun is the raising of honey bees, The two 'hives' are in the left in the next composite. In the centre, I managed to snap a not-too-terrible pic of one of the flitting bees in the lavender. The photo on the right has nothing to do with lavender or bees but is the part of the river where we used to swim. We'd do down the bank on the bottom left of the image. The slope has become steeper over the years because it is the nip slope of the meander, so the river will cut in that direction (toward the camera). As always, this and all photos are embiggable with a click.

Photography is all about the light, and Brian certainly caught the light in the next photos, the first on one of the smokey days. The sun could not rise in a more opportune location.

Oops, I forgot to post this, Over the years, I enjoyed taking many photos of this old barn, and now I have been able to add one more to the collection.