Back Where I Started

I suppose y'all are wundrin what the Ole AC is up to ... or not.

Well ... when I closed down the original The AC is On, I couldn't seem to get Dear Ole Blogger to import those posts. I didn't want to lose them, so at the time I made a new The AC is On hosted by Wordpress. But I always thought that I might come back to Blogger, and I mentioned it at the time. Now, we have a third The AC is On site — right here. I could change it in future, but I wanted to maintain a tiny amount of continuity through these migrations.

In addition to having a generalized yen to return to Blogger, I also really like the way that the new Blogger templates present photos. Just click on one in the body of the post, and you can see it larger without leaving the page. You can also click or scroll to any other photos in that post. I don't know if you have tried this handy dandy, lil feature when hopping around from post to post, but I think it's bloomin neato, especially for a guy who likes to feature numerous photos.

BTW this is the also old Raindrops site; I simply changed the name as well as the appearance. All of the old Raindrops posts are here; it's just the year+ posts while I was experimenting elsewhere that aren't present. I could have started a brand new Blogger blog rather than revive Raindrops but decided it was unnecessary.

While I have y'all here, I just might as well show you a photo or two. Eh?

Thesha and Nikki Dee at a recent baby shower

Cuppa on porch at Wheelers a few weeks ago on a nice day despite the snow. Since then we've had more snow and some cold weather, but the past few days have been milder, and the snow is disappearing.

Antique Thresher at Wheelers

Chainsaw Museum at Wheelers. This is fewer than half the total number of chainsaws on display.

Skis on the roof at Wheelers form some poor soul who had an errant ski jump

I Want to be in the Frame Too

All week long, I've been posting pictures of our Saturday walk through Mill of Kintail. Now, I wants me some attention too. So, just to prove I was there, here is a sequence of Nikki Dee attempting to climb a tree stump. She has had this climbing business on the brain more about a year and a half now, ever since she saw Jungle Book. There's a part where Mowgli and Bagheera climb a tree to supposedly sleep safely, and she has wanted to do this ever since. Some of you longtimers (notice that I didn't call you oldtimers) may recall me posting her attempts way back when.

Here's a stump that looks climb-able, Buppa.

But I guess I need a little help.

I'm up, but I want to stand.

That's really nice, but now ...

... I want to sit ...

... and just feel smug.

Two Loves

I love me five women, or make that four women and one girl child. At the Mill of Kintail the other day, I was able to take lots of pics of two of these great loves: the oldest and the youngest. These two adore each other almost as much as I adore them. Separated my almost exactly sixty years, they share a joy of life. The older of the two is especially to be raised on a pedestal just now — for making me three apple pies! I'll present the photos without further comment except to say the the last is my fave; sometimes (and not often in my opinion) black and white conversion is just the ticket.

Thursday Takes

I've been updating garden progress periodically as it evolves ever so slowly. We have completed another little job — lining the inside of the driveway border with stones ↑↑. We've also added two Chrysanthemums (as you can see) and two little Daylilies (which you probably can't see). I was hoping to do some renovation in the centre garden last weekend, but I was down with a cold. Given the time of year, I think I'll just make a few notes now and wait for the spring.

School is in. The neighbours with little children gather at the bus stop across the street; everyone stands around in a loose circle. I think it's cute, so I took this picture from my window. ↓↓




Since we had yesterday off from our babysitting gig, we took a little walk in the park after sitting and munching on fries/chips from the chip truck. Since I met our mayor at the truck and compared our chip-enhanced tummies, I have decided to vote for him in the upcoming election. To the point: the walk goes past the local high school and kids were our playing lacrosse in gym class. ↑↑

Further along, a little motor boat passed up and a lady and her dog walking on the other bank. ↓↓




Finally, I thought these geese ↑↑ were kind of framed nicely through these diverging tree trunks. Too bad they weren't interested in posing nicely and were already on the move. Because they were so anxious to be off, I wasn't able to get their names or to have them sign a consent form to allow me to post this. So, I am presuming.

Belated Cottage Pics

Even though it's not Christmas, like Cratchit I am a little behind my times with this post. We have been back from the cottage for almost three weeks, but it took me awhile to get around to posting these pictures because I first had to finish working with photos from our Down East trip,. Let's face it; it just had to be done. This batch I like from a photographic point of view.

I walked into the woods, not very far in, to see what I could see. Soon, I heard chickadees cheeping and headed toward the sound. They were brave enough to stay within camera distance for awhile.

While I was standing still and taking chickadee pictures, a chipmunk stopped in front of me for quite a long time, trying to take the measure of such a weird, clumsy creature.

On another occasion, I passed this Monarch butterfly in the trees. Apparently, they have been somewhat scarce in the past few years, so I was glad to see this one and others later on.

Evenings found us down at the planer mill. We'd light candles inside and start a campfire outside. As you can see, it gets quite dark in the country.

There is a garage/shed on the property. I have taken pictures of the front, but this time I focussed on this simple picture of the window in the back wall.

There is also a picturesque red bar on the property. Again, I focussed on a small area including a window.

Every year I seem to take a picture of the planer mill. It really was a working mill up until about fifteen years ago. Now that it has been screened in, we can be indoors away from the bugs but still feel like we are outdoors.

We call this cleared area Bench Sward because years ago, my nephew and his friends built a Friendship Bench there (to the left of the willow tree in the photo). Although it's hard to see from this angle, we can get down to the river for a swim at one spot. It's a bit of a steep access, but we can manage. It's always cold in the Crowe River, however.

Through the screen, I spied with my little eye Auntie Lychee walking with Zach. I quickly took two pictures: one with the people in focus and one with the screen in focus. They're both okay, but I prefer this one with the screen in focus.

That's about it. Whatever will I think to blog about next?

A Picture a Day?

Is it time to start getting excited? It's been nine years since we drove Down East for three weeks. We toured quite a bit of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton (northern Nova Scotia). Despite the fact that it was a fairly long vacation, we still ran out of time and didn't really get to do mainland or southern Nova Scotia.

It was a great trip, and it's been in our minds that we would get back there someday. So, when our old friends from Sarnia moved to Yarmouth, we decided that we could kill two birds with one stone: visit our friends and return to the East Coast.

This won't be a long vacation, just a week, but we're looking forward to it. We'll see the Atlantic Ocean again and lots of fishing-related places like the one following picture, I expect. Or maybe not; we'll see where the road and our friends take us.

This is Neil's Harbour in the northern part of Cape Breton. We loved Cape Breton and the Cabot Trail. I don't know if we'll get back there again this time, but I'm sure we'll enjoy whatever we do wherever we go.



Note: today I decided that when all else fails, I would try to post a photo per day (or most days) along with a short commentary, and this is the first. I often don't know what to blog about anymore for two reasons: (i) with well over a thousand posts in the bank, I don't always know what to add; (ii) my brain is turning to mush since my most stimulating activity has become changing "poopies". But, I do have pictures and promise that they won't always be of Nikki Dee and Zach. I don't suppose that I will really post a picture every day, and I also suppose that I will still find other things to add from time to time, but the concept may help me to post more regularly (or not) as I seem to be going through fits and starts lately.

Foto Friday

Let's begin with Unohoo. Cuppa posted a version of this photo yesterday, but here's the same photo of HerRoyalCuteness cropped more closely and converted to black and white.



Here's an old family photo. That's Cuppa and I ... Seriously, it's my grandfather and grandmother with my father, circa 1920 I'd say. It's not a good photo; for that reason and the fact that there are so many scratches etc, I haven't tried to repair it aside from lightening it to make it more visible. Why this picture then? well, it may be the only one of the three of them together. There are precious few anyway.



This is hockey-mad country, partly because we're in Canada, partly because we have a major team, and partly because it's a very good team. Down on the highway through town, there is a rink, with Canadian flags, a Senators (our team) banner, a chair in which to watch the supposed game, and a snow sculpture of the Stanley Cup (awarded to the playoff champions). I'm surprised there's no case of Molson lying there.



I posted a butterfly picture last week and decided to add this one, also taken at the Niagara Butterfly Conservatory in 2004. I cannot begin to name these wonderful creatures, but that's okay. I had just gotten my DSLR at the time and was enjoying playing with it; it's now obsolete. :(



Thinking of spring: back in Sarnia, I had a fairly nice garden. This is what it looked like (in spring 2004), I think. I managed to get a decent photo wit both the daffodils and tulips in bloom at the same time. The ground Phlox made a splendid covering. I don't garden in our present location. Perhaps I will return to the hobby someday, but I have no concrete plans — just concrete soil. :)

Porcelainity

Just to keep in touch these days when I am feeling somewhat reticent, I'd like to share another picture with you. Last September, Cuppa's sister niece stopped on their way to and from a road trip to The Maritimes. They sort of had a Thelma and Louise thing going. Somehow, it's one movie that I've missed, and I don't know which is which, but they had a ball. Cuppa wrote about them and posted their Thelma and Louise photos here.

Today, I was given the task of creating a porcelain-effect on a photo. Following the instructions, this is what I came up with. While I'm not sure how porcelain it is, I like. You like?

Stressing and Savouring

I appreciate your commiseration with my computer woes. Said woes continue. Backing up files, which I haven't done for a while, is even problematic because even that process tends to cause a crash. So, I drag a few at a time to Cuppa's computer, and will put them on an external hard drive from there. I am doing the extra step of loading them onto her computer first because not having to deal with an additional item is one less thing to tax my sadsack machine. It's all very odd because I can usually do things like type this without running into trouble.

We didn't get around to exploring new pathways as I had wished the other day. We returned rather late from ogling Butterfly's shower presents; it was downright nippy by that time, and the shadows were beginning to lengthen, so we stuck to tried and true paths. Nevertheless, Cuppa thought to bring her camera along, and I was able to snap the following picture. It's a little creek right next to the river in the park near our house, and I think it looks pretty fine in this photo. As you can see, I continue to experiment with methods of processing colour into black and white.

Perhaps because I remember the days when it was so cool to advance to colour photography, I am not quite as taken with b&w as many. I probably prefer colour to b&w about 99.9% of the time. But it's still fun to experiment, and I only crashed the computer once while doing that — or maybe it was twice. Sigh. Nevertheless, while the computer causes some angst and stress, I appreciate being able to spend time playing with pixels like this and generally savouring my days, for there looms a time when there will be no more days to savour.

Meanwhile, Butterfly has posted some photos and I know that Cuppa will also do so either today or tomorrow. I know because I uploaded a half dozen for her last night, and they merely await proper and lucid explication. Wow! Did I say that?! lol

Snowy Tree

Last week we sat in the park and drank our Tim's coffee (half hot chocolate, Ben). I had been anxious to take pictures of the gently falling snow, but, alack and alas, it stopped falling just as we were arriving. Both Cuppa and I took snapped a few anyway. When I uploaded them, I realized that we had essentially taken the same three shots. This is one of mine, processed in two ways.

Foto Friday

Time away from Blogger gives me time to work on photos. You may recall seeing a black & white version of the first one, below. I have tinted it in Photoshop. According to my memory these are something like the original colours, but my memory may be faulty. Men aren't all that great at recalling clothes, doncha know?



This one is supposed to resemble a stamp (please stretch your imagination for ole AC). Lanark is the county in which we reside.



Of course, you have seen many photos of Rocky. In the next two, I am playing with matting and framing.





The backyard from the bedroom window.



Neighbourhood winter scenes taken on recent walks.