Border Flags

Honest. I had this photo posted in draft mode before Jen did her flag photos. (O good grief, I think I inadvertently deleted her address from my bookmarks, and the name of the blog escapes me.)

We live, for another few days at least, in a border town. When we head to the river and, more importantly, to the chip trucks under the bridge, we are treated to two large pairs of flags flying. One pair flies on the Canadian side, and the other similarly sized pair (they're big flags, folks) waves to us from Stateside. Our countries have their little squabbles from time to time, but we get along pretty darn well for the most part: with a lot of mutual respect too.

They're big and impressive; I simply like to look at these flags and thought that you might too. Since the vast preponderance of visitors to this blog are either Canadian or American, consider it a salute to you and to each other. There are scads of worse places to live than these two wonderful countries. And few better.

 

Beautiful Enemy

Yesterday, I had a lot of company while deadheading the flowers. There were a lot of bees buzzing to and fro. They were busy both with the false sunflowers (heliopsis helianthoides) shown in this photo and in the cosmos beside them. I did get some pictures of the bees, but they weren't nearly as sharp as this photo of a handsome wasp. Wasps are a royal pain at this time of year, sometimes literally, but they are rather photogenic creatures. On balance, however, I think I'd gladly forego the photo in exchange for a little peace. Never eat outdoors in late August and early September: not around here anyway.

 

Great Blue Heron

Oddly enough, after I mentioned the Great Blue Heron in my post yesterday, I began to recall that we had tried to take some photos. Sure enough, there were a few on Cuppa's camera. While this isn't exactly a close-up, it isn't so very terrible either.

It will serve a nice reminder for us of many enjoyable bicycle trips out to The Grove. Last year, we rode the trail, but this year we have discovered a route that allows us to travel on paved but lightly travelled country roads. Pedalling on pavement is easier and faster than on trails, and it's a lot less dusty and grimy too.

The river that you see in this photo is a human-made, or at least human-enhanced, drain (or ditch). The water is always brown, but, for some mysterious reason, it turned out blue in this picture — without any Photoshop contrivances on my part — for a change.

As I wrote yesterday, we usually call a loud and cheery greeting to this heron, who is almost always poking about or very close to this very spot. S/he must wonder about the sanity of these boisterous humans shouting from their odd, two-wheeled contraptions, but we like doing it. We should be able to make a couple of more trips before moving day, and we'll continue to greet the bird cheerily.

The funny thing is that I almost feel sentimental about this impending loss (i.e. not encountering the heron any more), for I suppose that I am letting this encounter represent the many bicycle trips which we have enjoyed so very much. I am not overly lugubrious about leaving this locale, but I am a tiny bit wistful about forsaking this bicycle route, not to mention this Great Blue Heron.

It has been our wonderful privilege to ride out to the shores of beautiful Lake Huron. It's just about the right distance for us, and the destination can't be beat — Lake Huron and Tim's. I'm pretty darn positive that we won't find a better route in our new location, but we'll make the best of whatever we are afforded, and we'll endeavour not to cast too many comparative backward glances.

 

Goldfinch

Suddenly, and without warning, I don't seem to have much to blog. Apart from the occasional informational item, I have been reduced to silence for the past week or so. I can't seem to even muster a comment on most blogs. I have been keeping up with you, however. Since I have nothing to say, I am pleased to have this photo to post.

The Boy and The Butterfly are visiting this weekend, saying their goodbyes to this house. We, ourselves, only have one more weekend before we make the long cross-province move.

Yesterday morning, The Boy looked out the kitchen and saw this goldfinch in the side border. We all scurried to the window and looked. At first, I didn't bother to get my camera because I have found that birds usually don't stay put for long. After a minute or so, however, he was still there. So, I found my camera, changed to the telephoto lens, and was still able to take about a dozen pictures through the window pane before he flew off. This was the best photo, but I still had to crop it, brighten it, and warm it up a bit in Photoshop.

When we are biking, there is one section where we often see goldfinches. They often seem to escort us, but they are really trying to fly off and are surprised when that we are able to keep up with them. At that point, they speed up or veer off, but it's fun to travel with them (as it were) for a while. They seem to fly in short, looping bursts that I quite enjoy watching.

There is something very satisfying about being touched by nature, even in these small ways, like seeing three young hawks practising their soaring close to ground level in the wetlands the other day. There is another spot where we see a blue heron almost every time we cycle by, and we usually shout a cheery greeting. We always have Cuppa's camera at hand, but the 3x optical zoom doesn't really give us a good shot, and I am a little loathe to pedal about the countryside with my SLR and telephoto lens in tow.

 

From My Email

I can't resist this.

---

 

International Symbol of Marriage is Approved

After 5 years of heated debate

the Commission of Human Rights

approved the

International Symbol of Marriage:

 

Blogger Adds Word Verification

Bless Google's little heart because they keep on finding ways to improve Blogger. We now have the option of adding word verification to our comments. This means that anyone who wishes to comment must copy a random string of letters. It may cut down somewhat on spammers. I am going to give it a try. I have re-enabled Anonymous comments and enabled Word Verification. If I don't like the results, I can always change my mind — again!

Two things:

1. If you don't know what I'm talking about, just try to comment on this blog, and you'll soon get the idea.


2. I have also found a freeware program called Wink, which you can obtain at the Wink homepage. Wink enables you to easily construct a movie of what's occurring on your screen. Click here to view the little movie I have made a showing How to Enable Word Verification. Once again, check out this freeware at the Wink homepage.
   
   The caveat is that you must have space on the Internet to house the movie.
   
   You should also know that people must have Flash enabled in order to play it, but I don't think that this is a problem for the overwhelming majority of folk.

 

Blogging with Word

I don't use MS Word to create my posts, but you might use it to compose and edit your entries. According to BloggerBuzz, there now exists a plugin for Word that allows you to do everything from within the program, including publishing. Because I don't use Word, I haven't personally checked out this plugin; I'm just passing the news on.