Thru the Ceildow on the Estalot

Our recent hols were spent at one in-laws' place, and while there, we took a sidetrip to visit our other in-laws. These in-laws have a beautiful house, nestled in a large and beautifully wooded lot. In fact the lot is really too big to call a lot although it doesn't quite seem to reach estate status. Maybe it's an estalot.

Autumn was looking awfully fine in their estalot. Off the kitchen is a huge ... hmm ... what is it? Well, it's an awfully big, floor to ceiling window, which actually includes some windowed ceiling. So maybe it's a ceildow in an estalot house.

Here's ↓ the ceildow , so you go ahead and tell me what to call it. I'm just a guy afterall.

This ↓ is shot thru the ceildow ceiling. Pretty, eh?

And this ↓ is the reflection on the kitchen wall cast by the ceildow.

 ↓ A shot from the deck just outside the ceildow . Not a bad view with your morning coffee, eh?

Of course, the woods beckoned, and I took a little amble around.the estalot. ↓

They have art and curiosity pieces strewn here and yon in their woodsy estalot. In this one, a teapot plays the fiddle.

The Grand Central clock on their little shed is an amusing juxtaposition because this tranquil place couldn't be much farther from the grand hustle and bustle.
 

As beautiful as their home in this estalot might be, the place is actually going to the dogs. Their two gorgeous King Charles Cavalier Spaniels really do live the life of royalty.

Occasionally, King Larry takes the royal spaniels for a stroll about the estalot.

All in all, I must opine that both in-laws and spaniels are living the good life.

Unfortunately, our visit ended with the sad news that our car was a write-off, so we headed into town from this tranquil interlude to retrieve whatever we wished from Harriet the Chariot, who was such a fine car for us for these past ten years. It was rather sad-making.

Knowing that we needn't hang about any longer, the next day, we packed up the rental and headed home in time to celebrate Thanksgiving Weekend. Despite, Harriet's untimely demise, there was much for which to be thankful.

Sparking Spark

I haven't posted much of the grandkids lately. I've had several notions but not acted on them. Anyway, Danica's Sparks group held ceremonies for the parents, and grampa tagged along. The ceremonies were mostly for the newbies, but they were good to see anyway. As a tall, senior Spark she was relegated to the back row, but I managed to squeeze a few shots. Speaking of tallness, her parents reported that she has grown 3" since May. Yes, she is a long, tall Sally and about as sweet as a kid can be.

A quick pre-ceremony snap. She's always in such a bad mood. ;)

Proud flag bearer

The song required jumping, and so she jumped

The promise

A post-ceremony photo op

I had to get a flag pose at the end

A certain monkey got into the act

The Hastings Highlands

After visiting Egan Chutes, we continued west along hwy 28 and turned north at Boulter Road into the heart of the Hastings Highlands. Unlike much of the region with trees lining the roadsides, there are views to be seen along this road. Once upon a time, we seriously considered purchasing a property in this area. It was a lovely modern log house. However, we decided that it might be a little too remote for us.

The first photo was taken from the Community Centre on Fort Stewart Road. I never saw a fort, and I never saw much of a community, but I did see a nice view.

Driving back to Boulter Road from our brief sidetrip to Fort Stewart, I stopped to snap this photo, which seemed quite in keeping with the rurality of the region.

Just next door to the above photo, we spied this amusing sign on a garage.

A nice photo of a flaming solitary tree with some highland in the background.

The next photo was taken from a bridge on Boulter over the York River. This is the same river as the waterfall at Egan Chutes but farther upstream. Streams are very unpredictable in this country; they can go from being calm and navigable (for small craft) to raging torrents within a few miles.

Shortly after stopping at the bridge, we spied a little picnic area and pulled into it. This is not the York River but Fosters Lake. I wish there were more publicly accessible spots like this, but private property reigns paramount. We sat here for about 15 minutes, enjoying the view before going on to complete our circuit.

The western half of the loop was of the more typical forested backroad type. This final photo was taken either on Musclow Greenview Road or on the way to it.

And that was our scenic drive on October 01. October 02 featured our accident, and life has been less settled ever since. However, we seem to be getting on track and will have our paltry insurance settlement and a new-to-us car by the end of the week.

Lower Faraday Road and Egan Chutes

After a week or so at the cottage, we bestirred ourselves to take a nice drive into the Hastings Highlands while the autumn colours were still showing nicely.

We started the trip by taking a backroad from Coe Hill to Bancroft rather than the standard highway route. We've driven this road before in autumn and are always pleased with what we see. Lower Faraday Road is not really in the Highlands, but it is always an autumn treat. In this first photo, we were about to drive under this rather splendid archway. How could one not stop to snap the shutter?

Still on Lower Faraday, I stopped the car and looked back for this next photo. The view didn't look so great in front of me, but I had a recollection that the view behind was a good one, and I was right. This occurred on October 01 2013. I find it good to mark the date whenever I fluke-ishly happen to be right about something. ;)

After a stop at Bancroft, we turned east on Highway 28 and stopped at Egan Chutes Provincial Park. It's a lesser known park, without attendants or entrance fees. We drove in on a bumpy road for a few minutes before we had to get out and walk the rest of the way. I took this photo while I was waiting for Sue to get herself organized for the hike.

The forested path ran alongside the York River. We both stopped to take photos, and this is one of mine. I was drawn by the combination of autumn colour, birch trees and reflections.

We were getting warm but plodded onward along the path, knowing that there was would likely be a treat at the end. Sue was happy to turn and wave to the camera.

We finally arrived at the falls or chutes at the end of the trail. For a younger more nimble person, there were many shots that could have been taken, but this old poop had enough trouble getting into position for this one. I had chosen not to carry my tripod on this trek, so I slowed my shutter speed to 1/8 second, which is pretty darn slow, and handheld the camera, hoping for decent results. Image stabilization technology worked pretty well to give me a bit of the silky water effect, which is what I was going for. I fuzzed (sorry for the overuse of technical terms) the trees on the far bank in post processing to draw more attention to the waterfall. I think it helped.

And so we come to the end of part one of our scenic tour. I had thought that I would cover the whole trip in one post, but I see that I have prattled on long enough for now.

Riverwood Autumn

We were able to see and enjoy quite a bit of autumn colour when we were at the cottage, so I think I'll put together a few posts showing some of the pictures I took. Today's set comes from at or near the cottage where we stayed.

Actually, there's not a lot of colour right on the grounds as there are a lot of coniferous trees. That and the sad fact that the elms have all succumbed to dutch elm disease.

This is a juvenile maple tree against a foggy background, which helps it to stand out nicely. I am quite fond of this one.

There is much forest on the property. One day we took a walk in the woods. I pointed my camera up and snapped the next photo.

Although there is not a lot of colour right at Riverwood (the name of the cottage property), I always know that I can find some in the neighbourhood, just a mile or so up the road. Whenever I see a birch tree, especially if it's surrounded by autumn colour, I am tempted to take a photo. Unfortunately, there was a wire in the way this time, but for this blog, I am not going to work at trying to photoshop it out.

Here's another photo, not too far from the previous one but on a different road. I usually drive this road once or twice when I visit as I always fine it interesting, but never more so than in autumn.

Back at Riverwood, here's a spot of colour by the little footbridge that extends over the Crowe River to the property next door. Some local hunters asked Brian (my brother-in-law, owner of Riverwood) for permission to build this bridge because there is a huge tract of undeveloped forest on the other side — prime hunting territory. However, the owner saw what they were up to and posted a No Trespassing sign. Hooray for the deer! I decided to grit up this one a little in post processing as it seemed to suit somehow.

There is another story about the bridge, which involves an older hunter who decided to take his ATV across anyway. However, the gate swung shut behind him, and when he returned and leaned over to unlatch the gate, he kicked his vehicle into reverse, and they both fell down the bank. He's an older guy and reported that it took him a year to recover. I got this straight from the horse's mouth, and I believed the animal ... er ... I mean him.

I took the next picture on the same foggy day as the very first photo of this post. It shows the bridge and its reflection. Not much colour, but I kind of like the mood.

A branch of brightly lit maple leaves: on a sunny day this time, somewhere down the old logging trail.

Finally, let us peek around another young maple to take a quick look at the shed before heading back to the cottage for the night. It's 7:30 and it's starting to get dark.

From Coffee to Cardom

Every now and then I just shotgun a bunch of unconnected points out into the blogiverse. This is one of those times.

• Before our country holiday, we had the bright idea of moving the Tasimo upstairs in order to save me two trips down the stairs in the early morning. I am usually the first to arise from slumber, and I take my achy knees downstairs for my morning perk-me-up. When Sue gets up later, I do her the courtesy of going down for her cup. After the hols, we got around to moving the machine upstairs, and I am feeling right chuffed about having a coffee maker in my own room (where there is already a little fridge, so the cream is close to hand).
  
• Speaking of mornings (and any other time really), I looked a lot better in the cottage mirror. You see, the lighting in the bathroom was kind of dim and also behind me. Yes siree: the old boy looked A-okay. Unfortunately, with bright front lighting on the home front, the view ain't so grand.
  
• We don't watch reality TV except for the singing competitions and SYTYCD. Both Voice and X Factor are currently running. We taped both shows while we were away. When we returned and began to catch up, we watched The Voice first. That must say something although when I stop to analyze it, I'm not sure that I really prefer one over t'other.
  
• What I can tell you (as you await excitedly with bated breath) is that I was not impressed with a new program that we decided to record — Hostages. We shut 'er down and erased it shortly into the second episode. You have to wonder how some shows make it as far as they do. (I do, however, apologize to anyone who loves the show and is offended by my unkind remarks.)
  
• I have the Lemon Aid car book from the library in an attempt to sift through possible options as we begin our hunt for a new (to us at least) vehicle. In the categories that we are primarily investigating, I don't think I've found one Recommended vehicle. To be fair, however, a number are listed as Above Average. Still, it's slim pickins unless you have much money to burn.
  
• We once had a Toyota, of which I was quite fond although it wasn't as good as our recently deceased Honda. I was sad to see that Toyota is now rated so poorly. It is also sad to see that most North American cars still do not rate highly (keeping in mind that many Asian cars are now built on these shores, so perhaps it's not that grim of a situation).

Thankfulness

We are back from our vacation, somewhat frazzled and dispirited.

We were having a very fine holiday, enjoying very fine weather and very fine autumn colours. On one drive-about things changed when we slowed down to pull off to the left. I was beginning to make the turn when I heard the squeal of brakes a second or less before we were hit. We were spun a 180 degrees onto the shoulder on the other side of the road. The back tire sank into the soft shoulder almost a foot deep, and we came to rest a hair's breath from the edge of the ditch. It wasn't a deep ditch, but I think if we had gone another few inches, it might have been enough to cause us to roll.

This is the photo of our car across the street, after we had moved it, and the other guy's car, which was still pointing in the direction in which both of us had been travelling. It shows where we came to rest although we had moved the car forward, away from the edge of the ditch, by this time.

Our car didn't look bad, but the other guy's Cady took quite a hit. However, after a long wait for the police and then for him to complete the paperwork, we were both able to drive the rest of the way home.

The next day he, Dave, found out that the damage to his Cady was estimated to be $16 500 and that it wouldn't be repaired at that cost.

Meanwhile, our car looked pretty good on the outside, and it was drivable.  You see, he had more or less gone under our car, so it actually looked pretty good. It didn't look so fine, however, when I opened the trunk. When I saw how bent and crinkled it look, I worried about structural damage.

Almost a week later after having the car towed a long distance into Peterborough and then waiting days for the repair shop to get around to looking at it, my fears were confirmed. Write-off!

I am not thankful about this because the car was relatively low mileage for its age and good for another five years in my estimation. Of course, insurance will only offer what it would have been worth on the market, not what it is worth to us. This will create some financial pain for us as well as much inconvenience until we get it all sorted.

However, it could have been much worse. We could have rolled over. There could have been a car approaching in the oncoming lane. We could have been severely injured. None of this happened, and for this I am thankful on this our Thanksgiving Day in Canada.

I am thankful because it's been a good life, which hopefully isn't nearly over. My health has been good for the long run despite recent arthritic complaints, and I have been surrounded by a wonderful family.

Almost forty-five years ago, I married a marvellous woman. We are quite devoted to each other, and life has been good. This is a recent snapshot as she sat in our little porch a sewed this or that. Sue doesn't like the photo because it shows age lines, but I love her and her age lines. Very much. It pleases me that we have grown old together (although we are not really old yet — just not young), and the age lines remind me of our good life together.

This is Thanksgiving Day in Canada. Yesterday, we celebrated the usual turkey feast at the kids' house, enjoyed our time with family and those grandkids that I adore so much. Today is the official Thanksgiving Day, and I am thankful, for life is good.