Dance Recital 2015

Naturally, I have scads of shots from Danica's recital, but I will show some restraint.

Her first piece was with her Grade 1 Ballet class; it was entitled Orchids. Her expressions were quite marvellous.

Her second set, Picnic, was from her Beginner Highland class. With so few girls and needing someone to help lead, they recruited Danica for this class.

Her final number was with her Acro class, in which the girls were as old as 11. The routine was called Camping.

Of course, there were flowers for the dancer.

Jonathan Graduates from Kindergarten

After many hours of diligent study, Jonathan has graduated from Kindergarten.

 He was in fine spirits after the march-in.

Then they performed a number of songs.

Shot under the through the gap of the guy taking pictures in front of me.

His teacher presents the diploma.

Congratulations, and hugs from Mom and Dad after he was permitted to join them as few other presentations took place.

From the slideshow presentation: My parents help me "... by giving me healthy food and telling me stories."

His many teachers: French, English, and assistants.

JJ got to take the rest of the day off, and it began with lunch at the restaurant and a gift or two.

Way to go, JJ!

A Photographic Observation

I have heard/read that colour in photos can distract from the main object and I certainly notice that in the following two pairs of photos.

In this first pair, a quick portrait snapshot of Sue, I have no trouble locking my eyes on Sue in the b&w, but I find them pulled/distracted a bit by the surrounding colour in the colour version. Do you get the same result?

I also get a similar effect with the next pair. My eyes pull away from the central humans and dog in the colour version, but I find them wandering much less in the b&w version.

In both cases, I don't think it's a huge deal, but I do find it interesting to note.

------------------- a note in passing ------------------

I have removed both Moderation and Captcha on my blog. If you recall, I added them recently to try to stop some spam. I haven't had to resort to this in over 10 years of blogging, but a couple of spammers were becoming annoying.

Moderation didn't work. Well, it did in the sense that I could delete their comments before they appeared, but it's not hard to delete comments after they appear. The point is that the spammers were still trying.

My next steps were to (1) shut down comments on the posts they seemed to be targetting, and (2) enable Captcha.

Something worked, and I am testing removing both Moderation and Captchas.

Goodwood Marsh Nature Trail

Having just posted about the Beckwith Trail and about the fact that I hadn't visited any parts other than the McGregor section, I decided to visit the Goodwood Marsh nature Trail several days later.

I don't know if it is technically part of the same trail, but it is in Beckwith Township, and it does seem that one can more or less connect from one section to the next.

The official entrance is to the west of the Township Arena: go to the end of the tarmac and turn left. You will soon see this sign.

The gate to the actual trail begins a little way past the entrance sign.

We all know that marsh equals mosquitoes, but it was cool enough that morning that I thought they might not be swarming. Besides, because it was cool, I was pretty well covered except for hands and face, so they shouldn't bother me too much. I was both right and wrong. I was well covered, but the skitters were active enough despite the somewhat low [for June] temperatures. As long as I kept walking I wasn't bothered much, but whenever I stopped to take a picture there was buzzing all about.

I had hoped to see flowers, but I was disappointed. I saw these two patches of fleabane (erigeron) fairly near the entrance, but there was virtually nothing afterward. Maybe a different season would bring different results.

Befitting a marsh, I did see a lot of standing water.

But the whole place isn't marshy, and much of the trail looked like this.

Let's face it: kilometre after kilometre of this sort of view soon becomes monotonous, and it's a pretty long trudge around the whole loop.

I was beginning to wonder where the trail would come out. I didn't recall seeing evidence of a loopback when I entered, and I was fervently hoping and trusting that I wouldn't have to turn around and walk back along what seemed to be a  neverending path by that point.

And then I saw the kids playing soccer, and I rejoiced.

So, I entered the trail to the west of the arena but exited to the east. I was near the parking lot and my car, so I was quite happy about it.

So really, with mosquitoes and all, there isn't much to see except green: lots of green. If you go, you might want to wait until autumn has had its way with the insects. Even then, I suspect that you would see all that you need to see by walking five to ten minutes in and then turning around and walking back out. I don't see much need to walk the whole circuit.

Indeed, others must share that opinion because I was the lone visitor that morning.

Flowers and Stuff Along the Beckwith Trail

I decided to get out of the neighbourhood for a morning stroll, so I drove the car past Home Depot to saunter along the Beckwith Trail. The trail is divided into several portions, but I have only ever walked the McGregor portion from Carleton Place.

What I saw at first were wildflowers.

Then came what appears to have once been a stand of some sort. I wonder what produce they pedalled and where the stand was located. Or maybe it had a function other than to sell produce?

There was a little herd of cows, some of which sometimes showed some interest in this solitary human.

Somebody has a sense of humour, posting the curve sign way out in the middle of nowhere. Obeying the sign would have led me into the bushes.

I should follow the other sections sometime.

And as an added bonus, having nothing to do with the rest of the post, for my legion of fans solitary fan, here I am in the backyard slogging through Bill Nye's Undeniable. That might just be a WTF? expression on my face as I try to figure it all out. lol

Lunchtime for Us and the Heron

We were at our usual spot at Riverside Park, doing our usual thing of sitting and munching a light lunch, when something unusual occurred.

As I looked about 50' to my left, I spotted a Great Blue Heron. I don't always have my camera beside me because it seems that all of my pictures from here are the same. But I had it that day, picked it up and started shooting.

She or he was on the constant prowl for sustenance. ↓

S/he must have caught three or more fish while I was shooting.

In my first shots, the heron was still quite far away. My zoom barely reach it, and the exposure wasn't great, so I turned this photo into a highly silhouetted black and white.

While the bird started far to our left, it ended up going past us only about 10' away. S/he was totally unconcerned with the presence of two slow-legged humans nearby. It was a happily serendipitous experience. I'm glad I had my camera and that it had the right lens attached.

Sunset and Comment Moderation

For a good chunk of the past ten days or so, the weather has not been great to say the least. When it hasn't been windy, it has been rainy. When it hasn't been rainy, it has been cold. Lately it has been all three — windy, rainy and cold.

Sunday was a particularly miserable day: cold and completely overcast. So cold that we were tempted to run the furnace. We resisted, but even to be tempted at the end of May tells you something — even in Canada.

With all of the clouds, the last thing I expected to see was a sunset. But there was a sunset, and it was phenomenal. It was so phenomenal that there were photos all over Twitter, and even the radio was waxing enthusiastic the next morning.

From time to time, we see really nice sunsets from the back windows of our townie, but due to sightlines, I never bother to get the camera out. However, I did take both the camera and me out to the back stoop where I took this photo. Pretty fantastic, eh?

Even with poles and powerlines, I am rather impressed.

In other news, I am getting some annoying spam these days. This has not been a usual problems for me, and I have been happy to seek and delete the occasional piece. But enough is enough, so I have turned on Comment Moderation for now. I do wish Blogger was more like WordPress and allowed you to accept or reject a commenter once and for all, but since Blogger is the almost forgotten ugly child of the Google Empire, it sits forlornly and neglectedly in the corner, waiting for someone to notice and apply quick and easy fixes.

Hopefully, a week or two of moderation will stop the spam because I hate it. Maybe I could turn verification on, but I'll do it this way for now.