Out Again After a Hiatus

I had never intended to abandon the spot from where I have recently photographed a few dawns, but life and weather got in the way. We had a few nights with frost advisories which did not leave me inclined to venture forth in the frigid morn. And every now and then, believe it or not, I sleep-in past sunrise, or at least too late to get out and photograph it.

On Thursday night, I was able to get to bed at a decent hour – 10:30 – so I figured that 6 hours would take me to 4:30. That is enough time for me to get out because the sun doesn't rise until almost 5:20, and 6 hours is all of the sleep that I can count on. Really though, I can't even count on that much sleep. It is more accurate to say that it usually what I am hoping to get.

As it turned out, with Lacey's help, I was stirring before 3:30. Noticing that the window was completely damp, I figured that it had been raining, so I might as well roll over and try to get more sleep.

That didn't happen. I soon noticed Sue looking at her phone. Apparently the amber alert for a missing child had awoken her. Deaf AC hadn't heard it, but he did hear the equally noisy all-clear sometime later. I gave up, and when I checked the front windows, they were dry, as was the street. It hadn't rained after all, so I got ready and made coffee to go, but then forgot to take it.

I was surprised to see that it was foggy out. It wasn't all that thick, but it was enough to obscure the trees in yonder field when I got to my spot. I backtracked to another location that I has passed where I had seen trees that were visible because they lay closer to the road.

I parked on the laneway on the edge of a farm property. I am sure that I wouldn't have done this if there were a homestead on the property, but there wasn't, at least not in my field of vision.

I know the background palaver is getting long and tedious, but I do want to say a little more.

The last time that I was out with the camera here, I had set the camera on a white (light) balance that wasn't giving me true colours on screen. When I looked at the screen, I wasn't seeing what my eyes were seeing, and I had to try to correct the colour in post from memory of what it had been like.

There is a way to set a custom balance, which I have employed only seldom. On this morning I used it to get the LCD screen as close as possibly to what I was seeing, which is what I want to do. While I will manipulate some types of photos to taste, I try to get my landscape photos close to the light as I really perceive it. If I can get it close to right in camera, I don't have to try to remember later because memory is unreliable.

I think that is why I like this photo so much. It isn't a spectacular landscape by any means, but it pretty well captures what I saw or what I think I saw.

You can see the laneway on which I was trespassing and fog in the background. I cropped the photo to a 16:9 ratio, which fits a computer scree precisely, and it really looks good at the full screen with high resolution on a good monitor. I love the tranquility of the scene, but I suppose you had to have been there to truly appreciate it.

I have gone on and on, so I will post three more photos without comment except to say that conditions changed as I pointed the camera in different directions.

It was good to get out again after more than a week although there have been robin photos and a full moon in the interim.

Chewy Goodness

On a whim, I purchased oatmeal cookies on a recent trip to ye olde grocery store.

I am reminded of the oatmeal cookies that I used to purchase from the school cafeteria, particularly if I could buy a nice, fresh one on a morning break. They were roughly twice the diameter of the one above (which is I posted in my hand for context). They were big. And tasty. Certainly a notch above these store bakery cookies although these aren't bad by any means.

When I made my order, the ladies would ask if  I wanted soft one or a hard one. There was never a doubt in my mind — soft and chewy every time.

Apparently, some prefer the harder kind, which I find difficult to fathom. And yet, I am married to a woman who prefers crunch. Until I began to regularly eat lunch with her in my retirement, I didn't realize this odd proclivity, or at least not to its full extent.

It is almost as if crunchy is a taste for this woman o'mine. Whatever the exact taste, if an item is crunchy it stands a good chance of being certified AOK by Sue. Scarcely a lunch goes by without carrots and celery. While, I will reluctantly take a few bits of celery, I don't even want to go near a raw carrot. I don't think it is so much the crunchiness, but I can't abide the taste of an uncooked carrot.

Celery doesn't taste bad, but it is hardly mouthwatering, at least to me. But I swear that, to Beloved, celery almost induces mouthgasms.

Oddly enough, she likes pasta soft, even though we are told that is best cooked al dente. Don't ask me to explain. And I'm not sure she can either.

Caturday 29: Storming the Barricade

My goodness! It has been almost exactly two months since my last Caturday post. I know that yesterdays post would have been right for Caturday, but it wasn't Saturday, so it couldn't be Caturday. And it wasn't Lacey either. tsk tsk

It has been eight whole months since I posted about her sneaking into the guest room here. At the time, she was gaining access by knocking Sue's barricade askew. We use the barricade to keep the cat dander out for allergic guests but to allow air circulation in the meantime.

Back then, Sue met the issue by placing a big bag of used clothes on the other side. It served to fortify the barrier and foil dear cat. After the clothes were dispensed through the FB Buy Nothing group, the barricade was no longer as stalwart. However, it sufficed for quite awhile because Lacey had gotten out the the habit of breaking in.

Recently, the day came when her memory kicked in, and therefore, the barrier was also kicked in. Pawed in?

She was discovered, once again with her head buried which probably caused her to feel that no one could, therefore, see her.

A little later . . .

I have used the guest room as my changing room where I also temporarily leave clothes on the bed that I have worn but which don't yet require washing. But now, we've placed the vacuum cleaner to reinforce the barrier, and I have to do my changing and temporary clothes storage in my den.

I tells ya, my life is nothing but hardship. Eh?

Meanwhile . . .  most of the year is either too hot or too cold to enjoy our little closed-in front porch, but we and Lacey have been able to get out a bit recently. June is Pride month, so you might notice that the porch is somewhat decorated, and bear is all dressed too. 

I Tot I Taw a Puddy Tat

Generally, Tuesday is shopping day and also has become TTT Day: Tuesday Treat Time for the kids.

It is usually something that I do on my own while Sue does whatever at home. This time, after I brought the groceries home, we decided to pick up breakfast and drive to our usual spot. Naturally, we took another photo of the pair of us in the car. Sue should have told me that my hat was somewhat askew.

But then, I tot I saw a puddy tat.
I did see a puddy tat.

How curious! I had never seen a cat in the park before.

And then I saw another puddy tat.

They were with a man.
What?!
A man was walking with his two cats in the park. Unleashed!

The cats were still cat-like enough to wander hither and thither and not always come promptly when called, or rather whistled. But they didn't bound off either.

One particularly, got a bit lost beyond the bushes to the left, next to the water in the following photo.

At one point the man had to locate the cat and carry it out of the bushes. Eventually, they wandered off toward the rest of the park on the right of the above photo. They are actually in the above photo, right about smack dab in the middle, but these are all distant phone photos, so you may have to take my word for it. If you could see the photo larger . . . wait, I will try to crop it for you.

Can you see it? To the bottom left, he is carrying a cat. The other puss (off to the right) is about to investigate the ladies at the picnic table.

Sue and I were out of the car and walking in the same direction by this point. The trio was making pretty good progress now. They are in the centre of the photo.

This is hard work for cats. They had to stop and rest. We caught up to them.

We had to investigate and have a chat. They are beautiful Bengal cats who walk with their human regularly. 

I petted this one. It took it calmly and as a matter of course.

I was told that the other one was a bit skittier, so I just took a picture. What a beautiful creature! Look at those eyes and that glorious coat, which apparently, doesn't shed.

What delightful fun we had. It turned out to be Tuesday Treat Time, not just for the kids, but for us too.

I have only seen something similar once in my entire lifetime. It was one Halloween back in the 80s. A family was accompanied by their feline on their rounds. As far as I could see, the cat didn't go to the door, trick or treating with the kids, but when the family was ready to move on, they just told the cat to come along, and it did.

Go figure! It's not like any cat I have ever known.

And . . . as an afterthought, I put a few of the photos into a collage. Done now, for sure.

215

Where do I begin? You probably know about the discovery of the remains of 215 Tk’emlúps First Nations children, at a former residential school in Kamloops, British Columbia. It has been well-covered by both America and world news outlets.

Canadians are aghast. It is not that we didn't know about these residential schools whose job it was to expunge the savage out of the Native children. It is estimated that 150 000 children were snatched and shipped off to boarding schools where, under the threat of punishment, they were not permitted  to speak their native languages. Stories of brutal punishment abound.

I quote from an article from theconversation.com.

The Canadian state, in partnership with the churches, has long unilaterally assumed sovereignty over Indigenous mortality and bereavement.

Nowhere is this more apparent than the atrocity at Tk’emlúps which has sharpened this for many Indigenous nations, as we see how the Catholic church not only denied these children the capacity to shape the means of and choose the ends of their life, but also they denied their communities control over their death.

In Tk’emlúps, the Catholic church decided that neither their lives nor their deaths were worthy of being known, remembered and commemorated.

One of the more appalling acts by the Catholic church in Tk’emlúps was how the children were deliberately forgotten; they were omitted from the official records that would verify their passing.

Fellow Ontario blogger, The Furry Gnome, wrote a piece about the residential school system that covers the basics without being too long. I suggest that you read his post, 215 Children, especially if you are Canadian, because we have to own this. How can we be better if we don't?

The nation, provinces and communities have lowered the flag to half mast for 215 hours. This is our town hall..

The library staff has tied 215 ribbons to the bridge by town hall.

Behind town hall, there is an understated memorial of two pairs of children's shoes, shoes being the symbol that many are choosing to use in memorials across the country. It is laid over a permanent display of a circle of stones in recognition of those who have suffered domestic violence.

I have enlarged the photo portion of the tribute. Just imagine what it was like for both the children and the helpless parents and communities.

We moved on from town hall to an even more poignant display. A local school has gathered 215 teddy bears and placed then all along the fence.

My photo doesn't even include all of the fence along this street, for there are more bears off the left of the frame. Then, way down to the right, they turn the corner and go all along the street in front of the school. It is staggering to think that so many children could be cast off and disposed of so ignominiously.

Here is a small section.

Canada has come a long way. By and large we are now pretty tolerant and inclusive, at least compared to many countries. But we could and should do better. We must come to grips with our forebears' ignorance and cruelty as well as the continuing systemic, poor treatment of too many of our first nations peoples.

A Splashing Good Time

When I posted Robin in the Bath, I mentioned that we had two birdbaths. 

Hoping for some photos of the nearer bath, I played the waiting game on three occasions. I wanted this bath, partly because it is closer and partly because I might get a reflection.

The waiting game was not fruitful. Out back where we face west, the afternoon sun is very hot, even on a cool day. The birds didn't come, and I had to beat a retreat after about only 10 minutes.

Thinking that the birds might drop by before bedtime, I went out for another try in the evening, but the birds were doing whatever birds do, elsewhere. One hummer did do a brief flyby. No, I didn't get a picture.

Then I figured that they would surely come by early in the morning, so I was on my chair waiting before 6AM. It was a very cold morning, and I sat in warm winter attire, including gloves. I gave that up after about a half hour.

I could never be a wildlife photographer, for I neither the patience nor stamina.

That afternoon, however, serendipity struck. I was near the patio doors but inside when a robin decided that it was bath time. I wasn't about to frighten it off by opening the door and attempting to go out onto the deck, so I shot through the screen.

As you might imagine, the photos straight out of the camera were not great, but shooting in RAW gave me enough latitude to poke them this way and prod them that way until something semi-respectable emerged on the computer screen. I did say, semi.

The robin first came to the near bath, but the photos from that visit didn't turn out so well. It bathed there and then went to the back bath to splash about some more. Finally, it returned to the near bath, and I managed to get a few photos.

I wanted to get a reflection, but it only worked when the water was still, before the splashing commenced, so the photo is very so-so with no action. I would remove the chair leg if I were to edit this photo more, but it is fine for a blog post.

The bird got into its ablutions with great gusto and apparent joy, at least it was joyful to me, the observer.

Shooting through the screen produced spectral highlights in some photos. They are very visible in this ↓ image.

Those photos were all taken on the bird's second visit to the near bath. I also have a few from the visit to the far bath. Sue had switched the planter from the previous post, which adds a different look.

It is as if the bird were about to snatch up the spectral highlight, which fortuitously, is at the tip of the beak. The placement was not photoshopped.

The next phot catches the shadow.

Finally, the highlight adorns the head like a crown of light.

Through the screen or not, I like the series. Maybe someday, I will get another chance without the screen in the way, but I am satisfied for now.

Erstwhile

Sometimes, words don't mean what it seems like they should mean. Take this Synonym of the Day, for instance.

The only reason that I got the right answer when I saw it on FB was because I could eliminate the other two possibilities.

I know that I have come across erstwhile in my reading, but apparently, I never really knew what it meant. To me, it seemed like it should mean something like notably worthwhile.

Although it is synonym for former, it doesn't always substitute exactly; here is how thesaurus.com describes its usage.

The adjective former means, broadly, earlier in time (during a former stage in the proceedings) or, of two things in succession, earlier in order (Our former manufacturing process was too costly). Erstwhile isn’t a viable synonym in these cases, but it does overlap in meaning with former in phrases like the former president, a former dancer, former members, her former husband, or my former home, where former refers to someone or something in terms of what they at one time were, but no longer are. 

If I understand correctly, one could use erstwhile quite often in place of former. 

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While I have your rapt attention (heh heh), permit me to make another slight grammar quibble after my recent lie/lay post. It is one I see on FB all of the time; I notice it in sports posts, like this one: "We don’t make playoffs without Allen well deserved"

It was a reply to a post about player Allen receiving an accolade, so that phrase, "well deserved," would be understood in the context. Therefore, I will reluctantly not harp in that part despite the lack of a period or other punctuation.

But I can't abide the increasing use of the present tense when either the future or past applies. We wouldn't have made the playoffs is what the writer meant. Is it really so difficult? I am just picking one one example, and to be fair, it was just a quick reply to a post, but I see this in main posts too and all too frequently, by qualified sports journalists.

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I close with this although  I guess I am not being altogether silent.