More Flowers and a Pano

I have a few more photos from the museum gardens that I first posted earlier on Monday: two peony photos and and one clematis.

I am also about to show you a sunrise pano that I took. There was no particular reason to shoot a pano, but I like to keep myself amused.

It is 7-photos stitched together into one. Straight out of the merge, I could have printed a high resolution photo that would have been 4 feet long (not that I have the equipment to do that). Of course, the scaled-down version that you are seeing would print only at ~3.5 inches.

But I wouldn't print it even if I could because I don't think it is good enough in general, and it is also not sharp enough. The trees on the left are a wee bit blurry, and the ones that stretch across the horizon are a little fuzzy too. You would want a photo to be pretty much perfect if you were going to go to the expense of printing at that size. Think of the amount of ink! I am not sure why I missed nailing the focus, but I did.

The original image was so big that my photo programs had to chug away at it for quite awhile. Since I will never print it, I have since scaled down the image size to about half of the original size. That will leave me with a good version should I ever require it. Which I won't.

Fathers Day Part One (with Orange)

I have already posted that we went out for Fathers Day breakfast on Thursday. We often celebrate days like this and birthdays with breakfast a day or three early. With Thursday's forecast looking better than Friday, Thursday was the day that we chose.

That was supposed to be it for early Fathers Day, with anything else related to the occasion to occur on the weekend with Shauna and the kids.

However, when I checked the mailbox, my new tee shirt had arrived.

You remember the orange shoes, right? Once I had them, we were looking for orange accessories. Sue found a tee from a First Nations site, and it happened to arrive just awhile before we were to depart for my second jab.

Since I had the shirt, Sue decided to give me my Fathers Day present then and there. Perhaps, you can see why.

That's right, it's a new cap, and it contains some orange and doesn't conflict with orange like my blue and red tartan caps. It's a very nice cap and even looks okay when I turn it backwards to take pictures.

I am very pleased with both items, and the cap is a quality one.

At some other time, I will post about the tee and the connection with First Nations and the story behind it, for it is of some significance.

For now though, it is just about Fathers Day, the orange shirt, and the cap.

I am not sure yet how and when I will see the kids, and there will likely be another Fathers Day post once I do. Meanwhile, Sue will have her second jab today, and that is worth celebrating too.

One Day: Three Very Fine Things

Thing One

It had been 8 months since we last breakfasted at the restaurant with the patio by our beautiful river. Patio dining re-opened just last weekend, and with Father's Day coming up, we seized the opportunity. We often celebrate events like this with breakfast a day or two prior.

Although it was a beautiful day and not too hot, we found a shady spot.

Sitting opposite Sue, I was looking at the leaves and branches that are behind her in the photo, but I didn't mind at all because it was good to be out, and the weather was quite wonderful. Sue had this view, or at least some of it, from her seat.

And I had a pretty good view of my Waterfront Scramble dish with three scrambled egg plus bacon, sausage and more. You may also notice that my beard is much more kempt than when last you saw it. I tried it longer but it wasn't me.

Thing Two

We had planned to attend the raising of the Pride flag, which had been delayed by other events. Only the night before did we realize that we weren't invited because gatherings must still be kept to no more than 10 people. 

However, serendipity intervened and we could glimpse the raising of the flag from our spot on the patio. Sue is taking some shots, below, and two photos of the raising follow.

Thing Three

It was my day for the second Jab. You can just see the needle; it was withdrawing already. I tried to get a photo of the actual jab, and I did, but her hand was in the way.

As I was sitting there for the mandatory 15 minutes post jab period. I felt a bit emotional to have reached this milestone. The science that went into this with such unprecedented speed is phenomenal, and the leaders of my country and province responded admirably. This is a time for thanksgiving, not for casting political stones as too many are wont to do.

I was jabbed on the third consecutive day of Ontario having fewer than 400 cases. This is quite a turnaround, for less than two months ago, in the peak of phase 3, we were getting more than 4000 new cases per day.  

Thanks to lockdown plus an impressive vaccine rollout, life is looking up. Seventy-five percent of Ontario adults have now had one jab and 20% have had both. I expect this number to increase impressively over the next month or two.

I don't know how the future will go with the variants, particularly the Delta, but at the present moment, there is relief and hope.

You Know that Funny Doctor on that Funny Program

Argh! Those elusive words, mostly proper nouns! It happens too often in my dotage.

The word in this instance was Milanos, our pizzeria. We order about every 4-6 weeks. And I have such trouble remembering the name. I know that it begins with an M, but although all sorts of M-words pop into my lil noggin, none of them are Milanos. I know well enough that the word pop-ups aren't right but darned if I came come up with the right word. I mean, I usually do remember after awhile, but I gave up the struggle last week and resorted to googling pizzerias in town. As soon as I saw the list, I had it.

At least I still know how to google, eh?

That evening Sue leaned over, showed me this photo on her tablet and asked me if I knew who it was. 

Of course, my dear. It is Endora, Samantha's mother in Bewitched, that 60s tv show. I knew it instantly, from 50 years ago!

How come, when I can't remember Milanos?

Later, we were watching British telly: DCI Banks to be precise.

I was able to explain to Sue that the character, Annie Cabot, was in all of the many volumes in the book series but would eventually be dropped from the tv series. 

That's not bad recall, is it? I could picture her replacement who would play a different character, but when I tried to tell Sue who it was, the best I could come up with was something like, "the wife of that funny doctor on that tv show."

Sue looked at me in perplexity, but then I was able to say that the doctor was autistic or something like that, and Sue came up with Doc Martin.

Yes yes. That's the one, so I was then able to elaborate. "Well, the woman who replaces Annie Cabot on DCI Banks is played by the same actor as Doc Martin's wife." 

Sue could recall none of this, which sometimes happens when we re-watch an old series. Sue will swear up and down that we haven't seen it, but as we go along, I will remember bits and pieces and sometimes am able to tell her about something that will happen in advance. She then says that I must have watched it without her. Except I don't watch tv without her except for hockey. There was one other series, Longmire, that she couldn't stand, and neither could I after the first good season or two.

Back to Doc Martin and the actor, whose name or at least stage name is Caroline Catz. I have no trouble recalling the basic place, situation and various characters in both DCI Banks and Doc Martin, but the names so often stump me.

By the way, Endora was played by Agnes Moorehead. But you'll have to remember that for me because . . . names . . .  y'know?

The Third Stop

I understand if you have already grown weary of my early morning pics, but I will probably continue for the present time. The landscape isn't grand, but is is available, and the sites are close by. Doing something keeps me in practice to some degree, even if it is repetitive. Practice is of some value because I think that I almost forgot how to do some things over the long winter. 

These photos are from the third pull-off site (my first time), all viewing the same farm.

As I point the camera in different directions I get different colours. I was drawn by the reds in this section of cloud, very close to the rising point.

Sometimes, I change lenses to zoom in on certain areas, but all of these photos were taken with my wide angle lens. My telephoto attempts were not good on this morning.

Until the crops grow, there is a lack of foreground for all of these recent photos although I did get a little from one of the stops. I am hesitant to wade into the tall grasses at the sides of the clearings that I access, for the threat of ticks turns me into a coward. Maybe I will venture into the grasses some day but will tuck my pants into my socks if I do summon the courage.

Lacking foreground. I decided to put myself into one photo. 

I  may experiment more with this sort of selfie. What I have to do is set up a shot, put the camera on a 10-second delay, and scurry back into the frame. I am not that nimble and don't scurry all that well, but I think I will try again, for I think there is potential.

The CAF is Back

A pleasant surprise greeted me at the drugmart in the early morn when I was picking up a few items.

CAF is back.

Yes, ladies and germs, I do call it CAF although it is actually caffeine free. Despite what my blog friends may think, I do tend to be a tad parsimonious with my words.

I drink DIET during the day and CAF at night, or at least I used to. Then, around the time that the pandemic began, CAF disappeared from the shelves. Apparently, the disappearance was unrelated to COVID but had something to do with scarcity of aluminum.

Does it sound like I drink a lot of COKE? Well, I don't really. I open 2 DIETS/day and 1 CAF in the evening. I try not to finish any of them, so hopefully, I am not consuming any more than 2 cans in total. 

I have a chronically weird throat, and very cold COKE feels very good on it at the right time. Perhaps you remember the old commercial about ice cold coke on the back of my throat. Well, it works for me.

I do understand that I am weird.

The reappearance of CAF came just after I had discovered that there is now a sugar-free COKE ZERO. I had purchased one carton and was about to purchase another when I saw that CAF was available.

So, what did I do in its absence for a drink in the evenings over the past year? After some trial and error with root beer, sprite and 7-Up, I settled on ginger ale. It was okay, but I don't prefer diet ginger ale, and I'd rather not consume those calories at night, so it is good to have CAF back.

When I started blogging 17 years ago, I never would have dreamed that I would write a post like this. Although just about any topic can be blogged, that doesn't mean that one should. But I do anyway.

😆😇😈😎

A Brief Garden Tour

On a rather dull day, I went looking for irises and peonies to photograph. In the garden by the museum, I found irises that were beyond their best by date, so I refrained. The peonies were a little better.

No flowers in the next photo, but I liked the green on greens in this patch.

I liked how the bench ↓↓ was framed. I really reduced contrast on this for effect. This is referred to as a matte look or finish. I think I like it, but I am waffling a bit.

I moved onto a rural road not far out of town where the owners have a herbaceous border along the fence by the road. I had heard that lupines were in season, a flower that is a bit unusual for this area. The gardener, or her husband rather, told me that they had taken seeds from Prince Edward Island where lupines grow in profusion. I think this is my favourite photo from my little outing.

But I like the next one too. I don't know what the flower is called. It looks like cosmos in the photo, but the blooms seemed much smaller that the cosmos that I am used to. The horizontal lines in the background are part of a split rail fence.

I also applied a matte finish to this ↑↑ one. As a photo, I may like it better than the lupines. I am torn. I like the lupines because they are a bit exotic hereabouts, but I also like this image for its understated look.