Goslings and Haberdashery

As foretold by the prophets of old, our anniversary was a banal affair and not really an affair at all by any rational measure.

For whatever reason, we were both dragging, me after my very early morning and iPhotographing the deer. I do plan to begin to get up earlier and drag myself out with the camera, at least sometimes. Recently, I have been sleeping in until 5 or later, but that is when the sun gets up. Ideally, I should be in place before sunrise, so my plan is to arise closer to 4AM. But this post isn't about that; I just got a bit diverted and may post more about that on another occasion.

So . . . as I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself, we were both feeling lethargic. However, by late afternoon, Sue decided that we should go check out the pond, for we had heard that there were goslings. I was agreeable but only to drive over and do our walking once there. I wanted to use my long lens but was not disposed to walking it over there  The pond has been disappointing this year, but sure enough we did find goslings after I roused my sadsack self enough to drive over. .

We sat on our usual bench and took our usual selfie, except I didn't quite get my hand out of the way.

I was dressed in the finest haberdashery: red shorts, orange shoes, and red tartan cap.

Sue noticed some clashing in my ensemble, but as I have written before, I am in my don't give a fig stage of life. Mind you, I do always consider what my beloved has to say about each and every thing that she has something to say about.

We walked along the trail until we came to one of those little bridges. Not wanting to be close to anyone, we turned back. That's when we came across this young robin who seemed to be wondering what it is supposed to be doing in this life. It was just sitting in the water at the edge of the river, seemingly clueless about what to do next, such as beat a hasty retreat from two-legged creatures.

I squeezed off a bunch of photos but didn't know until I got home that the bird actually splashed its wings in one. This pleased me.

And yes, there were goslings  and more than one family. You will see in the final photo that the goslings in the background are bigger than the ones in the foreground.

Oh, I almost forgot. We did have anniversary fudge and pizza.

The pizza was Hawaiian with ham and pineapple, plus double cheese. When my stomach doesn't feel up to our most preferred toppings — mushrooms, pepperoni, and bacon — this is what we order, and it is almost as good. By the way, the mushroom, pepperoni, and bacon pizza is called The Canadian. But I suspect it isn't called that elsewhere. Is it called The American down south or The Britannia over the pond, perchance?

 

Looking at the Deer Looking at Me

It's blossom time, actually getting late in the season already, so I headed to St James Park where I knew there were beautiful trees. I had photographed them two springs past, mostly with St James Church in the background. I liked them and wondered if I could do better or even as well this year and if they would be any different.

It turns out that I needn't have wondered at all because the street was torn up along with piles of rock, fences and a porta potty.

Needless to say, I didn't linger, but I repeat, below, a few photos from two years ago.

I am definitely in a photographic funk. There seems to be little locally that I haven't done before. Oh, I know that every day is different, but I am still anything but inspired.

I drove to another secluded spot where there lie the foundations of an old house. My idea was to check out whether there might be any possibilities of sunrise photos, streaming through gaps where windows used to be. Alas the area is woodsy, and the biter were out in full vigour, so I retreated.

But while I was in the parking lot. three deer ambled by, a mother with two young ones. They weren't that young, almost as big as Mom.

Mom stopped and looked and looked at me. I looked back at her in appreciation. We did this for a few minutes. My camera was in the back seat, but I didn't want to spoil the moment by trying to grab it and having the deer run off.

I did have my phone, however.

I wonder if they are regular visitors at a regular time? Probably not. So I don't imagine that I will return, but this was at 8AM, so we shall see.

Another Pandemic Anniversary

Today we celebrate our 52nd anniversary in a very low key manner. We are not doing gifts or even cards this year, but we will order our standard issue pizza, a tradition that began in a motel in Stratford all of those years ago. It is supposed to be a nice day, so perhaps, we will go for a drive or a sit in the park. There is another tradition from our wedding day — fudge. If we can find some on a Monday, we will.

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We are not celebrating Ontario's extending the stay-at-home order to June 02. Originally, the end date would have been this Thursday, May 20. But while the new case rate is falling, it still can't seem to get below 2000/day. While it is much better than the 4000/day rate which we exceeded for ~6 days not so very long ago, it is still not enough.

The aim is to get the rate down to under 1000/day for several consecutive days before we ease off on the restrictions.

It is hoped that the vaccines will have reached 70% of adults by June 02. We should make it or close to it because we are over 50% already, and vaccines are arriving more reliably and plentifully these days. The key is to reduce the cases in the hotspot regions, which are mostly in and near Toronto. We are not doing badly here in Eastern Ontario — in relative terms, of course.

The province, and the country for that matter, is now getting the vaccine into arms at a good rate. Without our own factories, it took Canada a little longer to get going than the USA and the UK, but the progress is steady now. We are presently exceeding the daily jab rate in the US although, to be fair, many more Americas have already been jabbed, and many of those with both doses.

While we will have to wait a little longer for family time for this particular lockdown to be rescinded, we do want it to be truly over and not have to endure another. So, if it takes a few extra weeks, let get 'er done!

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Speaking of the pandemic, I have been remembering the Silly Walk that Sue and I videoed early in the pandemic last year. I reprise it here because I have some new readers since last year. Somehow, it seems appropriate to repost this on our anniversary.

It isn't very long, and I remind you that you can see it in greater fullness and glory by watching it on YT.

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Addendum: Sue thought I should link to the original Silly Walk post from last year, which had a silly walk sign and a Women's Physicians Choir from Toronto  singing Rise Again: https://anvilcloud.blogspot.com/2020/04/signs-and-silly-walking.html

Eighteen Dollar Fries

Some days just don't go right.

Thursday was the day of my trillium photoshoot: the shoot that didn't produce great results (previous post).

Later, because as it was a nice day after a long run of not-so-nice days, we thought to take a drive. We decided that we might as well go as far as Arnprior and indulge in those Wes' Chips.

But wait a minute! About a quarter of the way there, the car developed what I can only describe as a loud whistle — a very loud whistle. That doesn't seem to be the right word to describe the noise, but I can't seem to find a better word.

After bearing with the screeching (still not the right word) for a few minutes we pulled off onto the side road, got out, walked around the car, and saw nothing amiss.

To be on the safe side, we decided that we should turn back toward home.

But there no noise on the first leg of the return trip.

Still, rather than resuming the journey, we stopped at a chip truck in a town on the way home and ordered their fries. I felt confident in ordering large because there seems to be a consistent size with whatever truck we visit. While I find that large is often a bit too large, we hadn't had lunch yet, so I though we should go big. 

I ordered but was gobsmacked when I was asked to fork over eighteen dollars.

What the heck! Something wasn't right, but I had ordered them, so I dug out a twenty.

They were freaking huge, probably twice the size of large at most chip trucks. In fact, they would be closer to family size everywhere else.

We took them to the park and had a pleasant view on a pleasant day on the bank of OUR Mississippi River.

We consumed what we could and then took a big container of leftovers home. Sue, being a waste not, want not kind of gal brought home a bucketful to perhaps reheat later.

I am not sure that we will do that, however, because they were pretty greasy and felt leaden in our stomachs.

So that was my day — mediocre photoshoot, car noises, and expensive and greasy chips.

Ah well, I now have a memory and fodder for a blog post.

Trillium Time

Our provincial flower, the trillium, is in bloom. They come and go quickly, so I decided to head out very early one morning with the camera. Alas, it was too early, and I didn't get much light on the flowers. But it is okay; it was something to do, and I have pretty good photos from photoshoots in other years.

On a drive on the previous day, I had spotted a patch on a rural road, so that is where I headed on the following morning. This road is not far out of town, but as it was unpaved with forest up to the edge, it could almost have been a hundred miles into the hinterland. I took the photo of the car and road just before I left. As you can see, the sun was rising well by then, so I could have stayed longer to perhaps get better photos. But I hadn't had coffee or breakfast yet, so I packed my gear and headed home.

I didn't feel up to getting down and low with my macro lens, so I put on my longest lens, stood back, peered into the edge of the bush, and took what I could from the roadside.

Aside from the one photo ↑, I shot mainly for context ↓ rather than flower detail. Trilliums grow in somewhat woodsy patches by the sides of roads, and their immediate surroundings are not always exactly pretty. Well, I suppose they don't have to be by roadsides, but that is where I see them. 

And that is probably it for me and trilliums for this year: not the best this time around, but it was nice to get out and photograph the lil darlins anyway. It was pleasant to be out. The sun and temperatures were rising, birds were calling, and the biters weren't biting after the cold night when the temperature dropped close to freezing. 

Unforgotten

Aside from dandelions, we have another flowering weed in the garden — common or Wild violets (Viola odorata)

Back when I built a little garden around the silk lilac tree out front and ringed it with rocks, in my ignorance, of which I have much,  I decided to leave a few volunteer violet plants. I am not so sure that this was the right decision because once you have them you really do have them.

They are now ubiquitous amongst the rocks, but at least they pretty much confine themselves to one side of the garden and to the rock border. Also, that side happens to be on the neighbour's half of our narrow, shared lawn. Still, it rather comes down to us to maintain.

This is what they look like just in case you wanted to know.

The flowers are much smaller than they appear in the photo.
This is also true of the forget-me-nots, below.

Actually, violets aren't so bad as long as they stay out of the cultivated garden, which so far, they have been mostly willing to do.

But right now I am more interested in the ephemeral myosotis (forget-me-nots).

They don't flower long, but every year  when they are done, I scatter the seeds randomly across both the back and front yards. They do grow like weeds in the sense that they require no care and grow happily in the mulch on top of the weed barrier. They don't seem to require soil.

To briefly recount, because I write it every year, these are descendants of forget-me-nots that my dad planted at our now geographically distant, former home, four decades ago. Yay Dad!

 

While I generally tend to process myosotis a bit darkly as in the first photo, I find that I also like the brighter look in the second photo.

We have a ton of myosotis out back as well, so I may take a few more macros before they leave us for the year if I can find a nice hour or two, for it has not exactly been a mild month so far. All of my flower photos be they tulips, violets or forget-me-nots have been squeezed in during brief breaks in the rain, wind and gloom that has recently prevailed.

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On a later day, we (mostly Sue) were doing some work in the garden. I thought I would take a quick phone photo for context with regard to the rocks and violets. This was taken before the first mowing of the season and before Sue pulled most of the dandelions. To repeat: this is the neighbour's half.

While I was at it, I made a little gif of the tulips blowing in the wind.

Just Dandy

Three days after the weather gave me a modicum of temporary sunlight to photograph the tulips (two posts ago), it cleared up briefly, once again . In point of fact, I think it became too sunny for optimal flower photos, but nevertheless, I went out to the garden with my macro lens.

There were dandelions, violets and forget-me-nots in bloom. While the first two are not normally desired in a garden, they nevertheless, can be a subject of photographic interest.

This post will concentrate on the dandelions, of which we had an abundance.

I disappoint myself when I can't be bothered to use my tripod, but I had to get my stiff body so low for these, that I felt that the tripod could have been more cumbersome than helpful.

The first photo ↑ has the purple violets softly in the background. It was almost a trial photo, but I like the effect of the violets. The next image ↓ has another dandelion, faintly behind but still adding a wee bit of interest. It is also well placed to form a triangle with the two foreground blooms.

The next photo is of the same two dandies but from a slightly  different angle and cropped differently and with a little light flare added in post for fun.

Finally, we have a photo of a single flower but with others in the background. I was down very low for this low key (ie darker) image. I can't always make up my mind whether I prefer low key or high key.

When I look at them full screen (which you can't do here although you can make them larger if you click on one) I think the second image is the strongest. Maybe it is the crop, since it just about fills the monitor perfectly. However, there is no real need to compare. I just enjoy the process and editing each photo as my muse takes me.