The Stage is the Thing

With that nod to Hamlet in the title, I would like to show you a few stage photos from our Celtfest weekend.

First, if I may say so, the weather was problematic. I missed the first act or even act-and-a-half on Friday due to rain, and when I got there, it was muddy in spots, including in front of the stage. Perhaps for that reason, I took more photos of the stage and fewer close-ups of the performers this weekend. The mud remained for the duration of the weekend, and so did intervals of rain.

The band that night was De Temps Antan, a French Canadian band from nearby Quebec. They featured a topnotch fiddler, Andre Brunet.

Friday night brought more rain, which helped to ensure the prolongation of the quagmire on Saturday. I don't bother with daytime photos much anymore, but this is what the stage looked like during Searson's set. Searson is a band featuring two sisters from nearby Eganville.

The last group of the evening was Ecosse, an older group. They were fine but not lively enough for the closing set. They should have been the penultimate group and Searson should have been the ultimate band.

On Sunday, knowing there would be no significant stage lights, I didn't even take my camera. I know that seems odd, but I decided not to tempt myself to take photos which would only disappoint me. As it turned out, the skies opened, and we were soon moved to beat a somewhat hasty retreat to the dryness of home.

Fifteen Paltry Bucks

Sue recently read a post, Nobody Wants Your Stuff. The gist was that we collect and save certain artifacts because they mean something to us, or they seem too valuable to toss, or they meant so much to someone else that we can't bear to discard them. Therefore, we should take pity on our children and deal with these treasures in our own lifetimes.

Not long after Sue pointed this out to me, the truth of the thesis was made very clear.

You see, in her later years, when she could afford to do such a thing, my mother collected a very pretty set of china: Blossom Time. Of course, she paid a pretty pence.

She added to the set piece by piece until it was complete: tea pot, serving dishes, the works.

It is quite a lovely set, and we have maybe used them a handful of times, or maybe handful is actually overstating it because they sure haven't been used very often.

After I was advised of the notion that nobody wants your stuff, I saw a Blossom Time set being advertised on Facebook for 15 bucks. That's right, 15 bucks for the whole set. Fifteen bucks for the set for which my mother paid hundreds of dollars. To be fair, I don't know if it really was a 100% complete set, but still — 15 bucks — for the set. Not just for a dish but the set. Fifteen paltry bucks.

It's true, nobody wants your stuff; it has no value.

But we might as well hang onto it anyway because ... well you know.

And then there's our own set of barely used serving ware. Good luck with that, dear daughters.

I found this site which explains that the set was designed to tie-in with the Apple Blossom Festival in Cornwallis. It was produced from 1933 to 2001, 2 years before Mom passed away.

Disndat

Just some dumb stuff to share because ... because I have no idea why.

We just had 18 consecutive days of rain. We've never had more.

Facebook wanted to know if I want this message translated from Haitian Creole. I didn't.

I became overwhelmed with requests for donations, so I recently had to give up and trash this pile.

And the pile has already had all envelopes removed, which was two for each request — one incoming and one for my contribution.

Unsolicited cards and many return address labels were also removed prior to shooting.

But I do hang onto pens and notepads.

Clearly, I donate to charities; if I didn't I wouldn't have so many requests, even though there are a few mailing lists that I don't know how I got on. Covenant House?  But the pile overwhelmed me, and I had to start over. Then I got another envelope in the mail right after binning the above. It quickly joined the others.

Obviously, they generate income by sending requests and freebies, even if many of them get trashed. But I wish there was another less wasteful way.

Happy 1st and 4th

It's kind of neat that our two days, Canada Day and Independence Day, occur so close together. It rained and thundered and lightninged for much of Canada Day here, so I didn't go out for the fireworks. However, we can see them in the distance from our bedroom window, so I zoomed in and happily snapped away.

For most of these photos, I have composited several bursts into one photo. The last two are single exposures where you can see the roof of a building in the foreground. I have never photographed fireworks before, so I was eager to try, even though shooting from the bedroom did not seem to be quite optimal. However, I am pleased enough with the results.

Of interest to some will be the specs: lens 70-200mm set ~100mm, focused manually at infinity, shutter speed 4" (for most), aperture f11, tungsten white balance, tripod with lens stabilization deactivated. (I would have used a remote shutter release if mine hadn't broken, but it worked well enough pressing the shutter.)

Anyway, Happy Belated Canada Day to some of you and Happy Independence Day to others.

Seen from the Bedroom Window.

We live in a townie; lots are small. The neighbours have a pool: a small pool. They have 5 floaty thingies in the small pool. We think it's kind of funny.

One morning last week Bowen went off the road and into the ditch in the rain. Somehow, he missed poles and fences. We wondered how they would extricate Bowen, but it turned out to be easy peasy as the video will prove.

Bella Update

My monthly Lady 'Bella' Arbuckle update. She's now been with us for three months and continues to live a happy life, or so I think. She gets her food and rest and a little loving.

After living in one room, she can ramble around in our two-story townhouse, not that she does a whole lot, but she does come upstairs from time to time. On this morning, I manged a short video clip; it's not easy for her but nevertheless she persists. I kind of know how she feels.

The clip starts with a few seconds of her in her little bed by the patio and then catches her climbing the stairs before she rests at the top. She never takes too many steps before she fops down. Only about 18 seconds.

Classic Car Parade

Canada Day is here TODAY. It's our 150th anniversary celebration: our sesquicentennial, to use the fancy word. As I am pre-writing this the day before, I am hoping for better weather than what the meteorologists have predicted.  As it stands, the town's grand Celebration Parade had to be cancelled on Thursday evening, after so much planning with all sorts of bands having been invited.

We did have a Classic Car parade on Wednesday night. They have a Cruise Night, every Wednesday evening through the summer, but as part of the this sesqui celebration they added a parade to the usual parking of cars, on this evening, and many more cars than usual showed up.

I positioned myself at the bridge to take pictures of the cars approaching me, shortly after the beginning of the parade. There are many more than what I am showing, but here are a few. Notice how they all carried red and white balloons.

The parade lasted for about 5 minutes, and Sue took a video of the whole thing. I trimmed it to about 1 minute for this post. You will notice that cars are still driving on the other side of the road as they didn't shut the whole road down for a 5 minute parade that wasn't exactly like the usual parade with floats and marching bands and so forth.




They ended up a Market Square where they usually hold Cruise Night, and Sue and I wandered over. There were so many more cars that usual that it took me a 3-shot pano to get them all in one photo, and even then, you can't very well see the far ones.

There was entertainment at the Square: The History Buffs.

The fiddler was in his element, so happy to be there and have his picture taken.

I got very close to the guitar player who gave m a nice smile.

The bass player chose not to engage the camera, which I found odd, especially since she had asked the other photographer to actually email her some photos. I took some anyway, and decided to make this a soft focus photo, and I like the way that it turned out.