Art in the Park and Silver Lake

 It was the return (after a covid hiatus) of Art in the Park to Port Dover, and Jim, at the Woodhouse Gallery, had asked if any of his artists would be interested in demonstrating during the weekend.

I was set up at the front of the gallery, working on my Long Point Fall piece and in front of my Tree Spirit.

In the tent outside, Neil was doing a water colour painting of the Port Dover pier.

There was lots of traffic, questions and interest. I hooked for a couple of hours with a break in the middle to do some shopping myself in the park.

One of my purchases was a Dogs Nest t-shirt.

Dogs Nest, possibly named after the hotel sign that depicted a dog and puppies, is just up the road from me. It used to have a sign, "Dogs Nest, est 1851" but it was stolen so often that the MTO decided not to replace it. The local community is fundraising to erect a heavy, un-stealable, sign where Mill Rd crosses Hwy 6, just east of Port Dover.

Thunderstorms were in the forecast for Sunday but they occurred overnight and, although grey, it was again in full swing the next day when Rick and I drove by on our way for a walk at Silver Lake.

I am having difficulty finding a place to buy bulk, native, wildflower seeds (without having to spend $1000.00 - St Williams Nursery!) so now carry a plastic bag with me when going for a walk. This garden by the market will be a source for seeds in about a month.

We were out for a leisurely walk, rather than our usual energetic one, and both had our cameras with us.

There has been an effort made to eradicate the Phragmites that had invaded Silver Lake and were choking out the native species of reeds. This has resulted in far more open water and more water foul. Mallards of course

and I think this is a Redhead but I'm not sure.

A Kingfisher actually sat for long enough for us to get pictures

even showed us his crest before a loud croak and swooping off to fish.

So many Great Blue Herons....

.....

......

Some of them

were pretty adamant

that there were too many

and there were some noisy altercations regarding fishing rights. (Photo by Rick)

Standing quietly, scanning the water, marshes and reed beds we would see movement that we wouldn't have noticed had we been striding by. Hard to see him through the reeds

but he flew to another spot and with the photo uploaded to the computer we could tell he was a Green Heron.

And another one.

"Ooh whats that one, in front of the Canada Geese"

Lots of clicking of shutters until we realized that it was just a Cormorant.

What do you mean just!

But standing there we found another

Green Heron.

While on the topic of birds..... I decided to put the dots on the front window to prevent the birds from the feeder flying in to it. I bought the tape roll in March and kept it in the garage so wondered if that was why it was difficult to get the dots to stick on. They kept coming off with the tape as I peeled that off.

I called their customer service and left a message, not really expecting that I would get a response, but I was pleasantly surprised. The woman who called me back said that the glue and the technique I was using should work and wondered if it was the temperature changes in the garage. Bottom line ... she offered to send me another roll, free of charge.

They show up as black dots in the photo taken from inside but you don't really notice them. That one window took me 2 hours so I will wait for the new roll to do the other 2.

Anyone want some garlic? I dug up one clump, growing wild on the bank, and now I have to figure out how to preserve it.