Catch up on photos

I just click away with my camera and often there is no real "story" attached, just something I wanted to take a shot of. This post is just a collection of those.

All the activity next door, related to the work on the sea wall and the bank, has stopped. This guy emerged. Boy is he going to be surprised when that cottage gets demolished.

 

My massage therapist has chickens. I love that the eggs I get from her are all different sizes and colours.

I haven't yet figured out how to get a good night shot but at least in this one you can see the moon reflecting on the lake.

Marketing works - I went to buy a white wine for Nic when she was visiting and came home with this, not the sauvignon blanc she requested, just because I liked the label and that they donate some of the profit to the Bruce Trail.

The pitted sour cherry buckets were available and the blueberries ready so I had a day of picking and freezing.

A while ago I posted a photo of the sunflower that is growing in the front bed, uninvited. This was taken a week after that one.

One day of rain and one day of sun and it emerged.

I am assuming that it is a refugee from the bird feeders.

A Lily after that rain.

Part of the work on the bank was a wall up close to "the edge" and this has resulted in another area that I get to plant. The path was free cement slabs from a facebook ad. I have always wanted a rock garden and that seems to be what I am developing here. All drought and sun tolerant plants.

I finally got the Tree Spirit mounted on a piece of  stained live edge White Cedar (quite light in weight).

He is now in The Woodhouse Gallery in Port Dover awaiting his new home.

Short vacation in Guelph

 Kevin and Broghan were vacationing in Europe and so Rick and I stayed at their place in Guelph for a couple of days. Did a little exploring, ate out and catsat Davey and Cal.

The first day we drove up to Elora

and walked

some trails

beside the gorge.

Then towards the village.

The Tooth in the centre of the falls.

I loved the reflections of the falls in the windows of the Elora Mill Hotel dining room. From here we watched a mink swim across the pool below the falls and run into one of the drainage holes for the hydro generating plant.

Tree of Life, artist Paul Morin. We popped into some of the touristy stores but I really wasn't in to it.

Still tired in the afternoon, I was dragging.

Rick suggested I sit in this garden and he would go and get the car

But I slowly made my way back.

Photo for Nic, the fungi lover.

We walked a couple of blocks to the Woolly Pub for supper. One of the nice things about being in the city is the proximity to restaurants. Not so nice was the traffic noise when we slept with the window open.

The next morning we walked in the other direction, past a row of typical Guelph, old, stone houses

to buy our breakfast at With the Grain. A great bakery and it was difficult making the choice of 2 scones (one lemon, one mixed fruit) which we split and shared.

Then it was off to the Arboretum on Guelph University campus.

There were

some formal gardens

This, in the English Garden was the sun garden in yellows and creams.

The sky garden had blues and purples.

But the focus is not on flowers

but on trees,

most of them labelled.

In spite of my impeccable sense of direction

and various maps (one in a brochure, one downloaded onto Ricks phone and others on boards scattered through the property)

we managed to get totally lost

and inadvertently, thoroughly explored

only one small corner of the property.

That evening we had Nicola's birthday dinner at Lucky Belly and the next day drove home, via Northland nursery, as I have a new flower bed to fill (pictures of that later).

PDYC Sailing School - Adult Keelboat Course

 I have started volunteering with the Sailing School, specifically helping with the Adult Keelboat Course. Mostly this involves helping with the registration, some minor work on the boat and monthly committee meetings.

Last weekend it involved taking pictures of the boats for the website.

We set off from the yacht club on Shaibu. Hadley, who owns Shaibu, Earl Hartlen, a local photographer and journalist and myself.

Past the variety of watercraft moored along the river.

Under the lift bridge

and out into the basin to plan a few shots and wait for the boats involved in that weekend's course to make their way down the river.

Hadley was specifically looking for photos in front of this building.

I preferred pictures that included the lighthouse.

It was a perfect day, blue sky and a north wind (so few waves).

The photos were for advertising purposes so it was important to get pictures with the sailing school banner in them.

Once out of the harbor we got pictures of the students getting the sails up

and then under sail.

Eight students for this, 2 weekend, course, on 2 boats, with 2 instructors.

Genesis II is owned by the sailing school

and Belafonte is owned by one of the instructors.

In total I took nearly 300 photos and whittled it down to about 20 that I will put on a flashdrive for Hadley to use on the website if he sees fit. He will also be getting the photos that Earl took (with a much better camera and much higher skill level)

Coming back in, I quickly flicked the camera on to "sports" setting to get some gulls in flight

and "high dynamic" to deal with deep shadows.

Then I went home and did some playing

with the "macro" setting.

Talking with a professional photographer

Had made me want to get to know my camera better, rather than just using "Automatic" all the time.

My favorite, a Sunflower bud.