Tiptoeing Around The Tulips...

Thursday, 17 May, 2012 - I would have gone 'Tiptoeing Through The Tulips' (for those who remember that old Tiny Tim song) but would have gotten into serious trouble had I actually done that, so had to settle instead for tiptoeing around them. Yesterday, Sandra and I had to be in Ottawa for our annual medical checkups and on our way out of the city we took several minutes to check out the few remaining tulips for this year's Canadian Tulip Festival. Due to the early spring we had this year, the vast majority of the 300,000 tulips in the flower beds at Commissioners Park (only one of the festival locations in the city but my favorite) were either long gone or nearly gone, but enough were still left that I did find some photos waiting for me. Unfortunately, I only had my little pocket camera with me. Since it was supposed to have been a cloudy rainy day, I didn't take any other cameras (plus stopping at the tulips was an unplanned last minute decision), so I was limited in the shots I could take, although the little camera did an admirable job within its limitations. It's a good thing I didn't wait any longer to see the tulips though, because I doubt if any of them survive to the end of the festival, which takes place on Monday. That is Canada's Victoria Day holiday, which makes this the Victoria Day long weekend and the start of Canada's summer activities, like the Rideau Canal opening for boating for instance.
    However, the big news since my last report is that Danica has been accepted to the School of Medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. She's also on waiting lists at two other universities, but if nothing else it looks like she's going to medical school somewhere this year and in a few more years she'll be known as Dr Dan.
    Which brings me to my recent trip to our local hospital's emergency room. I've been having some deterioration with the vision in my left eye but when that suddenly turned into dark clouds floating around in it, I didn't know what had happened, hence going to the hospital. My fear was that one of the little blood vessels had ruptured, but it turned out to be Posterior Vitreous Detachment, a condition that is apparently quite common as one ages. Happily it's more annoying than serious and should fade over time. Just one more thing a geriatric has to live with.
    Also newsworthy is that one of the Ottawa affiliates of CTV, a major Canadian TV network, broadcasted their morning show from beside the town hall here in Smiths Falls on Tuesday this week. I, of course, had to drive over there to check it out. It was quite an event and gave the town some invaluable PR coverage and there wasn't much about the town they didn't cover over the course of the morning. I never watch these shows, but having one so close to home was interesting. I took a few shots. Click here and here for a couple of them.
    For the rest of my latest photos, click here.

Finally Got Buffaloed...

Sunday, 29 April, 2012 - Yesterday, being on the chilly side but otherwise sunny and beautiful, Sandra and I went for a drive into the Canadian Shield in an effort to find some Spring Green color to photograph. Spring Green is what I call the soft, subtle, and varied greens you see when leaves are just starting to come out.
    Sadly, it's still a bit too early to have seen much green, although a few trees did have some color, but what we did see were bison! This isn't as strange as it might seem, because there's a bison farm (the Battle River Bison Co,) five miles north of nearby Perth, Ontario along Highway 7. We've seen bison out by the road there a few times over the years, but either didn't have the time or the right camera so we never got any photos of them. That changed yesterday as there was quite a herd of them near the road. We got a few shots, like the one above, but as soon as we had gotten into position they started moving away. The important thing though is I see on their website that visitors are welcome, so I plan to drop in some day soon and take some up close photos.
    Another reason for yesterday's drive was to get more familiar with my new camera. Yes, I bought yet another camera. I expect you're thinking, is there no end to this? Apparently not. Wednesday we had to make the drive to Ottawa to sign our income tax papers and while there I stopped in at Henry's Camera to ask some questions about the Canon Powershot S100 and ended up buying one.
    This is a pocket camera, not unlike the Fujifilm F550 EXR I bought last summer, and like the F550 was intended for, is to be taken with me when I don't feel like taking the big cameras so I always have a camera with me. The biggest difference between the S100 and F550 is the S100 has less zoom range (24 to 120mm compared to the F550's 24 to 360mm) but has better image quality, a faster lens (important for low light situations), less image noise (grain), and most importantly doesn't have the ugly flaring around extremely bright lights that is characteristic of the F550 which is the main reason I've never been completely happy with it. So far I'm pleased with the S100. It is a very solidly built camera and definitely designed for avid photographers. I wish it had more zoom but everything in these little cameras is a tradeoff. At least now I can take sunrise, sunset, and night photos if I don't have one of the DSLRs with me.
    Otherwise, the most interesting thing to happen since my last report is an Osprey couple has made a nest atop a light pole at one of Lower Reach Park's soccer fields which is just across the Rideau Canal from us, so I'm hoping to get a series of osprey photos while they are there to raise a family. I've already gotten a few, like the one here.
    For the rest of my latest photos, click here.

Last Gasp Of Winter...

Monday, 23 April, 2012 - At least, I hope it's winter's last gasp. Pictured on the right is what I woke up to this morning. That is the street beside the house and the snow is coming from a large nor'easter currently moving up the US east coast and the northwest quadrant of the storm is even reaching us so we don't miss out on the fun.
    Hard to believe that three days ago I was spraying dandelions and mowing the yard. Although we needed the moisture, I'd have been just as happy for this snow to have been rain, but it did give me the opportunity to go out at daybreak and takes some unexpected photos of driving snow which presented the challenge of keeping the camera lens clear and dry. I shouldn't have been surprised by the snow however, because I recently had the snow tires on the car replaced with the summer tires and had put the snow shovels and snow blower away. Fortunately, the snow quickly melted off the driveway.
    Today, also happens to be my son Ian's 37th birthday, so Happy Birthday, dude. I remember when my parents were 37 and I thought they were old as dirt. Now my son is that age and 67 isn't looking all that old to me.
    For my latest photos, click here.

Happy Easter Weekend

Friday, 6 April, 2012 - Happy Easter to all. Today is Good Friday, usually the first day of an Easter weekend, but our Easter weekend started yesterday when we drove to Ottawa to feast on the Easter banquet Margie and John invited us to participate in at their house.
    Normally, Betty would also have been there, but this year she and Garth got back from their winter stay in Florida only the night before, and quite late at that, so she understandably wasn't interested in turning right around and making the trip to Ottawa, although she did call on the phone and talked with all of us.
    We had left early for Ottawa because my optometrist had a new pair of glasses waiting for me. These are for distance. I have a pair for computer viewing and reading and for several years had been using a pair of progressive bifocals for distance, primarily used while driving, but like an idiot I lost them last summer and have been getting along without them since then. I can see well enough without glasses that I'm not required to wear them while driving, but I find small signs difficult to read, especially at night, so I finally broke down and got the new glasses, although not bifocal this time since I didn't really care for them that much.
    Another reason for seeing the optometrist this year was to check on my macular degeneration and cataracts (both still early stage) and as I expected, there has been some further degeneration in my left eye since my last visit to the eye doctor, which I think was three years ago, but I still see normally with that eye the vast majority of the time.
    Anyway, from the optometrist we went to Margie and John's and got caught up on all their latest news before Nick and family arrived and from there Jack became the center of attention. Pictured above (L-R) is Becky, Jack, and Nick, a photo taken under ambient light with my little Fujifilm F550 EXR pocket superzoom camera that I bought a year ago and is still the only camera in its class that offers files in RAW format.
    For Sandra's Easter message and account of our trip to Ottawa yesterday, click here.
    For my latest photos, click here.

Max Wolford Arrives

Sunday, 25 March, 2012 - On Friday, March 23, our ninth grandchild, a boy named Max Rylee Kelly Wolford, was born to Tracy and Ian. Max is their sixth child, joining his two brothers and three sisters. Quite a houseful.
    Weighing in at 9 lbs 7 oz (4.3 kg) and 20 inches (51 cm) long, Max was born at 2:16 PM at Good Samaritan Hospital in Dayton, Ohio, and has all the usual parts in all the right places and with none extra. Mother and father also survived the birth.
    I particularly like this photo of Max because it reminds me of when my daughter Michelle (Max's aunt) was a baby and she also sucked her middle two fingers instead of a thumb.
    And this is it for grandchildren, Max'd out (so to speak) at nine. Neither Ian with his six kids nor Michelle with her three kids will be having any more.
    The only other thing of note since my last report is I went out in the wee hours a couple of nights ago, set up the camera on the tripod (something I don't do very often), and took some relatively long exposures of moving water. The shot seen here was a 2 minute exposure. I got rather interested in this kind of photography when I was trying to photograph an aurora earlier in the month. These shots are more interesting when you have some clouds (like here), but moving water also works.
    For my latest photos, click here.

Spring Has Sprung...

Wednesday, 21 March, 2012 - ...but it's masquerading as summer. Spring officially arrived yesterday, which was the spring equinox, but for the week so far our weather has been more like summer than spring and is supposed to continue that way through tomorrow at least. While the jet stream out west has been dipping as far south as southern California, pulling cold Canadian air with it, the jet stream over eastern North America has been arcing northward over Hudson Bay, which is pulling the very warm air up here from the southern US. We haven't just broken high temperature records this week, we've shattered them with daytime reaching 75°F/24°C, which would be typical for summer up here. The previous high temperature record on one day in particular had been 61°F/16°C. Today it's supposed to hit 81°F/25°C, while temperatures at this time of year up here have average highs of 39°F/4°C.
    Anyway, yesterday we drove to Ottawa to run some errands, like drop off paperwork for income tax preparation. While in the city we stopped by a few of the birding locations along the Ottawa River where I got the photo above of a bufflehead duck caught in the act of diving to forage on the river bottom.
    For my latest photos, click here.

A Draining Experience

Wednesday, 14 March, 2012 - One of the major problems we discovered with the house not long after we moved in was its sewer line to the street had a tendency to back up every few months. The first time it happened was traumatizing because it was totally unexpected.
    Fortunately, it only filled the basement toilet and sink with sewage but didn't overflow into the basement itself. Also fortunately, our handyman was able to clear out the line with his heavy duty sewer snake.
    Unfortunately, it backed up again a few months later, but by then we would check after each flush upstairs and then flush downstairs too so if the sewer line again became clogged, the basement toilet would fill with clear water rather than sewage.
    It, of course, happened again, so that time I bought my own little sewer snake and that worked twice, but not the third or fourth times, so we had no choice but to have our handyman repair the sewer line, which he was able to do last Friday from the basement, at least as far out as the driveway, and so far it is working, but we won't know for sure until it's worked without problems for months, so fingers crossed.
    And while he was doing that, he also replumbed and rewired the laundry room. Whoever had worked on those things before had been totally clueless.
    The only thing we've done for fun since my last report was to go for a drive to Mississippi Lake last Sunday. The lake, a wide area along the Canadian Mississippi River, is west of Carleton Place and I saw a road on the map going to the lake that looked interesting and one we had not traveled before, so that's what we did and I got the photo above along it. As is so typical for lakes around here, they are so lined with cottages and trees, there is rarely a clear shot of the water. This was the best we saw.
    For my latest photos, click here.

At Last, I See The Light(s)...Sort Of

Wednesday, 7 March, 2012 - Northern lights, that is. As usual, I woke up this morning in the wee hours, couldn't get back to sleep, so got up.
    First thing I did was check the aurora forecast website because before going to bed it looked possible an aurora might develop and indeed, by the time I got up the forecast looked very promising.
    However, it has looked like that before and I saw nothing, but being forever the optimist I grabbed the camera this morning anyway and took off around 3am, drove the 8 miles (13 km) over to a location that has a clear view of the northern sky and once again was disappointed. Although the sky had looked clear when I left the house, when I got to where I had an unobstructed view of the northern horizon it was obscured by a low bank of clouds that was aglow from the city lights of Ottawa 40 miles (65 km) away.
    Figuring the forecast had suckered me out yet one more time, I started to drive away then thought the bank of clouds being lit up like that might make an interesting photo, especially since a full moon was out and lighting up the landscape, so I set up the camera and tripod, took a variety of shots until I got tired of the cold and returned home.
    There, back at my computer, it wasn't until I opened the photos and brigthened things up that I saw there had indeed been an aurora. As you can see in the photo above, the aurora was mostly obscured by the cloud bank, but still shows above it enough to recognize what it is. To the naked eye it had simply looked like a faint colorless glow much like what shows on the horizon on any clear night. I will have to start paying more attention to this. Tonight another even stronger aurora is in the forecast, but clouds are supposed to move in and might ruin it. We shall see.
    For my latest photos, click here.

March Came In Like A Lion

Friday, 2 March, 2012 - Yesterday, after a surprisingly mild February, March came in like a lion because we had a snowstorm that dropped around 5 to 6 inches (13 to 15 cm) of snow on us and tomorrow there are wind warnings, with gusts of up to 55 mph (90 kph) predicted. I was glad to see the snow because winter looks so bleak and ugly without it and a recent warm spell had melted off most of the snow we'd had, but I could do without high wind.
    Anyway, today I went out to take a few more snow photos while we still have snow to photograph and while standing near some boathouses by the Swale, a scenic area of wetlands along the Rideau Canal here in town, I was surprised to hear swans trumpeting and it sounded like they were approaching in flight. At first, I couldn't spot them, white against the bright gray sky (as seen here), then they flew past (photo above), continuing their trumpeting and circling over the Swale. In all, I counted five swans, the most I've ever seen at one time and only the second time I can remember seeing any in flight. It was quite an event for someone that learned to love birds while RVing in their migration flyways during our winters spent in the southern US, but sadly I seldom see any interesting birds in this area of Ontario, especially during winter when about the only obvious birds we see are crows, pigeons, and starlings, so these swans were quite a treat for me.
    And, since my last report, I reached a milestone on February 22 when the number of page views of the photos in my PBase galleries passed 20,000,000. I find that amazing. To view my latest photos, click here.

Over The Hump

Saturday, 11 February, 2012 - A couple weeks ago, give or take a few days, we passed the typical peak of winter's coldest weather (a.k.a. The Dead of Winter), so in theory we're over the winter hump and slip-sliding toward spring. That's not to say winter is over by any stretch of the imagination – often February is the coldest month (although unlikely to be the case this year if the long range forecast is to be believed) and March the snowiest, but at least winter won't be as long as it has been.
    And as winters go up here, this one has been mild. Actually, it's been a roller coaster weatherwise. We'll have a bitter cold day or two and then things warm up again. Generally those warmer days are a few degrees above or below freezing, so while we've had a fair bit of snow, we've also had a fair bit of melting, rain and freezing rain. It's been a real mixed bag of a winter so far.
    As for news since my last report, there isn't much. The most exciting thing we did was to go for a drive last Sunday into the Canadian Shield to see a back road that looked interesting on the map, Iron Mine Road near Playfairville, a road we hadn't traveled before and it proved to be scenic. The photo above was taken along it. There aren't many barns in the Shield because the terrain is too rocky and hilly for much farming, but when you do find a barn, that terrain makes the scene much more interesting than barns on flat farmland.
    For my latest photos, click here.


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Updated Friday, May 18, 2012

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