Wonder when someone will want to put me into a museum?
I used to ride with my grandfather in a truck like this to visit his brother who had the only TV in the community. Guess I am beginning to think I am getting old but I don't feel that old yet. I still have not decided what I want to do when I grow up.
(We saw this truck in the Museum of Civilization in Ottawa last week.)
Thanks to Eglantine's daughter and son-in-law, we have a scanner. This was the first slide that I tried on the scanner and it worked well. This is a scan of a slide that I took while on an outdoor survival camp in February of 1978 up north of Thunder Bay, Ontario. It was -30 on our camp out night.
Slow shutter speed but high highway speed equals strange figures.
This photo is so old that my beard is still dark. It's been a while since I played in whitewater but the memory is still good.
I put an 1980 date for the photo but I am really not sure. I just remember doing a lot of swimming on that weekend of "canoe" practice.
www.owl-mkc.ca/mkc/
The snow has been very slow to arrive this year. We almost have the ground covered now but there are only flurries in the forecast. I have been watching temperatures from our previous home places in Kansas and northern Ontario. So far this winter it has often been colder in Kansas than either here or in northern Ontario.
Fleur-Ange caught me waiting to be one of over 2000 Santas running in Burlington's Jingle Bell run yesterday. I was pleased to be 2nd of 11 runners in my age group and #788 of 2014 runners that finished. It was a cold wait for the start as we stood for 25 minutes in -7 C temperatures with a wind chill of -13 C. Those Santa suits are OK for running but not for standing around.
With the 47 km winds it felt like - 17 as I took this photo. You can see my thumb turning blue as I held the Cow Vetch flowers still in the wind. Not much blooming today! Only found 15 species compared to almost 50 last week. Lots of wind and cold temperatures here but no real snow yet. The ground has not been fully covered yet where we live.
I attended a quartz crystal bowl and paiste gong concert at the Welkin Wellness Centre in Brantford last night where I usually go for yoga. David Hickey kept the crowd enthralled for over two hours with his skills on the gongs and bowls.
http://www.crystaljourney.ca/david.html
There are several varieties of Redbud trees in the RBG Woodland Garden but the pods on this tree were catching the afternoon light in an interesting way.
I was in the gardens looking for late wild flowers. I visited the rose garden, the woodland garden and the waterfront trail to see what was blooming and found 46 species of flowers in bloom not counting the roses and a few other cultivated flowers whose names I don't know. I like to check the flower beds to see what weeds have come up to bloom after the summer staff left for school etc.
I looked across the Hamilton Harbour just as Defasco put up a lot of smoke and steam at the steel mill.
I am still annoyed with myself for not doing the tour in the days when they were still doing them. Too many safety regulations these days to allow the public in. (I expect gyms to be closed soon for the same reason.)
A week ago I went with RBG staff and people from Guelph University to look for the Rose Moss (Rhodobryum roseum). It was to be used for research by a researcher in Spain. This moss is rare in Ontario but found in several places in our area. As you can see, we found it!
It's been a while since I spent time with my watercolours. This was the second of my attempts in class at a wet-on-wet painting and the first painting that I finished this term. I have several others in various states of being "almost finished." This one too could probably benefit from more work but it seems safer to leave well enough alone for now.
Last year on Nov. 22 we had almost 2 cm of snow on the ground with temperatures between - 11 C and - 4 C. This year I found this snake not far from a wild strawberry and a thyme-leaved speedwell that were blooming. The temperature is currently + 9 C and the sun is going down in the late afternoon.
This Musk Mallow (Malva moschata) was blooming on November 20 next to the Hamilton Harbour just off the Waterfront Trail. I saw several other Musk Mallow plants but only this one was blooming.
Dipsacus fullonum ssp.sylvestris is the Latin name. I did not find any blooms but the seed heads are just as interesting. People often spray paint them for flower arrangements but I like them as they are much better.
This small flower is a kind of wild geranium and was still blooming, in a protected, sunny spot on November 20th. (I also found about 50 other species on my wild flower hunt today.)
The people of Cuba seem to like pastel colours for their buildings. I am reminded of other places on the water in Newfoundland and Italy. Buildings in Cuba tended to be very clean and freshly painted or in poor states of repair with not many in-between states. (Photo from March of 2009)
Another mixed media piece that I found quite intriguing in the small gallery in downtown Cienfuegos, Cuba last March. If I remember correctly it was paper mache and acrylic paint.
Easy 10 k run this morning so I had enough energy to cut and haul wood this afternoon. I was cleaning up some old fallen trees in the area behind the barn where the donkey and goats spend their time.
Looking for late mosquitoes . . . (I found a winter mosquito last year in December.)
Found at the Hamilton, Ontario waterfront on November 13, 2009. It was one of fifty-seven species that I saw in bloom today in the same area. Also included in the fifty-seven were three species that I had never seen before in November. My list of wild flowers found blooming in November is now up to 201 species seen in the last 11 years.
Walked out to the road for a slightly different perspective on the sunrise for this photo.
Sorry, Romeo, it's just our barn but the goats and donkey would be glad to see you. Bring treats!
Calla and I were doing our morning, pre-dawn walk through the fog in the east field this morning when I saw this view of our barn through the trees in early light. These days, the animals eat before we do.
In 1981 I led my first Naturalists' Club walk looking for wild flowers in late October. Today Eglantine and I will lead another late fall wild flower hike. This is number 28 for me. If you are in the Hamilton area, meet us at 1:30 p.m. at the large parking lot at Princess Point to see what flowers are still blooming. You do not have to be in the club to come walk.
Even when the fields look brown, there are still flowers blooming if one looks closely. There are several species of goldenrod and aster blooming in our brown looking fields at present.
The sound of leaves falling and hitting both ground and water; the call of the chickadee; the scream of the blue jay; the gurgle of a small streamlet; these are the sounds of the quiet ravine behind our house
I don't usually like rainy days but the colours and the raindrops on our east pond really caught my eye on the dog walk this morning so I had to go back to get this photo. Not many more days of coloured leaves this bright are left this year.
About 4 mm (1/6 in.) in size, this Thyme-leaved Speedwell (Veronica serpyllifolia) is easy to miss any day. Finding it in late October in Southern Ontario is a real treat. This one was on one of our mown pathways in the west meadow on our Brant County, Ontario property.
Most of the soybeans in our area have been harvested but I found these down by the Grand River today on the edge of Brantford that are still waiting.
This chap has been guarding the garden for three summers now and still does not look too bad . . . from a distance. This past summer a house wren build a nest inside his shirt so I guess he cannot be called a scarewren. Our neighbours built him to help frighten unwanted creatures away from the garden that their children helped plant on our property.
He has company. Two other sets of people made scarecrows that spring so there are three scarecrows in the garden.
I took a different way home the other day and discovered that we have Texas Longhorn cattle living only a few kilometres away from where we live. If I remember correctly, and read the map correctly, they live within the borders of the city of Hamilton.
I took a different way home the other day and discovered that we have Texas Longhorn cattle living only a few kilometres away from where we live. If I remember correctly, and read the map correctly, they live within the borders of the city of Hamilton.
I took a different way home the other day and discovered that we have Texas Longhorn cattle living only a few kilometres away from where we live. If I remember correctly, and read the map correctly, they live within the borders of the city of Hamilton.
One of ninety-three different flower species found during the weekend in bloom. There are many wild flowers still blooming along the Hamilton Waterfront Trail as the harbour helps keep temperatures more moderate and the street lights add more light to the shortening days.
We are moving toward fall colours but there is still a lot of green around. I chose this photo for the colours but overall I think there is about 60% green, 30% colour, and 10% of the trees have already dropped their leaves.
There are two small patches of violets that I have found blooming in the late fall. This is from the patch that I found first many years ago. I can usually find a few blooming in October and sometimes even in November and once in December. This is a Canada Violet growing not far from Webster Falls in the Spencer Wilderness area.
I took a drive out to the Beverly Swamp, just north of where we live, to see what the fall colours were doing. Most of the leaves had already fallen down and it was looking bare in the trees but there was still some colour in the water.
This is a photo montage of a cornfield in Brant County and the skyline of Toronto, Ontario.
This Field Strawberry (Fragaria virginiana ssp.glauca) is one of 95 wild flower species that I have found during the first nine days of October. I photographed it just an hour ago on Oct. 10.
It is not uncommon for several spring wild flower species to bloom again in the fall. I assume it is the amount of daylight hours that is the stimulus.
The Royal Botanical Boardwalk is more slippery on rainy days but less crowded and leads to a colourful fall walk. The trails were filled with puddles but still quite firm and enjoyable to walk upon.
Trying to brighten another subfusc Friday. (Yes, it's today "word of the day." Came just on the right day here.)
Taken in the wild part of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton/Burlington, Ontario.
Sunlight was doing interesting things to colours and lines last evening. I had to pull off the road and attempt a capture.
This was on the edge of Dundas, Ontario.
Of the over 10000 species of millipedes in the world, over 1400 are in North America so I don't even want to think about figuring out the species name. I will be content thinking about how they figure out which legs to move when as they move along.
This is a small metal sculpture by David Hind of Brantford. He was part of the Brantford Art Tour this past weekend. I was lucky to see it as a thunderstorm with lots of rain was rolling in and I only managed two photos before the rains.
Sculptural work by Antonio Nunez Chaviano located in Cienfuegos, Cuba. Photographed in March of 2009.
As part of my work at the organic farm this morning, I picked about 50 pounds (23 kg) of peppers from this greenhouse growth. (If my math and estimations are correct, that's about 6 pecks of peppers or maybe slightly more. None of them were pickled however.)
I am glad that I don't have to do work like this too often. My back is still sore this afternoon from all the bending over.
1 of 113 wild flowers that I have found blooming in the last three days (September 25,26,27). I found this one by the Grand River just before the 5 km Waterworks run started.
Fungi found on a stump. Sorry, no ID. It was just off one of the trails in the Hendrie Valley of the Royal Botanical Gardens on Friday, September 25.
One of 111 species that I saw in bloom last week. This is a hybrid aster that is less common that most asters. I failed to recognize it at first as I don't see it every year and this was the first time I saw it this season.
This Datura stramonium, or Jimsonweed is trumpet-shaped when all the way open but looks more interesting when opening or closing. I found this one in the Royal Botanical Gardens in the Burlington, Ontario section not far from the Rose Garden.
