DILO Part 3

As I ran out of time in Part 2, I was writing about our Flickr sites. Both Églantine and I have Flickr sites but Églantine works at hers a lot harder. My excuse is that I also have my Wild Flower web site and this blog. Anyway, Églantine's photo stream has been visited over 5600 times compared to just over 1400 for mine.

When we had finished walking the dog, and taking photos along the way, I fed the dog and the cats.



Next I went to the barn to chop some wood for tomorrow's fire. I usually only have one or two days supply cut and carried into the house so I try to saw and/or chop a bit of wood every day. I hope the physical activity helps me keep in better health.



While Églantine was putting up her new photos on Flickr and doing other odd jobs about the house, I was working on my computer trying to find photos of a "sunflower house" project. I want to make a booklet for the children that helped us plant the sunflowers and morning glories. (This past spring and summer, Églantine and I and some friends and neighbours all pitched in to grow a sunflower house with and for three young children whom we would like to be at least part time gardeners and earth caretakers when they grow up.) As I searched through our many, many digital photos, I realized that I had no photos of the sunflowers as they are now, so I put on my outdoor clothing again and went out to photograph the remains one more time.



Since it was so close to noon already, I decided to choose a place to photograph the position of the noonday sun. I have documented the sunrise position of the sun at summer solstice, fall equinox, and now the winter solstice so now I want to try to document the noon sun position. It may be a bit of a challenge as the camera does not like the noon sun even with a polarizing filter. I may have to do some additional thinking about filters before spring equinox or next month if I choose to document every month.



Usually we try to keep lunch simple and whoever is in the kitchen first sets it up. Today it was I and I put out bread, margarine, mayonnaise, pickles, tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, cheese, and left over breakfast pancakes for sandwich fare.



We also had instant coffee made with microwaved hot milk. It's a practise that I picked up in England years ago and have continued. It makes almost any instant coffee palatable even though I drink my coffee black at all other times.

After lunch, Églantine went to a funeral while I took Calla, and the camera, out for second dog walk of the day. On our walk, we followed our ravine trail to stay more protected from the cold west winds.



Églantine's late husband made trails for her to exercise upon so she did not have to walk on the rural highways and roads and I have been helping keep them up by mowing them in the summer and packing them down with snowshoes and skis during the winter during our dog walks. Here is a map of our trails that I made for our annual art show this past fall. (You can see that I included, for the art show, the locations of various outdoor sculptures that I have added to the property and the labyrinth path that Églantine and I made a couple of years ago.)



I coloured in today's morning walk with yellow and our afternoon walk in red. We try to walk almost all the trails each week at some time but we do have some favourites and some that get missed some weeks.

During our walk today, Calla and I saw a variety of tracks. The local white-tailed deer travel on and through the property everyday. The photo below shows the location where the deer hop the fence to get into the neighbour's property and continue on their way.



The bird track patterns are from the bird feeder area near Calla's daytime pen.

Below is one of several fox dens we have found on the property. This one was not used during most of the summer but obviously has in use since the snow.



One of the reasons that deer like to visit us is that we have lots of wild apple trees growing on our property. I suspect that the windfalls also attract various other animals that are prey for the foxes too.

Églantine and I were invited out for a simple, but elegant dinner during the early evening by an artist friend. Since I often go to bed very early, compared to most others that I am acquainted with, I was not able to finish this blog on the 21st. Below is my last conglomerate photo of appetizers, salad course, main course, and dessert. It was an excellent end to another day that had many more activities and projects that I wanted to do.