Feeling Swamped

I walked with Sue sans camera on a day when I didn't expect to see anything worth photographing. However, when I spied a couple looking outward over a swampy area from one of the footbridges, I asked them what they had were seeing. They has spotted two turtles.

I only saw one smallish turtle on a . . . well let me show you rather than describe it.

Except I didn't see that ↑ turtle at that time. The one that I did see then did not have its back turned toward me. Rather, it was a smaller one, in profile and looking pretty darn photogenic.

Knowing that turtles are not necessarily quick (although the story goes that they can defeat hares in a race), I decided to return after walking all of the way back to the car. From there, I drove back to the house to retrieve my camera. By the time that I got back to the swamp scene, big turtle had displaced little turtle and had also turned its back to the camera, which I found excessively rude. Of course I took the shot anyway because watchagunnadoo?

Whilst there, I also took a photo of a bit of swamp vegetation. All I can say is that the green is nice right now and looked pretty night in the light. Yes, there is that at least.

One does one's best under the circumstances.

Logs and Doubles

Note: I've had this is the queue for awhile, but it got buried so deep that I lost track of it. It was from my double exposure experiments a few weeks ago. I like the wheel and tree pics.

For Easter, I posted a double exposure of easter eggs over a log house. 

Well, there is another log house in Appleton on the other side of the river. Note the wagon wheel.

I decided to try to use the wagon wheel in a double exposure. I like it.

Since we were in a log house kind of mood, we drove back to town to photograph the one near the park and boat launch.

I took one exposure of the trees in the park and then one of the house. I ended up with a very airconditioned house.

Then I took another of a single tree before turning back to the house. I kinda like this one.

First Ride

I've not much to say today, but I will post a couple of family pics. Although Danica has been driving her car for awhile, neither Sue nor I had the privilege of experiencing a ride, I still haven't, but Danica took her into the city on the weekend. The mission was to go to the Apple Store to get her faulty ear buds checked.

Shauna was running other errands but joined them at the mall.

Sue was aghast that those ↑ coffees and cookies cost more that $30. 

I'll throw in a selfie of Sue and me on a walk. It was for Sue's potd, with the theme being affection, or something close to that. Of course, being closer to the camera, I look gigantic.

Daffs and Things

I just have two unrelated photos and a video to share in today's post.

I am surprised to see a daffodil blooming in what will be a clump of tulips in a few weeks. I planted daffodils years ago. I don't think we've any any for the past few years, and yet, there it is.

To confound me even more, I saw another daffodil bud a little later in a different spot.  It is a little behind in its development but should flower soon. It's good because I like daffodils, even these old-fashioned, generic ones. We had a mass of them in our previous abode.

I took that ↑ photo with my telephote lens, because I didn't want to fuss about much in the rain. However, I was also able to use it for this next photo. Sue was out yesterday, and I had a free coffee offer about to expire, so I took the coffee and a donut to our usual hangout near the boat launch. I used the telephoto from the driver's seat to capture part the tree across the way.

Posting that Canadian English video  the other day has led to more suggestions from YT. This one is by a British lady, but includes our same Canadian guy and an American lady. The British host showed pictures of objects and asked both the Canadian and American what they called that object. Then she shared what Brits would call the same thing. It's about 20 minutes long if the topic interests you.

Was it Real?

It was a brief image that came to me as snuggled in my chair late one rainy morning. As brief as it was, it kept lingering in my then awake brain. It was odd for it to linger since when pictures cross my brain, they tend to just float away. And yet I can still see this one in my imagination, albeit fuzzily, several days later.

I was looking downhill along a somewhat shady, tree-lined street. I think there were some cars parked along the street although that part is a bit unclear, but there were older two-storey* homes on the sides.

I feel as though it might have been a view that I might have spied from my bicycle somewhere in Montreal back about 65 years ago.

The question is whether it was some sort of amalgam of things seen, kind of AI-like, or was it, perhaps, a real image that my brain captured and, somehow, retrieved all these years later.

I asked Adobe AI to render something with those keywords, but this ↓ was not what I saw. I think my street was narrower with trees actually arcing over the street . My houses were set back just a bit farther and were a different style and not so attached. Nevertheless, Photoshop put together something realistic and interesting in my first ever trial of asking it to render a complete photo from scratch. So far, I have only asked AI to add very small items to photos. It is all just for interest sake.

Now, what say you? Do you think my brain retrieved an actual image from decades past, or was it just sort of composite of things that I may have seen?  And was it Montreal, and was I on my bike? Or perhaps, it had nothing at all to do with real sightings.

I am curious, but we will never know for sure.

* I see that spellcheck doesn't like my spelling of 'storey'. It's the more British and Canadian way of distinguishing between a narrative story and a storey or floor in a building

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Honking Horde

We walked around the pond, the bigger one and not the one that we visit frequently. It was a bit of a slog because, aside from the pond itself, the path is stark with no trees to speak of, and it was also somewhat mushy.

One quite wonderful thing did occur. There were geese at the far end, but then we heard much honking as another large skein approached. They teased us by going around twice before they actually landed, all accompanied by much noise.

I am not a video guy, but I held up the phone and took a few clips. I merged them into the one video, below (about 37 seconds).

I really enjoyed see so many geese, honking their little hearts out, before they finally landed on the pond and continued honking furiously for a long while afterward. I guess they were catching up with old friends.

Early Spring Flowers

I have already posted both snowdrops and crocuses, but more flowers are poking through. So far, most are little and close to the ground.

There are some in the park where someone has planted them around a boulder at some point. There are crocuses here, but they are just about done. I don't know what this flower is. 

double exposure

I had purchased a little portable and extendable seat after photographing the snowdrops a few weeks ago. Sue took a photo. Frankly, I barely recognize myself and think it would have taken me some staring to figure that it was me, if I didn't already know. This is not how I picture myself, but it is reality. Whatever the case, I am still young in my dreams.

Who is that old man?

The daffodils are beginning to bloom. This is from the same spot: a bud with other daffodil blooms as an overlay in this double exposure.

From the park, we continued along the trail. Eventually we discovered a patch of little white flowers. Some online searching leads me to believe that they are Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), but I am not certain. Whatever they are, it's my favourite photo of the day.

Later that day, I drove to another spot, where I have previously seen crocuses. I think these flowers are Siberian Squills or just Scillia. If they are, they are considered to be invasive. It was breezy. I did my best. (The middle photo is a double exposure.) 

By the way, I just lay on the ground for these.

I guess tulips will be the next flower to bloom, but they are still probably a week to two off. I am not sure if the forget-me-nots bloom before or after the tulips.