93 and 94:365 Double post

Anna: Here's the photo I meant to post yesterday, but never got around to uploading before midnight.

Yeah, I think my daughter's cat is adorable. She has this habit of tucking her nose under things - her own leg, a pillow, blankets, our ears... whatever.







My elder daughter and I went for an evening photo walk, which turned out to be much shorter than expected, as it started to rain. We got a few pictures, though.


The road in front of our apartment building overlooks the river valley on the opposite side. It's all part of the park system, and there are a number of groomed areas clear enough of trees that we can get lovely views of the river. I was walking into one of these when I noticed something moving in the brush to the side and realized that it was a person moving under his/her covers.

You know, when it comes to being homeless, I can think of a lot worse places to have to sleep. This spot is just gorgeous.





A bit more effort into acquiring the comforts of home. Getting that couch down the sides of the ravine must've been quite the job.














We were walking past the other tower in our building when I did a double take, trying to figure out what it was I just saw on the sidewalk.

Yes, it really was a plastic woman with a cobra.

92:365 - Evening walk

Evening walk.. *nothing* was camera safe.. :D


Not sure what to say.. it stood still long enough for me to take a shot.. Wind and Macro don't mix, I've discovered.













This is a nice, striking mistake.. (wind again :D )














Daughter was apparently providing transport.














Other daughter was providing opportunity :P















Anna's got a thing for fungus, so I thought I'd grab this one.. I like the way it turned out :).










Anna: Philippe took quite a few more great macro shots, which can be seen here. I'm just uploading one of my photos from today on this blog. I uploaded more here, if you want to see them.



I like the little dandelion seed caught in a spider web in the bottom corner. :-D

91:365 At the museum - playing with a new lens

Anna: Philippe got himself a new macro lens today - I'll leave him to explain what he got - so we went to the museum again to test it out. I didn't take very many pictures myself this time, but I did get a few interesting ones.



Can you figure out what this is?

















Here's the whole thing. It's the result of a lightning strike following a copper wire into damp soil. The lightning boiled away the water and melted the soil into glass, leaving a bit of copper wire still visible at the end. Freaky!












I finally got a decent shot of my favorite egg in the birds gallery - taken from the rear of the display, so I wouldn't be blocking the spotlights. I just love the patterns on this egg!













Philippe was having problems with blogger, trying to upload his pictures, so I found a way to upload them differently. You can view the whole set here. He'll add his comments when he gets a chance to, later. :-)

Philippe: I got a 90mm 1:1 Tamron macro lens because they were absolutely *out* of the cheaper nikkor 60mm micro. This lens rocks :D

The lens is a bit of a pig, so I have to use either a tripod, high ISO or a flash... The cat did not appreciate my choice here ;)















*NO* clue what this bug is, but I liked the focus point.. Manual is almost mandatory with this lens as auto hunts for a while.















Synthetic Bismuth; again, with the manual focus set a little within the structure. I think I'll be kissing this lens goodnight for a while.






























Gypsum.. Pretty... monosyllabic...















This was one of my first tests of the lens.. "Don't... move.. the pencil....." :P

90:365 Talking back.

Anna: We didn't head out at all today, as we normally do on Fridays. My shift last night ended shortly after 1am, and I was just too achy and tired to head out.

Our younger daughter loves jigsawpuzzles. The only flat surface we have that's large enough for them is the box the BBQ came in - and it can be tucked away under the back of the desk at the end of the day. So every day, she slides out the box, grabs a folding chair and brings out the plaid seat cushion she won as a door prize during this year's Robbie Burns Day supper.

Tiger, we've discovered, loves the seat cushion. As soon as my daughter leaves the chair, the cat will jump up and position herself in the hollow left by the "doughnut hole" in the middle. I had tried a few shots when I guess she got tired of me, so she turned around and positioned herself like this, with her head under the back support of the chair, and started listening to my daughter, who was standing behind me and talking to her.






Then she started to talk back. *L*

89:365 - Higher Learning - updated: Morning Walk

Higher learning takes a sharp left turn.... :D

Philippe: Not sure if this was supposed to be higher learning or 'advanced worship', but it's still funny :D





Anna: Had another sleepless night, so I went for an early morning walk in the river valley. It helped. :-D The following pictures are from my walk.



I almost wore this guy before I saw him. Do you have any idea how hard it is to focus on something that's swinging? I'm sure you do! *L* This is one of a very few pictures that was at least partly in focus. :-D


















During the walk, I passed several groups of bushes that were filled with birds. Mostly, I just heard them and saw the leaves moving after they fluttered away, but I did manage to actually see a few. I lightened this photo a bit, so the bird is actually more visible in this picture than it was IRL.











Here, I'm looking back towards home from one of several cliff points along the path. This point is a fair bit beyond where I took this picture a while ago. I'm about half way up the valley on this path, give or take a few feet.












I could hear the bird. I *knew* it was there. I could even tell which tree it was in. I still had to stand and stare for at least a minute before I spotted it. Ah, the joys of zoom. This photo also got lightened up a bit and the bird is more visible in the photo than what I was actually able to see when I took it.

I don't know what this bird is, but it has a voice about 3 times larger than its body. ;-) We have one that lives near our apartment. It starts singing every morning at about 3 am.

Every. Friggin'. Morning.

Guess how I know that? *grumblegrumble* Some mornings, it's so loud, I have to close the window so I can get back to sleep!

88:365 End of the day.

Anna: Didn't get a chance to take photos while we were out and about, so I got some off our balcony. *L*


Can you come out and play?

When we first moved into our apartment, we were really impressed with the size of the balcony. My daughter's cat had been an outdoor cat for the last 3 years, and I knew she's miss it. We figured at least she'd be able to go onto the balcony and get some fresh air.

So shortly after the move, we'd let her onto the balcony with us. We promptly discovered that there's an open space along the rail at the wall separating our balcony from our neighbour's, and she could fit through. *L* We got her back and plugged the space and thought things would be fine.

Then this cat arrived. I think it lives in one of the ground floor apartments. Suddenly, Tiger was no longer on our balcony. She'd jumped from our 3rd floor balcony, to get at this cat.

Directly below us are patios with paving stones instead of grass.

I was able to catch her when she ran into the storage area of one of the patio areas, which happened to not have any tenants at the time. She had a bloody nose, a sore hip, and was very nervous. Nothing was broken, thank God, and she soon healed. It was over a year before we let her onto the balcony again, and she's constantly watched when we do.

Meanwhile, this cat still comes by.




Sunset.

Every evening at sunset, we get bright reflections off this downtown building. I like how the leaves seem to glow from the reflected light behind them.

87:365 A day at the museum

Anna: Lots of pictures today. The girls and I headed to a museum - I ended up taking some 180 photos alone, plus a couple of videos. (More photos available here.) I still need to go through them and toss the ones that didn't turn out. This museum has really excellent grounds, and we spent quite a bit of time getting pictures. It was a great way to avoid the three bus loads of school kids that were there at the same time. :-/ I have to admit, when I saw those three buses, I just about turned around and went home! *L* It worked out all right, though.



This is a Jeongja, a Korean pavilion built in the old way, using joining techniques and no nails. It's absolutely gorgeous, and I got lots of photos of it.














This is a detail of one of the faces on a Ksan totem pole.














There are a lot of statues on the grounds, and this is one of my favorites. There's just something about the upward turned face that I really like.


















As we were waking into the building, in between the inner and outer doors, I spotted a sign on the wall I'd never noticed before. It turns out the stone on these walls are Tyndall Limestone from Southern Manitoba. The walls were filled with fossils of all kinds. The kids say this one looks like some types of bacteria.

Now I know what those fossils I'd been finding on Gimli Beach were. :-D







Before going to the front desk, the girls and I went to the cafe for lunch. We'd placed our order and were sitting at our table waiting for it, commenting on the changes since the last time we'd been there, when my younger daughter suddenly exclaims, "there's a whale on that lamp!"

Someone had taped a toy Sperm Whale onto the electrical cord of one lamp.

Why?

To make visitors wonder, perhaps? ;-D










The museum is setting up for a new theme of dragons next month. In the entry was a 1:4 model of a Korean turtle ship. The plexiglass covering the spikes is definitely needed - those things are real metal, and real sharp!













One of my favorite displays is the eggs. It's amazing how different they can be! I wasn't able to get shots of my very favorite, but I like this "painted" looking grackle egg, too.

Because of the lighting, I had to take these shots from the rear of the display, so they were upside down.









I couldn't resist adding this one of the girls. I thought it was just neat. :-D













There are several displays of these "floating" artifacts. One was all arrow heads, another spear heads, but I can't remember what type these ones were. Possibly fishing harpoons.














And finally, a guest photo from my younger daughter, a macro shot of one of the skulls they have on display for people to touch.