Ice Storm

Strange cracking sounds woke me last night. Then the power went off.  But I didn't care, curled under warm blankets. 

Morning light revealed an icy wetness coating every branch and twig. And the power went off again.

So I did what I always do when the weather gets interesting. I grabbed my camera and headed outside.

 The drizzling rain and zero degree temperature kept the icy fingers growing.

 But weight of the accumulating ice becomes too much and with a slow cracking sound another branch falls away.

Up close with my macro lens there was beauty to behold in the frozen forms of nature.

Diaspora Film Fest

Gail & I attended two wonderful films at the  International Diaspora Film Festival last week. 

 Una Noche is a film about Cuban youth trying to escape to the USA on a raft.   

Cyclo is a documentary about two Mexican brothers who retrace their 1956 bicycle journey from Mexico to Canada.

Gustavo & Amanda Martinez with festival co-directors Paul deSilva and Shahram Tabe, and film maker Andrea Martínez Crowther

Following the screening of Cyclo, we were entertained by Amanda Martinez and her band.  Amanda is the daughter of Gustavo, one of the cyclists in Cyclo. 

Amanda has a new album out now, MAÑANA, which I can highly recommend!

Alma New Brunswick

Tucked in beside Fundy National Park, the Village of Alma is home to my sister Karen Casey, and her family who own and operate Parkland Village Inn. Their Tides restaurant serves the freshest lobster and scallops in the world!

Gail and I joined the family for Thanksgiving dinner in the hotel's conference room. 

Turkey with all the trimmings!

Dylan & Alex join us for a walk in the park and a photography lesson with their Uncle Simon.

Fishing boats wait on the shore for the highest tides in the world to lift them up

Autumn reflections in the Salmon River

Rocks of every colour along the shoreline

Alma is a traditional East Coast fishing village

Sunrise on Fundy Bay

Buffy Sainte-Marie

Had the good fortune of seeing Buffy Sainte-Marie in concert at the The Registry Theatre in Kitchener last week.

At 72 years young she's a dynamo. Still touring. Still singing her famous songs like "Up Where We Belong" and "Until It's Time for You to Go".





She wrote powerful protest songs in the 60s and she's still doing it today! It was a moving experience to be in a small theatre with her and her rockin' band. Go see Buffy if you get a chance.

Here's a link to a 3-minute video of Buffy singing some of those songs.

Toronto Zoo

Ring tailed lemurs

Emu

Gail & I visited the Toronto Zoo yesterday. We started with the new panda exhibit. But the pair of pandas on loan from China weren't very active. We finished our tour at the Indian rhino exhibit where for a donation to rhino conservation we got to feed Vishnu the male rhino!













It's been many years since I was an active volunteer with the zoo, helping to upgrade their slide collection. On this visit I concentrated on photographing the shapes and textures  - the intricate patterns of life - that I found everywhere I looked in this world-class facility.

Crocodile newt

Moon jellies

Veiled chamelion

Radiant tortoise

Banana leaves

Emerald tree boa

Red-tailed black cockatoo

Indian rhino

Hillside

One of four stages at Hillside

I spent three days at Hillside, Guelph's annual music festival on Guelph Lake Island that exemplifies so many of the community's best characteristics. It's a volunteer-driven, non-commercial, family affair that features up-and-coming talent that you probably never heard of but quite likely will sometime in the future.  Though the days were long (11am to 11pm) and the weather a bit cool (no swimming this time) the whole experience of seeing old friends and making some new ones, while grooving to everything from blue-grass to electro-pop, was an exhilarating highlight of my summer so far!

Karen (centre) poses with Poor Man's Whiskey

Eramosa Swimming Hole

Today, my son Daniel and I headed for a dip at a great swimming hole on the Eramosa River.

deep pools between cliffs and  rapids

 We took along my underwater camera and together we took a few shots of our swimming adventure.

Daniel's self-portrait

an underwater landscape

enjoying an apple

climbing the rapids

looking up inside a "kettle"

swam into a "kettle"

Howitt Park Workshops

photo by Abby

Focus on Nature held a series of nature photography workshops for photographers of all ages in July.


Each day began with an introductory talk I gave on camera controls,  photo techniques, and image composition.


This was followed by a photo shoot in Howitt Park, an editing session using Picasa, and finally a slide show of everyone's best images.




Click this photo to launch our Flickr page  some of the participants' best shots. Feel free to leave a comment or two!







For more information about the Focus on Nature program, visit www.focusonnature.ca.

Focus on Nature Student Photo Exhibit

I had a great day yesterday setting up an outdoor display of 70 photos taken in the past year by our Focus on Nature students. The display ran the length of Guelph's Covered Bridge, a handsome wooden structure built without a single nail!

Students, teachers, principals, families and friends of Focus on Nature, all came by to admire the stunning images that these talented young photographers created.

The exhibit was part of the Two Rivers Festival, an annual celebration of Guelph's riparian environment.

A complete set of the photos can be viewed on our Flickr site.

Pelee Island

We spent three days on Pelee Island in Lake Erie this weekend, exploring the natural beauty of Canada's most southern place.  With few people, fewer cars, and hardly any WiFi, it was a great place to slowdown, unwind, and enjoy everything Life has to offer!

Morning dew

The Appendaged Waterleaf, a local specialty, was in bloom

 Gail at Stone Hill, our B&B

A visit to the Pelee Island Winery was a must

A Clouded Yellow Butterfly posed for me

May Apples were in bloom

Wild Geranium were everywhere

Sunset from our B&B