Quilting and other Things

While up visiting Dad this month, I saw a boat being lifted by crane onto a flat bed truck. The marina is being closed for the season. According to the newspaper the boat is 22000 lbs and 40 ft long. From the angle I was sitting at to snap some of these photos it looked like it almost hit a sign and the building. Since none of the workers looked panicked, I think everything was actually well clear of the obstacles.   It was interesting watching this come out of the water. Previously I'd only seen (and helped) when the trailer was backed down a ramp. Also adding a link for bloglovin. Follow my blog with Bloglovin

I dropped my poor Kobo getting ready to go out one Sunday morning in May. It was in its case so I just put it in my purse and went off to met Dad for lunch in Gravenhurst. On the way home, I stopped for a break at a rest area and pulled out the Kobo to read. It wouldn't turn on and there was a pale grey smudge behind the logo shaped like a book. I thought it had turned on accidentally and burned out the battery. Also thought it was weird I hadn't noticed the book shape in the past. Charged it when I got home and it still wouldn't turn on. By the end of the evening it looked like this -- that middle bit should be all white like the top right corner. I called Kobo to find out if there was somewhere I could take it to get a repair estimate or was I better to just buy a new one. Kobo actually sent me a new (refurbished) reader since mine was under a year old. Given that the damage was my own fault I'm really impressed they replaced it. It was nice to get the new...

Yesterday I reached 100 donations at Blood Services .

One day when I was wandering through the veggie section at the grocery store, I saw this little thing It turns out its a donut or Saturn peach . I'd never heard of them so I brought one to try. Its very tasty. Naturally I had to goggle to find out about them. Turns out they've been around since the late 1800's. Here it is with a one inch tall spool of thread so you can get an idea of the size. On the day of the last guild meeting I stopped for a burger on my way. There is an aquarium in that store. This spotted fish was very shy. The clown fish, not so much. I really like the spotted one.

I came home with lots of pictures from the two hours (partly because I had the exposure bracketing on so it took 3 photos when I pressed the trigger and partly because I tend to hold the shutter a little bit too long and get multiple photos). I've now gone through all the photos and removed the junk and the duplicates. I think I'm left with less than half. Of those, this is a slideshow of my favorites. If this doesn't work, the photos are on flickr here

I thought the photography show was next weekend. Fortunately someone in the class at Hobby Horse said something about it. So I came home, dropped the hiking and quilting stuff and grabbed the ticket. Wander through the show and sat in on a couple of presentations about taking travel photos and landscapes. When I came out, the sun was streaming through this cloud, so I grabbed the little camera from my purse and took a photo. The sea gull flew through for me which was kind. The landscape session had talked about exposure compensation so I tried that with the sky photo. This one is the same setting as above but with an exposure compensation of -1.0 (less light coming in) This one is the same setting as above but with an exposure compensation of +1.0 (more light coming in)

Elaine found a stuffed animal pattern in a collection she was going through. It made me laugh because its the pattern for Dolphie who lives upstairs on the corner of a spare bed. He was my grade 7 home-ec project. For many years I would stretch out on the bed to read with him as my pillow so he's a little lopsided. I did eventually make the hippo as well but it seems to have gone to the thrift store as I don't see it in the bag of things that are currently waiting to head there.

I went to the Toronto zoo the other weekend to play with the new lens and see what it will do. I hadn't been to the Toronto zoo for several years -- apparently at least 7. The keeper said its been at least that long that people have been able to walk through the Kangaroo exhibit. I don't remember doing that before ... Alice Walking through the Kangroo pen In addition to playing with the new lens, I wanted to go to Stingray bay which was a special exhibit with stingrays -- you needed to wash your arms on entry, but once in, there was the opportunity to pat the stingrays. They are beautiful creatures and feel very soft. Some of them would come up and butt my hand. Lots stayed in the middle of the pool away from visitors. After visiting Stingray Bay, I went through the new (to me) Great Barrier Reef display. I found that I didn't do well with the new lens in there -- its minimum focal distance is too long so it was difficult to clear shots of the tank. I had the walking ...

I've been wanting a new lens for my camera and finally got what I wanted the other week. These are some of the photos I've taken while playing with it. I've discovered that I've developed some bad holding and standing habits lately for picture taking. The new lens is forcing me to correct those. Its lighter than the old lens but more off balance at full zoom. This is Chippie. I'm not sure he really approves of Mom & Dad's new deck as he lost a bolt hole when we put in a support post. He has discovered a new way under the deck for the time being but I suspect he'll lose that before Dad is finished. This is the iris bed at the bottom of my yard. A few days earlier I'd cut off the dead flower stocks. Came back to find the snail in the hole. The spiders and chipmunks at Mom & Dad's have been busy. This is one of the sunflowers that the chipmunk planted in the herb box. The spider got a start on a web. They've built lots of ...

Last month I found that a tree near the back parking lot at work had mushrooms growing under it. So one Friday I took my camera to work and spent some time taking photos of the mushrooms at the end of the day. When I first saw them they were mostly the small balls like the little on in these photos: But by Friday most of them had opened up in to big flat tops This was my favorite I expected to see the mushrooms start dancing like in the Disney movie Fantasia.

I rearranged lamps so instead of 5 shades am now looking for 6. I got the first 3 today and re-arranged the last of the lamps. This one moved into the den Both of these are now upstairs -- getting tall shades like they had was the problem. Found these ones which are rectangular and work well on the bedside table and sewing table since they don't take up as much room

We've had a lot of snow this month. These are photos after the first storm on Feb 1 On Feb 7 it did it again. These are taken at about 7 am from my kitchen door during the storm After the last storm on the 12th, my blue box, garbage can and BBQ are pretty much missing. You can sort of see the BBQ. The lump behind the BBQ is on top of the garbage can