Farewell 2015!

We have had something of a quiet Christmas break, but have both enjoyed the peace and relaxation. We were starting to crawl the walls though, as we had been spending a lot of time watching Netflix and iTunes shows and movies, and invitations to friends' were few and far between.  So, today we headed out in the car down to the RBG in Burlington/Hamilton.  It was a grey day and we thought the proximity of plants would be uplifting. We toured the Mediterranean gardens and the following are a few pictures that I thought would be worth sharing. Happy New Year!

Red Berries

White flowers ready to bloom

Koi pond

Bird of Paradise

Aloe flowers

Ready to bloom

Fuzzy Succulent

Barbed stem

Orchid macro1

Orchid macro2

Ottawa Visit

Antique store window

Last weekend, we took a four day break to go to Ottawa.  We were going to visit my dad, just outside of Ottawa, on the Friday, but he had the flu unfortunately.  We decided to go ahead with our mini-vacation as we both needed the time away. The weather was mostly pleasant, although there was quite a cold wind coming off the Ottawa River - we counteracted that with eating out and going for long walks.  We had some memorable meals ,especially at Beckta and Town, both on Elgin Street.  We also checked out the Antique area on lower Bank Street and the Glebe, just further north from there.  No Museums this time around, as we wanted to be outside as much as possible. Here are some of the better pictures from that trip...

War Memorial

Rideau Canal Still Life

Chateau Laurier Reflection on the Rideau

Above and Below

Elgin Street at night

Architectural spine

National Gallery

Rideau Canal colours

Rideau Canal in action

Backlit Parliament building

Oh Canada!

Under construction

Pagoda detail

Sun lamp

Heading home

Sun and clouds through my sunglasses

Autumn colours

The days are getting shorter and cooler, but the garden is giving a last-ditch effort at beauty before the monochromatic winter comes.  Here are a few shots of the garden's delights...

Asters

We have a garden full of Asters, mostly of this colour.  The bees love them!

Mum's the word.

CC bought a few different colours of mums for the various urns around the garden, and they provide a nice contrast with the Asters.

The word.

Black-eyed Susans

Along the driveway, we have masses of Black-eyed Susans, that CC, quite correctly, refers to as bumble-bee flowers, mostly due to their colour. In the background, out of focus, are more of the omnipresent Asters.

Wild grapes

Purple fruit and red stems literally "pop out" amongst the greenery.

Begonia

Even the outdoor house plants are getting in on the action, as these Begonias demonstrate.

Fuchsias

We have three Fuchsia shrubs that will winter indoors, but they are at their peak right now and are popular with Hummingbirds.

Where did August go?

     Or the summer for that matter!
     Can't believe it's Labour Day already. It's a stinker out there today, but CC and I have already been out on our bikes, along the Speed River trail.  I'm now down in the cool but dank basement, sipping an iced tea, working on my pictures, so I thought I'd update my blog. Part of the reason I haven't been working on my blog is that I find it a lot easier to post pictures on Instagram (jdpb82) or Flickr (JdPb1963) - so feel free to check out some of my posts there.

Baby Kalanchoe and water droplet

     We were also away for a week, at the beginning of August, to visit two sets of friends at their cottages - some highlight jdpegs will follow.  Since we've been back, I decided to organize my computer better. To start off with, I updated my operating system to Yosemite, which changed how I store my photos - iPhoto has been replaced with Photos, which has taken some getting used to. Secondly, I have been working on the Sisyphean task of backing up all of my photos from my computer to a hard drive (ALL my digital photos, some 18,000, were on my laptop!) and to Flickr and then going through and deleting extraneous photos to free up some more space on my laptop's hard drive. It's an ongoing process, but it has been quite nostalgic to go through old photos, especially of trips I have taken. I figured out that I could upload all my photos to Flickr, but just make the better ones available publicly.  In that way, I can access all of them myself, but not have to worry about people seeing the crappy ones, or family photos. It also enabled me to organize them into albums, to find them more easily.
     The first cottage we visited in August was up in the Kawarthas, on Crego Lake. There were four couples along with four kids of varying ages. The weather was perfect, the food delicious and the company entertaining and enjoying some relaxation. I was down at the dock, in and out of the water, a lot of the time, but then that's what makes me happiest. There was a fair amount of alcohol imbibed, so it wasn't surprising that we had an impromptu dance party on our last night - thank god there is no photographic evidence of that!

Cocoa walking on water!

Sunset on DBP

A quiet end to the first day

Misty sunrise 

Sunrise jus above the tree line

Calm waters at the dock

     From there, we headed over to the Halliburton Highlands to spend some time with another group of friends on Redstone Lake. Three couples, three young adults and a big dog named Berg. More eating, swimming, drinking and lots of napping rounded out a perfect three day retreat.

Cottage life

First sunset

The golden hour

Frank's silhouette

Dramatic clouds

Crane nest

Rusty chain macro

Sunrise on the last day

     Since being home, we have been doing a lot of household chores: going through books, clothes etc. and doing a bit of gardening. The produce at the local market has been extraordinary, so I made a big batch of apricot chutney, perfect for host/hostess gifts come the fall and winter.  Earlier, CC made his dill pickles and I made some different batches of jelly - Red currant, Black currant, mixed currant and a combination of Gooseberry and Blackberry with fruit from the garden.  CC put the leftover dill into a small vase on the kitchen table, where I took some still life pictures with it.

We have also managed to do a bit of antiquing. We went to Aberfoyle to have a good look around, and I managed to find an old, English brass ewer in the Art Nouveau style that I fell in love with.

We also made our way down to Locke Street in Hamilton to visit our two favourite stores there. Locke Street Antiques had a pair of Imari ginger jars that practically leapt into my hands, so they are now in our sitting room.

Hope that gets you all caught up with my life. Now, back to those photos...