the garden is there to be enjoyed

The front garden is a mess right now. (The back garden is, too, but for different reasons: benign neglect, versus active warfare.) Really, it's mostly just dirt. I took advantage of that amazing run of summer-like weather we had, two or three weeks ago, to garden — which, in this case, meant ripping almost everything out: weeds, spirea, unidentified shrubs. And sedum. Lots of sedum.

But some things survived, on a smaller scale, and even thrived with the warm temperatures; with Pd home for his portion of parental leave and the baby napping, I got to play around with the DSLR and lenses. It's been a little while since I've really been able to photograph (instead of "snap pictures"), and I hadn't realised how much I had missed it.

Also, this utterly proves my point that you don't have to know much to take reasonable photographs; as long as you can focus and know a little (not much) about depth of field, you can totally fake the rest.

Giuseppe Verdi tulips; the earliest to bloom. Poor things; they were so enthusiastic when it was 20 Celsius out, and when overnight frosts returned, they just closed right up in agony. They're pretty much spent, now, and will need to be deadheaded this weekend — luckily, the mid-season tulips are coming right up behind; I noticed buds on them a few days ago.

Periwinkle (vinca). I don't care if they're aggressive; I love them dearly. How can you argue with something so pretty, that blooms so reliably and early?

Besides which, the front garden is essentially one big, deep raised bed (as we are on a hill), so the roots aren't going anywhere. I wouldn't let it into the back garden. But at the front — something needs to keep that lavender in check.

Siberian squill — an opportunistic interloper from a neighbour's garden. It's impossible to tell from whom; there are stands, large and small, everywhere in this neighbourhood. I like them as photographic subjects but not as actual plants in the garden; they're slowly getting dug under as I proceed to tear down the yard (quite literally). I'll post photographs of that in a few days.

Photoblog: the Royal

Wow, sorry for the silence. I'd meant to get this up before o'er long, and then life/stuff (*coughRock Bandcough*) got in the way. As I had mentioned, the main impetus for going to the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair was this:


Superdogs
... but we did the traditional Royal stuff, too.

We managed to catch a horse demonstration, for example:


It was for saddlebred ... something. (The reverb on the announcer was tremendous; it was really hard to make out what he was saying.) It was very cool, until the horse threw a shoe. Then it was still cool, but we were distracted by the shoe.

We also looked at cows, including wee dairy calves:

The term "wee" is relative.
We petted animals who deigned to let us touch them in exchange for food pellets.




Including little baby ones!


There were also Silkie chickens dyed odd colours ("for fun," they say), and wee little bunnies ... but not for petting.




Also popular, and I sort of regret not getting a picture of this: stands of Dyson Airblade hand dryers next to the "washing stations" at the petting zoo. Pd wanted to take one home, but I thought someone would notice and take umbrage. I was, however, terribly impressed with the branding opportunity. Who would have thought petting zoo = product placement for $1,000 hand dryers? Not me, but perhaps that's why I'm no longer in publicity.

Moving on.


Piglets! These were behind glass. I noticed a distinct lack of pigs on display at the Royal, which Pd explained by pointing out that, despite what I've been taught by Babe and EB White, pigs are actually very ornery and not calm enough to just keep around like this. Well, fine. But I can't believe EB White would lie to me like that.

So we moved on to the sheep.


Of course, being me, seeing sheep immediately leads to ...


Fleeces! (And fleeces lead to yarn. Yum. And I'm not sorry, either.)

And finally, the traditional agricultural fair competition: butter sculptures.




These were not the winners (I think they were second runner up and critics' choice, respectively), but we liked them the best. The winners were technically superior but kind of boring.

We also saw the displays for the other traditional competition — giant vegetables — but declined to document it. As Pd says, giant vegetables are odd: they never look quite real. Maybe years of watching CGI has spoilt us, but honestly, Mother Nature really does not upsample well at all.

Meanwhile, on our way to queue for Superdogs, we passed by (I think) a display for canola. It had interactive stands for kids. Anyway, we are pretty sure we shouldn't have been able to access the systems utility, but we did:


Somehow, Pd always seems to find the broken computer. I don't know how he does it; it's a gift. Or a curse. (He fixed it, though. He rebooted it. Don't tell the IT guys.)

And then ... Superdogs!

We had decided to make our way to the arena about an hour before the scheduled showtime, as it was the last show of the day (we had gotten to the Royal late, and they don't have evening shows). It was lucky we did, too: they had already started letting people in — we didn't have to queue, at all — and there were so many that they decided to start the show half an hour early. In the end, they supposedly turned away something like 500 people. If we had opted for the suggested-arrival time of half an hour prior to the show, we wouldn't have gotten in.

It was a show, not a competition, so it only lasted about 25 minutes. It was super cute, though.


Noah, a Pyrenean sheepdog. (I had to look up his breed later, but I should have known that it was a sheepdog, judging from my reaction. I loves sheepdogs.) There was also an Afghan, which I didn't get a picture of, but it was absolutely beautiful; tall and elegant.

The main event was an obstacle course race run by eight dogs (four for each team). The Boston terrier ran for our team first, and he was pretty good:


The other team had the Old English sheepdog, later, and ... okay, the sheepie was nowhere near as fast as the Vezla or as smart as the border collie, but it was really, by far, hands down, no contest, the cutest.


Especially since it got confused and skipped the high jump on its side of the course, but turned around and ran half of our side of the course. And then ran back and had a tug-of-war with its trainer, who was trying to get it to do the weave properly. And then it may or may not have slid off its pedestal at the end of the course by jumping onto it too fast.


I got to pet it later, after the show. His name is Puff Daddy and he is five years old.

I want one.

all the leaves are brown

The thing I really like about our neighbourhood is that there is practically a tree — generally, a big one — on every lawn. (We have one, too, but it's wee.) That means lots and lots of leaves in the autumn, though. It seems like it was sudden — one day last week, everything was fine, and then the next day all the leaves seemingly went whoomph onto the ground.

The ones that are left, though, are at least putting on a good show.


Meanwhile, I've been knitting, but I have no finished objects to show you. I am knitting Still Light (Ravelry link, sorry; there is no other), which is called a tunic but is actually a dress (-tunic). In fingering (Malabrigo Sock), on 2.75 mm needles. Did I mention that this sweater-dress-tunic-thing has no cables, lace pattern or anything else; it's just miles and miles of stockinette?

Not that you can tell, exactly, but I am persevering through the boredom and am on the home stretch — the final 10 inches of stockinette on the body:


After that, though, will be the horse lattitudes of the sleeves, and I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to manage that. Somehow, stockinette on a loop is still better than stockinette on circs. (And, ironically, I began knitting this because I felt like I needed a break from — get this — the second half of a pure-stockinette sock. Frying pan, have you met fire?)

Photoblog: Valley of Fire

Rainbow Vista in the Valley of Fire.

The Valley of Fire was the main reason I was excited about going to Las Vegas. (I know. I'm lame. But I don't gamble, I barely drink, spas bore me, and American Coke tastes weirdly different — it's the high-fructose corn syrup — so it's not that surprising. Which is not to say that everyone who enjoys Vegas should be an alcoholic, caffeine- and gambling addict with a penchant for massages, although I'm sure it would help.)

It really is spectacularly beautiful, though. (Speaking of which — you'll want to click on the picture above and see it in its original size in Flickr. Trust me.)


The long and winding road into the park




The trail known as the Mouse's Tank


Mouse's Tank is also known for its Anasazi petroglyphs.








We entered the park via the Valley of Fire highway off of I-15, drove through the park, and exited on Northshore Road (the so-called scenic route) to head back to Vegas. It turned out, though, that the road was being re-asphalted, a section at a time, so we had to wait for a pilot car to guide us through, which we found amusing.


My Docs, which used to be black, but now ... aren't. A souvenir, I suppose.

Photoblog: Hoover Dam

Looking downstream from the dam

I had all these intentions of writing a travelogue for Las Vegas — and, in fact, I've started one — but honestly, the photographs are better and there's not much to say, anyhow, at least about Hoover Dam. We parked on the Arizona side, we walked across the dam, we looked down, we walked back. It was horrendously hot. (We had this thing in Vegas, where not only did we manage to visit during the hottest days of summer, in a drought year, but whenever we had to actually be in the baking sun, we would choose to do it right around high noon. We do things with conviction around here.)


They don't like the Black Spy at the dam. Presumably the White Spy is acceptable.


The entire structure is done in the Art Deco style from the 1930s, even the much more modern parking lot-gift shop-restrooms complex.






Lake Mead, on the other side of the dam. You can see the high water mark — someone told us that Lake Mead has lost 150 feet of depth in the last 10 years


Lake Mead from a lookout close to the dam (on the Nevada side). They have apparently moved the marina three times in the last 10 years.
We got the D90 literally two days before we left for Las Vegas, so this was the first time out for the camera. The verdict: the camera is everything we'd hoped for and more, but the tool is only as good as its wielder and it turns out that this wielder could not find a straight horizon line with two hands and a map.

In other news: the straightening tool in iPhoto is not only fabulous, but also my BFF. Digital darkrooms forever!

pictures from a vacation

We're back from Vegas. We took the red-eye, which leaves Vegas at 11:30 pm, and lands in Toronto at 6:30 (technically 6:45, but our flight was early) in the morning — which, not incidentally, is 3:30 Vegas time. About the only good things about the red-eye are that it's reasonably easy to sleep (albeit not well), because of the dark; we also got the chance to see a visiting friend who was leaving Toronto the same day, and we actually got to watch the morning fog burn off the downtown skyscrapers as we were being driven home; that was fun.

Otherwise, it really has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

I will most likely to do a travlogue or a photoblog or something, but until then, here's a quick summary of our trip:


Hoover Dam, looking south. The new bridge is supposedly opening this week.


Vegas sunrise outside our window, before our way-too-early-in-the-morning trip to the Valley of Fire.


Valley of Fire.


The kitchen (and the view from our countertop seats) at L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, our first meal in a Michelin-starred restaurant. The food, needless to say, was fabulous.


How do you follow up a Michelin-star dinner? By having brunch in a Thomas Keller restaurant: Bouchon, inside the Venetian.


A slightly blurry sign for LOVE, Cirque du Soleil's tribute to the Beatles. Slightly blurry is appropriate, as we missed the first 15 minutes of the show after I semi-collapsed from heatstroke in front of the Venetian. Good times. No, really — the show is fabulous.


Balloons inside the Bellagio. This has nothing to do with anything, except for the fact that I love balloons.


Pd's amazing photograph of the Luxor, taken outside our hotel with an improvised tripod and an 8-second exposure.