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The conversion to black and white has brought more of the detail out in the snow in front of the dogs.
147\365 this photo got explored yesterday. cool. www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/2011/2/7/page32
i wont have time to upload today after this, much less take a picture.
i took this one yesterday as well and i think its my favorite.
i hope you all have a wonderful day.
Flickr Lounge ~ Photographer's Choice
Thank you to everyone who pauses long enough to look at my photo. Any comments or Faves are very much appreciated.
Thursday, 31 December 2020, New Year's Eve: our temperature is -6C (windchill -11C) at 11:30 am. Sunrise is at 8:39 am, and sunset is at 4:40 pm. A sunny morning.
Happy New Year, everyone! Hopefully, 2021 will eventually start to look a little bit more like 'normal', though it looks like it will be a few months before that can start happening. 2020 was certainly a devastating year, more so for some than for others. Stay safe, stay well.
On 15 December 2020, it was the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count for the High River area, south of Calgary. The Nanton Count used to be my favourite, but it no longer exists. Now, the High River Count is my favourite one, so I was really disappointed to not take part in it this time.
This year, I will not be taking part in any of the Counts, partly because I feel that with participant numbers being limited, the people with the very best birding skills should be the ones who go. I would feel very selfish if I took up a place. Also, being unable to carpool, there is no way I would be able to drive in the dark, with lousy night vision, at the beginning and end of the day. These wonderful day outings will be missed SO much and, of course, I will miss out on all the precious photo opportunities that I would be able to happily use. Instead, though, I can always go for a few drives out of the city on my own, depending on the weather.
Which is exactly what I did on this day. My car was on the road by 9:30 am and I covered part of the Count route, plus various other roads. No visits to any of the farms, though. In fact, I ended up driving much further than I had intended.
The clouds in one direction were simply mesmerising and lasted for several hours. When I first arrived at my 'starting point', I thought there must be a fire somewhere in the distance, sending two billowing clouds upwards between the horizon and the 'ceiling' of the Chinook Arch. Very slowly, the two patches of cloud changed their shape and eventually turned into just ordinary little clouds that would never catch the eye. I have never seen anything like it before, with two pillars of Lenticular clouds that were stacked on top of each other. At the end of the show, the pillar on the right had thinned at the bottom and widened hugely at the top, forming what looked like an Anvil cloud. The bright light around each pillar was dazzling. Luckily, I found an old, very distant barn/shed to include in a photo, and a row of metal silos to include in other captures.
Some of my photos are not as sharp as I would have liked, partly because I zoomed in so much and also because they were taken from inside my vehicle in order to avoid getting in and out constantly. That was supposed to put less strain on my painful knee and my shoulder rotator cuff pain. Still happy to have some photo memories of such an almost magical experience.
Feeling relaxed and content as I started my drive home, I was delighted to see an unexpected bird in the distance, perched high up on a power pole. It was a beautiful Prairie Falcon, who just sat there while I took photos through the windshield.
In the end, I just gave in and climbed out of my car to take a few extra shots. I hadn't realized how windy it was until I got out and stood against my vehicle. The bird was still sitting there when I left. As far as other birds were concerned, all I saw were two Black-billed Magpies and three small flocks of tiny birds. Suspect the first two flocks were probably House Sparrows. Not sure what the third flock was.
An enjoyable day, out in big sky countryside, hardly a soul to be seen anywhere (other than friend, Jim, who was doing the same as I was doing after he had finished his Count area). Some familiar barns/sheds and a fascinating old homestead that I had first discovered on 25 January 2020, completed the day.
Serenity is to keep oneself so to speak above the clouds, in the calm and coolness of emptiness and far from all the dissonances of this lower world; it is never to allow the soul to immerse itself in impasses of disturbances, bitterness, or secret revolt, for it is necessary to beware of implicitly accusing Being when accusing some phenomenon.
Serenity is resignation, at once intellectual and moral, to the nature of things: it is patience in relation to All-Possibility insofar as the latter requires, by its very limitlessness, the existence of negative possibilities, those that deny Being and the qualities manifesting It.
Serenity consists in resigning oneself to that destiny, at once unique and permanent, which is the present moment: to this itinerant “now” that no one can avoid and that in its substance pertains to the Eternal.
The man who is conscious of the nature of pure Being willingly remains in the moment that Heaven has assigned him; he is not feverishly straining towards the future nor lovingly or sadly bent over the past. The pure present is the moment of the Absolute: it is now — neither yesterday nor tomorrow — that we stand before God.
----
excerpts from Roots of the Human Condition by Frithjof Schuon
This would have been much better had I taken the Manfrotto and some NDs. Instead I took an excitable labratriever that I am convinced is part dolphin and only got this instead. Schoolboy error.
Having spent the day loading in Gilgandra, 48122/48140 are seen working south through Eumungerie with a fully loaded grain train.
Thursday, 17 December 2020: temperature is PLUS 3C (windchill PLUS 1C) at 1:00 pm. Sunrise is at 8:35 am, and sunset is at 4:30 pm. A mix of sun and cloud.
The day before yesterday, 15 December 2020, was the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count for the High River area, south of Calgary. The Nanton Count used to be my favourite, but it no longer exists. Now, the High River Count is my favourite one, so I was really disappointed to not take part in it this time.
This year, I will not be taking part in any of the Counts, partly because I feel that with participant numbers being limited, the people with the very best birding skills should be the ones who go. I would feel very selfish if I took up a place. Also, being unable to carpool, there is no way I would be able to drive in the dark, with lousy night vision, at the beginning and end of the day. These wonderful day outings will be missed SO much and, of course, I will miss out on all the precious photo opportunities that I would be able to happily use. Instead, though, I can always go for a few drives out of the city on my own, depending on the weather.
Which is exactly what I did two days ago. My car was on the road by 9:30 am and I covered part of the Count route, plus various other roads. No visits to any of the farms, though. In fact, I ended up driving much further than I had intended.
The clouds in one direction were simply mesmerising and lasted for several hours. When I first arrived at my 'starting point', I thought there must be a fire somewhere in the distance, sending two billowing clouds upwards between the horizon and the 'ceiling' of the Chinook Arch. Very slowly, the two patches of cloud changed their shape and eventually turned into just ordinary little clouds that would never catch the eye. I have never seen anything like it before, with two pillars of Lenticular clouds that were stacked on top of each other. At the end of the show, the pillar on the right had thinned at the bottom and widened hugely at the top, forming what looked like an Anvil cloud. The bright light around each pillar was dazzling. Luckily, I found an old, very distant barn/shed to include in a photo, and a row of metal silos to include in other captures.
My photos are not as sharp as I would have liked, partly because I zoomed in so much and also because they were taken from inside my vehicle in order to avoid getting in and out constantly. That was supposed to put less strain on my painful knee and my shoulder rotator cuff pain. Still happy to have some photo memories of such an almost magical experience.
Feeling relaxed and content as I started my drive home, I was delighted to see an unexpected bird in the distance, perched high up on a power pole. It was a beautiful Prairie Falcon, who just sat there while I took photos through the windshield.
In the end, I just gave in and climbed out of my car to take a few extra shots. I hadn't realized how windy it was until I got out and stood against my vehicle. The bird was still sitting there when I left. As far as other birds were concerned, all I saw were two Black-billed Magpies and three small flocks of tiny birds. Suspect the first two flocks were probably House Sparrows. Not sure what the third flock was.
An enjoyable day, out in big sky countryside, hardly a soul to be seen anywhere (other than friend, Jim, who was doing the same as I was doing). Some familiar barns/sheds and a fascinating old homestead that I had first discovered on 25 January 2020, completed the day.
Holmbury St. Mary is a village in Surrey, England, located around 4.5 miles (7.2 km) southwest of Dorking and around 8 miles (13 km) southeast of Guildford. The greater part of the village lies in the borough of Guildford, within Shere civil parish, but a small part to the east lies in the district of Mole Valley, within Abinger civil parish.
With the view in the background of the parish church, St Mary The Virgin at the centre of the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty which occupies a commanding position on the hill overlooking the village green.
Designed and built by George Edmund Street, the Church’s story began in 1872 when Street visited the picturesque village of Felday as it was then called. His wife Mariquita liked it so much that she described it as "Heaven's Gate" and the couple decided to move there from London.
Street began to build a large house, Holmdale, its name inspired by the village's position in the valley below Holmbury Hill. Unfortunately, Felday really was "Heaven's Gate" for Mariquita, who died in 1874, before the house was completed. Street remarried in 1876, only for his new bride, Jessie, to fall ill on their honeymoon and die soon afterwards.
As a devout adherent to the Church of England, he designed, oversaw and paid for the building of a new parish church, St. Mary the Virgin, in her memory. He used local stone, with Bath stone as a feature around the windows and so on. Most of the stained glass and many of the furnishings and fittings were also designed by Street.
The church was completed in 1879 and in the same year, the village was combined with nearby Pitland Street and renamed Holmbury St. Mary, after Holmbury Hill and the new church — an unusual case of a village being named after a church.
One of his last works, it is certainly very striking, especially when coming into the village. This is partly because it is built on a steep slope, which makes it look taller than it actually is.
Street died in 1881, at the age of 57, soon after suffering a stroke while walking home from the Gomshall railway station. His death is said to have been hastened by the strain of working on the Law Courts in the Strand.
Such was his stature; he was buried in Westminster Abbey. The Lady Chapel at St Mary's has a full size rubbing of his tomb on the wall.
Poem.
Mysterious.
Enigmatic.
Other-worldly.
Like a scene from “Middle-Earth.”
Mists cling to the breathing forests
on a calm, grey morning in late autumn.
Subtle, mellow hues mingle and mix on the slopes
like water-colours on an artist’s palette.
The uniform bottle-green of the pine forest.
Low, yellowy-white and grey clouds linger above, as the sun strains to break through.
The purple-grey hills of Loch Linnhe form
a neat, stable, regular back-cloth.
Near the shoreline stands of birch,
now leafless, present a violet haze,
as light fringes their upper canopy.
And this scene is mirrored in the mill-pond stillness of Loch Eil.
Snapping us out of our mesmeric trance,
the white vehicle, brings a human context,
back from a surreal moment,
and all spectators, promptly back to Earth.
to the left you see the background from a moa wholecar. it can be found on www.time2bomb.dk/2006/trains21.asp
A very simple still-life composition today, Perhaps though if there's just one item, it's not a composition!
Had it been discovered a decade earlier, Jha Jha in the Bihar State of eastern India would have been a mecca for steam enthusiasts. In 1979 most freight was diesel, but all but the most prestigious expresses were still steam hauled, requiring an engine change at Jha Jha and bankers for most southbound trains over a low range of hills.
Train 50 bound for Howrah (Calcutta) departs Jha Jha on the morning of 12 January 1979 with WP 7446 up front and WG 9276, built by Hitachi of Japan in 1955, banking at the rear.
Processed from an Agfa CT18 colour scan.
img287_Jha Jha
The sainfoin that is growing in the wild here is pretty and tough. Even after several days of minus temperatures, the sainfoin is still flowering, along with some clover.
Sainfoin is a forage legume that was first imported from Russia as a non bloating alternative to alfalfa. It fell out of favor though because it wouldn't persist after a couple of growing seasons. Now there is a new strain called AC Mountainview that is said to persist when grown with alfalfa. So, starting in 2016, look for more of these pretty flowers in Alberta farm fields.