Harbingers of Spring

That's what my sister said when she saw these American robin pictures (right and below) Ron took at the end of March. It was one week after the first official day of Spring but the snow banks were still high in our neighbourhood making it hard to believe that it really WAS Spring. Some years a few robins even over-winter in the Bluffs. Migrants started arriving in Toronto a few weeks earlier but were yet to appear in my sister's area of Northern Ontario. These robins were just two of about a dozen frantically gobbling up last-year's fruit both under and in three ornamental crab trees. The robin below seems unimpressed with the snow. But the robins weren't alone in their feeding frenzy nor were they what drew us to shoot at that location.

We subscribe to ONTBIRDS a free email service provided by the Ontario Field Ornithologists (OFO) were birders share their sightings of interesting birds. On this sunny day it was a report of Bohemian Waxwings that enticed us out to the crab trees. Neither of us had ever even seen that bird species - let alone photographed them!




As we were leaving our house we noticed a small flock of Cedar Waxwings (above and right) high up in the trees in ours and the neighbouring front yard. Since Cedar and Bohemian Waxwings are often seen together (just not by us), we watched them carefully with binoculars to be sure that there weren't any Bohemian's amongst them. No luck, so off we went to the reported location.

When we arrived the robins and some starlings were the first birds we spotted. But in a few minutes a flock of Cedar Waxwings flew into the trees. Ron of course was already shooting whatever bird decided to pose. As the birds flew in and out of the trees we soon realized that quietly and without fanfare the Cedar Waxwings had been joined by Bohemians. Our first sighting! (Below)
For the next couple of hours Ron would photograph the birds as they fed and flew in and out of the trees. They seem to come in waves, sometimes being a mixture of bird species or sometimes just Bohemian waxwings alone. Mostly they seemed oblivious to us but occasionally one would cock its head wondering at the sound of Ron's camera as he clicked away. He gave them lots of space as he was shooting with a 500mm lens. But even at that distance they sometimes would fly by so close to him he could feel the wind from their wings. It was a lovely experience.

We were also treated to our first Northern Mockingbird sighting of the year when it swooped in to participate in the crab-apple buffet. Ron didn't get any pictures but here are a few from last year.

Now the snow has disappeared from our yard but I continue to monitor Spring's progress. A few days after we saw the waxwings my sister finally saw her first robin of the season and in ONTBIRDS they were reported further north in the Temiskaming District on April 3rd. I'm anticipating my first warbler sightings of the season. As early as Mar 2nd ONTBIRDS had reported sightings of yellow-rumped warblers in Ottawa, but they were only reported south at Point Pelee and near us in Whitby on April 8th. When I finally get to spot a warbler peeking out from apple blossoms like this yellow warbler that's when I'll know for sure that it's really Spring!

It's Not Easy Being Green!

Northern Leopard Frog
(SARA/COSEWIC lists as Special Concern/Endangered in some parts of Canada)

Or should I say, “it isn't easy to become green”? We (that’s Ron Erwin and I) are “trying” to become green or at least to be greener in everything we do – whether in our personal or business lives. But “living” itself really isn’t very environmentally friendly, and living in Canada with its cold northern climate pretty much means that the burning of fossil fuels will be required for heat from late September until at least late April - even here in Toronto. (Although this year you might remember from my Beach blog posting that it was still warm enough to sit on a beach in mid-October and we didn’t turn on our heat until around the 17^th. Maybe that’s even more proof – as if we needed any - of global warming?) At least we do turn down our gas furnace the recommended 5°C nightly or while we are away and to do so we don’t need a programmable thermostat (which just takes more energy to manufacture and run). But it looks like that Northern Leopard Frog above still expects more of us.

(Right: Male Green Frog)

Of course we do the basics: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. We try not to buy what we don’t need and when we do need something we try to buy it locally with less packaging, and from green sources. This too is challenging and sometimes impossible as even the food stores within walking distance to our house pack many items, such as meats and even some vegetables on Styrofoam trays. At this time of year if we want more variety in our diet than just meat and potatoes then the food has to be trucked in from somewhere and that somewhere is probably very far away. Are hothouse tomatoes grown in Ontario more environmentally friendly than ones grown outside and trucked in from Mexico? I don’t know. It doesn’t seem we have much choice when it comes to food or at least not in mid-January.

(left: Bullfrog among lily pads)
So when we moved our website (including this and Ron’s blog) to a new host last week we were very happy that the chosen host company is a “certified green host”. Click on the icon
for more information as to what that means. Reading about our host being carbon neutral got us thinking more about the technology we use in the photography industry and our business’s carbon footprint. Digital images don’t require harsh chemicals to be developed like film but they do require electricity consuming computers. So on Monday we decided to cash in our GST windfall (thanks to Prime Minister Harper) and signed up to become bullfrogpowered.

This means we will be paying 3.4 - 3.9 cents more per kilowatt-hour for electricity for our home/office, but Bullfrog Power will inject green power equal to the amount we consume into the Ontario power grid. In Ontario the source of this green power is 20% wind generated and 80% from low-impact hydroelectric power. In Alberta they are doing better – 100% is wind generated and it only costs 2 cents per kWh (typically just 50 cents more per day than the usual sources for the average home).

Castle River Wind Farm near Pincher Creek, Alberta

This doesn’t mean that we’ll be drawing our power directly from a wind turbine (I wish!) in our neighbourhood. But it does mean that more clean energy will be generated on our behalf. Eventually with more homes and businesses signing up then more clean sources (maybe solar?) will be added, the price of Ontario’s green power will come down, and hopefully the non-green sources will no longer be required. We also hope our willingness to pay more for green power helps send a message to our government - to help push the Ontario government to finally close Ontario’s coal power plants as promised and replace them with something other than Nuclear Power. But it is also a message for the Federal Government. That rather than GST cuts that reward consumption and consumerism, we want our tax money to go toward solving the global warming problem. It was made very clear this week that our Federal government cannot be trusted to ensure the safety of Canada’s nuclear power plants with the firing of the head of the Nuclear Safety Commission just for doing her job.

(Above: Bullfrog Among Lily Pads)

Unfortunately our switch to Bullfrog Power does not happen until the next time our electrical meter is read in mid-March. In the meantime and even after the switch we will continue to try to further reduce our energy consumption and our carbon footprint by:

• Travelling and driving less. We will continue to take mass transit or walk whenever possible (I’m sure our bodies will thank us for the added exercise);
• Replacing incandescent light-bulbs. Ninety-nine percent of our incandescent light-bulbs have already been replaced with energy saving compact fluorescent bulbs. We hope to replace the remaining ones with even better LEDs perhaps from here.
• Remembering to bring our reusable shopping bags to the store more often. Better yet? Always!
• Pushing our neighbourhood’s grocers to stock more locally grown food and to wrap meat with paper rather than plastic and Styrofoam.
  
• Turning down the heat and stopping draughts. Today we decided to set the thermostat to 68F rather than 70F. I’ve got on an extra sweater right now but I’m hoping I eventually acclimatize to this small change. I also put some weather-stripping around the back screen door which amazingly enough stopped the wind howling around its edges. So I’m now inspired to look around the house for more gaps that can be stopped.
• Use big energy consuming appliances as little as possible. I’ll let my long hair air dry more often and use my blow-dryer less. Eighteen months ago we already stopped using our clothes-dryer. Instead we hang all our laundry to air dry. At this time of year we dry the clothes on racks inside the house. But in nicer weather we have a portable umbrella style clothes line. When needed we just insert the umbrella’s pole into the ground spike and open the umbrella. The ground spike has a cap to keep out rain when not in use. It can even be run right over with a lawn mower (preferably human powered not gas!). I understand that some communities don’t allow clotheslines as they think they are unsightly. The umbrella dryer may not be a work of art but I think these white sheets drying on a clothes line in Newfoundland are– don’t you?

Good Intentions

This is my first posting of 2008. Time, the years, my life - it is all really flying by! Is that why at this time of year we always find it necessary to make resolutions? Normally, I don't resolve to do anything specific. Of course throughout the year I always have a running to-do list that includes things like: loose weight; exercise; clean the basement; and the other usual things that some people would call resolutions. This year I'm thinking not about resolve, but good intentions. So here are my good intentions for the year:

I intend to get out more into the rural areas of Ontario, to get to know our province better by taking hikes through its rugged vistas like this one along the Chikanishing Trail in Killarney Provincial Park:

But I also intend to be in a canoe more often, to jump in and give my arms a good work out not only by going for short paddles in Lake Ontario and any other navigable body of water that might be nearby, but also to go on overnight canoe trips into the interior of Ontario's many organized parks and wilderness areas. The image to the right shows me paddling on the Montreal River - an access point into Lady Evelyn-Smoothwater Provincial Park northwest of Temagami.

Algonquin is another favourite place of ours for canoe-in camping. The north side is not as busy as the south. I would like to get back to this wonderful campsite (below) on Lake Manitou (accessed at Kiosk near North Bay, Ontario).

There we had pitched our tent on a hill with a view facing east right up the lake. In the morning I could lay in bed and watch the sun come up over the flat, mist-covered water beyond my feet. It is highly unusual for us to be in bed while the sun is rising. We normally are up long before first light to be ready to shoot at some previously scouted location. But on this trip on Lake Manitou we decided we would take a bit of a rest - almost a holiday. Ron let me lay in bed but he couldn't resist the mirror-like flatness of the lake. He got up and photographed himself paddling off into the mist (below).
So this year I intend not only to canoe more, but to watch the sun rise over a lake and from bed more often. But besides getting into our canoe often, I intend to also use my kayak more but drive less. Driving less means we will spend more time in Ontario and won't be doing anything as dangerous as launching our kayaks near icebergs like this one stuck in the harbour at La Scie in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Yes that is me and my kayak in that image. Ron is photographing me from his kayak. He likes to tell the history of this picture, how it is only my 4th time in a kayak and there I am in the North Atlantic near a BIG iceberg. We even had to paddle through small ice flows, pack ice or bergy bits to get this shot. You'll notice that we were lucky and the water was relatively flat for the ocean - probably as flat as it ever gets. He makes me sound brave. However we both know better. It was not a very safe or smart thing to do - especially when you consider at the time that I didn't know how to recover from a wet exit and get back into my kayak. I eventually did practice that manoeuvre in a warm lake in water over my head but very close to shore. It's harder than it sounds to right your boat, haul yourself out of the water and back into a very easily tipped kayak. I eventually managed but we both know that had I tipped on that day by that iceberg that I would have succumbed to the bone numbing cold water in much less time than it would have taken to right the kayak and climb back in. So this year I am not only going to continue to practice recovering from wet exits but I intend to learn how to stay in the kayak and roll myself upright. It's a long 17-foot sea kayak but I'm told rolling is possible - hopefully I won't drown trying to find out!

Other good intentions:

to get to know more interesting people like Margery above, and have fun by visiting more frequently with friends and family like these two below hamming it up for the camera:
I also intend to finally sign up (and actually attend) a class where I hope to learn how to use Ron's nature images such as this one below of a Long-tailed Duck
and turn it into my own stained glass art, perhaps a window something like this:

Also since we intend to drive less we will be home more. So I intend to enjoy our house and yard more. To that end I intend to turn our weedy yard into a native wildflower garden that will attract birds such as this yellow warbler (left)
or this monarch butterfly (below right).
Not only will we enjoy seeing more birds and butterflies in our yard but it means Ron can photograph them right here, without going anywhere. That should help with the good intent of driving less too. The intent to canoe and kayak more should also help with those old to-do list items of loosing weight and getting more exercise. So keep watching this blog over the next year and I'll let you know how it is going and whether I've managed to turn my good intentions into actions.

Happy Holidays!

Life's a Beach?

After having practically a heat wave at Thanksgiving the weather has since returned to more seasonal fall temperatures. This means we've broken down and are actually turning on the furnace - even during the day - not just in the evenings when we are being couch potatoes. That was when it hit me that summer really was over. What alarmed me about that though was that I hadn't been swimming even once! This is the first time in my life (and I'm no spring chicken) this has ever happened.

So what did happen? Why didn't I go swimming this year?

We hit the road shortly after summer arrived. Our first main stop was the historic old city of Quebec. It was hot. Really hot. A swim would have felt good after climbing all those hills and steps around the old city. Above right: Staircase at the Rue du Petit-Chaplain)

But where do you swim in this busy city on the edge of the St. Lawrence River? As you can see from this picture (left) I wasn't even bright enough to wear shorts all the time let alone something more appropriate for swimming. But diving off this dock with ferries and other boats nearby would not have been safe. And we were too busy touring the city, sampling the food, and shooting to look for public beaches or even a pool in our hotel.

After Quebec City we headed off to New Brunswick's Kouchibouguac National Park. There we would take the boardwalk across the lagoon to Kelly's Beach and the dunes on the Barrier Islands in the Atlantic (below). Ron did go in swimming, but I found the wind too strong and cool for me to swim let alone to expose much skin and risk a sand blasting.

From Kouch we moved on to Inverness, Nova Scotia. Yes, that's another beach on the Atlantic and we've even swam there before. But this time both the water and the air were still too cool for even Ron to swim, although we did have to wade across a small cold stream to get this picture below.
Further North we would camp in Cape Breton Highlands National Park on a cliff overlooking a rugged beach like this one below:
Still, it's not a good spot for a dip.

Newfoundland being an island means it is of course surrounded by water. However it is in the North Atlantic, its beaches are mostly rugged, and although the weather is sometimes warm or even hot it is almost always windy. The thought of swimming didn't really cross our minds once we were beyond the lovely sand beach at J.T. Cheeseman Provincial Park. Since photographing the Endangered piping plover is one of our pet projects (we are practically plover stalkers) we spent a day at the park checking the beach for nesting plovers. We didn't find any though, perhaps because we could barely open our eyes against the sand-blasting wind. If we had found some would we really want to take out a camera and big lens and risk giving it a sanding? Probably not. Later, when the wind finally died down enough to get this picture below it was much too chilly to even contemplate swimming.

Besides when the light is good we are supposed to be shooting right?


So we would photograph many rugged beaches in Newfoundland:

Right: Cape Ray, Newfoundland ->

Above and Below: Green Gardens, Gros Morne National Park, NL

<- The Arches Provincial Park, Newfoundland

Sometimes the problem wasn't just that the landscape was rugged, but that there were icebergs and bergy bits nearby. That would make any swimming more like a polar bear dip.

Below: Icebergs and bergy bits off the shore of Straitsview, near L'Anse aux Meadows, NL

In Labrador there were many potential beautiful swimming spots like these below:

Above & Below: Port Hope Simpson, Labrador, NL

Above: Near Cartwright, Labrador, NL

But they didn't entice us to swim because we were already wearing what Ron calls "Labrador Evening wear". (See image right)

But even if there hadn't been any bugs, to swim in water with icebergs like this one below:

would really require a nice layer of blubber like this minke whale below.
On our way home we stopped along the Bay of Fundy to shoot the huge flocks of shorebirds that gather on the Bay's shores on their way south. I must admit taking a mud bath was tempting!

But only Ron's sandals really got to test it out.

Once we were back in our home town there were still plenty of warm days when a swim would have been nice. We live near a nice looking long beach along the Scarborough Bluffs (below) and will occasionally even eat a picnic lunch there. But swim? No. Unfortunately out of the 10 Toronto beaches it is one of the two that still regularly close because of high bacterial counts. Perhaps the erosion of the clay bluffs cause silting into the water and is contributing to the problem.

I hear that the weather over the next few days is supposed to be around 20C, or "beach weather" as Ron would call it. So what do you think? Should I find a nice lake somewhere and take the plunge just to break this non-swimming record? I just might - but first let me go find my wet suit.

Thanksgiving

It's hard to always feel thankful. I must admit that I wasn't feeling very thankful exactly one week ago today when we were saying our final farewells to Ron's Father. Then there was that other sudden phone call about my Mother being in the hospital. But there is something about Thanksgiving that makes one really stop and think about things - take another assessment. This year I find my mind keeps returning to last Thanksgiving which we spent with Ron's parents in Brockville, Ontario.

It was beautiful weather all weekend in this historic old Loyalist town on the St. Lawrence River that was named for Sir Isaac Brock - Canada's hero in the War of 1812. It was the way it should be at Thanksgiving - cool enough to wear jackets but sunny enough to have blue skies behind those beautifully coloured leaves. That contrasts with today which is incredibly hot and muggy with hazy skies.

The first morning in Brockville we got up early enough to catch some rowers in the mist on the St. Lawrence silhouetted against the rising sun. We walked around Blockhouse Island - which was one of Ron's Dad's favourite spots to watch the boats and the ships going down the river.
His Dad also took us on a driving tour of the area and we ended up watching ships go through the locks at Prescott, Ontario.
His Dad's fascination with ships probably goes back to his Navy days in WWII. Later he would talk about those days and the many adventures he had while assigned to a harbour patrol boat in Sidney, NS. One evening we also would play a friendly game of Euchre and wagers would be placed. At the end of the tournament Ron and I found ourselves up a Loonie in spite of the usual cross table talk by our opponents - such as when his Dad would ask or perhaps state, "Now if I order my partner up I have to go alone right?". We would laugh when he would then decide to pass and Ron's Mom would pick it up, and laugh even harder when his Dad would complain about us getting into his whiskey - something he rarely touched himself. We were always told it would be added to our bill which we would get in the morning - and of course which we never received. No doubt also over the weekend Ron's Dad and I would have one of our "discussions" - a sort of debate of the politics of the day as he took his role as a Senior seriously with its requirement to complain about the government full-time. But in these debates he always let me be who I was too, and let me have my own opinion - seemed even to appreciate that I had one. No doubt I've missed an interesting discussion about this week's Ontario election and referendum. Last Thanksgiving wasn't our last visit with Ron's Dad but it was one of those memories I am savouring and am extremely thankful to have.

So this Thanksgiving I am thankful for last Thanksgiving and having had 27 years to get to know Ron's Dad. Of course I am also thankful for the same things I always have been - the love of a wonderful spouse, our health, and family. But as we mourn my Father-in-law and worry about our Mothers it hit me that I should be thankful for the fact that I'm part of TWO wonderful families! That's a lot to be thankful for!

Some images from the way home:


- Swirling water in the Jones Falls Lockstation on the Rideau Canal, Jones Falls, Ontario

St. Barnaby's Catholic Church, Seeleys Bay, Ontario

Getting Started with a Dream

Last night I went to bed mulling over this blog. I was stewing over the technical problems of switching from blogging at http://ronerwin.blogspot.com to our own server at http://ronerwin.com . But I was also wondering how on earth I would even start writing again after a hiatus of over a year, many weeks of traveling, and thousands of images later when the idea of the blog was to document our photographic journeys. Do I go back and pick-up where I left off and make the postings sequential by date or post randomly? Or, do I skip the last year that took us through the western provinces and north to the Yukon,

(Kluane National Park, YT)

and more recently to the east coast including Newfoundland and Labrador? (Labrador iceberg right)
That was my dilemma. So this is where my dream comes in.


When I visualize the word “dream” I see it in wavy lines like italics. It’s the same for the actual images of my dreams. In my head they are all wavy or misty like this image taken last Thanksgiving of the sun rising over the St. Lawrence River in Brockville, Ontario.

But I digress… The first image I recall from last night’s dream is of me and this grumpy bald guy I once worked with walking on the gravel road past the wildflower filled forest (like this one at Sandbanks Provincial Park below) towards the dairy farm where I was raised.

Mr. Bald & Grumpy suddenly had long chin-length dark hair and I thought to myself that Ron would find it really funny that his hair had improved both Mr. B&G’s looks AND his disposition. So the Reformed B&G and I arrive at the farm and go into the barn for some sort of photography class (possibly given by Ron). But the barn is now more of a huge industrial building or warehouse. There were people from my past lives – some I worked with and others I grew up with (cousins actually), milling around in the milking area of the former stable. But the stanchions and gutters were gone. I wandered about taking note of all the differences in the stable and getting in trouble with IT guys for opening doors and peering into weird and oddly placed cupboards and exposing network wiring. We were each to give some sort of photographic presentation on farms. I was dreading giving my presentation as I didn’t know what to present. As I listened to one European immigrant city woman give her presentation on “farming today” I looked about marvelling over the differences in the barn compared to when I was a kid – such as the staircase that now descended from the hay mow above the stable through the feed hole that was formerly used to drop hay or straw bails below. Then it suddenly hit me! I would do my presentation on the farm of my childhood – how I once jumped through that very feedhole/now staircase onto a soft pile of straw below and lived to tell the tale. In the farm of my childhood, we kids (and there were many of us especially when you add in the neighbours and/or cousins) played in corn fields with stalks so high that we couldn’t see over them but yet we didn’t get lost. Today’s corn fields are being encroached on by new subdivisions like this one in Markham, Ontario, (below) where you wouldn’t let your small kids play outside alone let alone in corn fields.
So I would do my presentation on the farm of my childhood – the one with a well treed hill with many mighty oaks and birch trees for climbing. Everyone’s favourite was a paper birch tree into which someone (possibly an older brother?) had inserted an old tractor’s steering wheel. As the tree grew it absorbed the steering wheel into its limbs as if it was really a part of it and turned the tree into our airplane and a perfect place to let our childish imaginations soar.



I was smiling as I recalled these real memories in my dream, and this is when I woke up - still smiling, for I now knew what to do. I would just write this blog about anything at all – memories, movies, our travels – wherever the day, the road, my dreams or life takes me. But each post will of course feature images and/or photographs by Ron, my partner in life and in Ron Erwin Photography.

I hope that I’ve made you curious as this fox (above) on the Alaska Highway in BC, and that from time to time you’ll visit me here at Lori’s Log to see what’s going on – in the past, the present or just my head! And please, leave some sign that you've visited.

Labrador Innukshuk ->