the rail trail

The rail trail is just beautiful. This is in Dundas ... beautiful, verdant Dundas :)

This is Toby .. on the rail trail :)

... the boys :)

It is unbelievably difficult to get these two to sit still long enough for a good picture ... Here are Toby and Calvin. It's been a long time since they've spent much time together, and I think both of them are enjoying it :).


Every day they go outside and play ...




They are always happy to come back in again :)

They are also quite good at making a mess of the door :)

Tobysitting trip!

June 14. Snow. JUNE 14!!! So this is my backyard in Sudbury. I was up in the art room of the Sudbury Art Gallery when this flash storm descended upon us, but even four or five hours later, the patches of snow still hadn't melted away. There was even snow on the roads... with ruts from car tires tracked through it. Wow. Is that a record? Snow in June? Here's another picture of the phenomenon (which caused power outages in parts of the city):
Unbelievable. As you can see, the snow was of the ice pellet variety. I was scheduled to leave the city later that day. It was a good time to leave, I think :).
It was Sunday... the start of a week of relaxation and dog sitting for a friend of mine in Dundas, the much warm(er) bit of southern Ontario.
I arrived in Dundas very late that evening, greeted a very happy dog (happy that we had arrive - myself and Calvin), and dropped into bed.
The next day was for getting my passport renewed (success!), and for catching up on sleep. That evening Andrea and I headed out to Toronto for some fun in the city with some friends ...

It was another late night, but a fun one, even for me (I'm not much of a city person :).
The next day (Tuesday), it rained, so I spend much of the day inside, with the dogs, and in the evening I attended Nolan's grade eight graduation. It was a really great event .. back at Redeemer College, seeing many people whom I'd known when I was a teacher back at HDCH.
On Wednesday morning, it was up early again, and out for breakfast at Cora's! Yes, there is now a Cora's in Ancaster! This photo (below) is of me, driving to Cora's... and the next picture is of me and Andrea :)


The rest of my week away from home (well, my northern home anyways), is yet to come :)

New hair style!

Not riveting news, perhaps, but fun for me nonetheless. This is one of those messy ponytails, my way. Just a new way of using butterfly clips .. :)


This is a view from the back. I managed to take this picture myself ... I'm impressed that my arm could twist that far around ...

And this is just an interesting shot ... I aimed for my head, and got the kitchen stove instead. It made the cut :).

Hope today is a good day for all!

Fire flowers!!!

May 31, 2009
It may be a little difficult to spot (I haven't figured out how to get truly stunning photographs with my little point and shoot digital camera ... AND I had a dog attached to my hand), but in the middle of this picture, are two of some of my favorite flowers! I've been waiting for my fire flowers to arrive, and finally, here they are! I don't know what they are actually called, but they tend to bloom in the early spring up here, and then they disappear after about a month or two. I also LOVE any purple/blue wild flowers. Chickory are my favorite, but there small purple flowers are beautiful too!
Here's another picture of the beautiful fire flower ... but it's a bit blurry. And I tried to get a better picture of the purple flowers too ... ah well. There's always a sunny day coming up where I can try again ... :)
Here is my patient dog ... waiting as I take photographs of flowers :).
And there he is ... happy in his crate after a nice long walk ...




This weekend was also the weekend of my little friend Henry's first birthday. Here is a picture of Henry and his mom (Leanne :). Happy birthday Henry!!!! The cake was SO delicious, and it was quite a lot of fun watching you figure out how to open presents!

Friday!!!

Friday!!! And this is me .. on my way to work at MacDonalds. The day is so beautiful once again, that I just had to pull the camera out ...



(I'm going to have to come up with some new ways of taking photographs of me ... ooh .. maybe the time has come to indulge in a tripod ...)
Calvin was out too ... loving the sun and the grass :).



This is my dandelion action shot.


Alas, work beckons, and Calvin, at least, must return indoors. Here he poses outside the door. I imagine he is soaking all the sun and sights up so that he will dream happy doggy dreams all day long. :).

Calvin sais "hi!" to D.O.P. :)

D.O.P. ... Calvin has something to say to you ... (he reminded me as I was getting ready to leave for work today). He told me (with his eyes) to go get my camera,



and then he lay down rather mournfully and said: that he misses you, and would I please put that up on our blog.
Then he sat up again and asked for a treat.

I, of course, gave it to him :) ... I mean, look at those eyes ... Here I am, in my morning turban, admitting that I cannot say no to my doggy's 'i want a treat please' eyes.

then I made myself a fruit smoothie. It's raining again today, but that's good ... I hope all the little plants and trees bloom like crazy! Have an amazing day D.O.P.! We love you! To everyone else - you too .. have a great day!

May long weekend!

TRIP TO HAMILTON
I made a foray into the great warm south of Ontario, this weekend. It's funny, because I am from there, and not much about spring in southern Ontario should surprise me, but there I was, unable to keep from exclaiming over and over again about the incredibly lush, vibrant, green, cultivated aliveness of it all. It was SO beautiful. So what was going on ... had I forgotten it? or is this just an especially green spring for Hamilton?

I also spent some time in great conversation with a friend of mine, Andrea. We like to get together to discuss life, love, and the mysteries of the universe :). We had breakfast at our favorite breakfast place - The Pancake House - on Main Street in Hamilton (which actually gets pretty close to Dundas...). At about 10:00, Andrea glanced at the clock, and did an impressive double take. "Tricia! We've got to go!!!". It was Sunday, and we always go to church at the Meeting House after breakfast. Now, I had been checking the clock responsibly myself, and at her reaction, I chuckled. "Don't worry silly, doesn't church start at 10:30?". It was then, that I began to suspect that perhaps Hamilton was not actually having a greener spring than usual ... because the Meeting House service does not start at 10:30 ... my Sudbury church service starts at 10:30. I had forgotten. It was disconcerting ... I didn't like that 'home' was becoming a stranger that I was needing to relearn! I later went to Fortinos to pick up some food, and couldn't, for the life of me, remember the name of that very visible, trademark Hamilton/Dundas food superstore. And now I know: I've been gone for too long. I can't believe this is happening. Hamilton had been home for so long.

And here is the littlest Dundas sweetheart, Maya. I wish I had a better photograph of her ... but I wanted to stick with pictures from this trip. Nina will be sending me some of the pictures she took of the two of us blowing bubbles together in the back yard... and when she does, I will put one up here. I stayed with Nina and Bruxy this weekend, and thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with them at my home away from home ... or ... my real home as they would insist on putting it. Here we are in the tent in the back yard. Maya is going to grow up loving the outdoors and the hiking/camping environment - just like her mama.
Nina is heroic - parenting, and preparing for the defense of her thesis. It is an amazing thesis, and I cannot wait to get a copy of it for myself.
Calvin stayed with James, Arienne, and Nolan this weekend ... and loved it :).

Here you can see him moping in the back seat - it was time to leave. And just one more picture ... (I really was blown away at the beauty of the outdoors in Hamilton).
This is the street James and the kids live on. In the end,


itwas a perfectly lovely weekend.

Debut entry!!!

This is me :). I am taking a picture of me, outside my place on a beautiful sunshiny day. Actually, this was yesterday. Today it's raining outside, but my memories of the sunshine are strong ...
I've started this blog ... as something a little different from my portfolio/art blogspot. This will be a collection of photographs, written things, and anything else I really want to share about my life. It will help people to keep up with what I'm up to - in a visual way.



And this is my dog Calvin. He doesn't understand why I point that little box thingy at him periodically ... but he puts up with it. His adventures and my adventures are very much intertwined, so you'll likely see lot's of him in the future too.



Over on the left again ... is the rain. I'm about to walk through that, to work. It's alright, I like the rain. Calvin and I love to go for walks in thunderstorms - one of the amazing things about being human (and canine) is that we are basically waterproof. We dry off rather than disintegrate. Brilliant design!

Anyways ... there's always coffee to warm a person up. Here's mine ... brewing ...


Time to leave the
warmth of my
kitchen! See you
all later :).