Saturday Photo: Down the Rapids toward a New Book...

 Okay, the next step is taken!  Friday morning I sent off the completed (but unedited) manuscript of my next book Thanks to the Memories: How Remembering Will Get Us through the Next 75 Years. Dundurn Press will publish this book about individual and collective memory a year from now. In the meantime here's one of the images that I'm suggesting for the finished product for reasons that will become clear as the book's production progresses.

Saturday Photo: Ducks and Oil Sands This Wednesday

A heads up: the Atwater Library book group will be talking about Kate Beaton's graphic novel Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 5. It will be a Zoom meeting, so register with Jason Grant-- jason@atwaterlibrary.ca --to get the link, which will be sent out shortly before the meeting.

The book, which won a slew of prizes after it came out in 2022, is more relevant than ever.

 

Saturday Photo: Sun Trying to get There....

 Cloudy weather, a little snow, not much sunshine...That's the way the year is starting here.  Could be worse, could be smokey. .. 

Saturday Photo: The Kings Are Coming...It's Not Over Yet

Our holiday table still is set for friends to join us.  In January you can't get enough good times....

Saturday Photo: Happy Holidays

Best wishes for a great holiday season and a 2025 filled with good surprises.  Here's the link to my Christmas blog, in case you'd like to see more about us. https://soderstromyule.blogspot.com/

Saturday Photo: Christmas Flower, Vivid Colours for a Monotone World

Saturday Photo: Better Late Than Never

First snow much later than usual.  But lovely, all the same even though people seem to be doing a lot of slipping and sliding.  Takes a couple of days of driving in weather like this before the snow-driving skills kick in.

 

Saturday Photo: Word to the Wise....

 Went to the Technoparc this morning, hoping to see some birds. Only chickadees though, one of which landed on my walking stick. The ponds were frozen which reminded me of a book our kids liked a lot. In it, Hamilton Duck discovers that suddenly HIS pond is frozen. "Duck, who was wise, said Winter is here."

Saturday Photo: For My American Friends During This Thanksgiving Week...

Lots of talk from south of the border about deporting millions of illegal immigrants.  Not going to do a bit to bring prices down, or make life any easier for anyone. That's because so much of our food (here and in the US) is produced by folks from away, some with papers, some with none.

 

Saturday Photo: What I Feel Like These Days...

Life is not easy, the future is uncertain, it's rough out there....
 

Saturday Photo: Thinking of Getting a Hypoallergenic Cat...

 Visited a cattery (not at all a cat house) to see if members of the family react to Siberian cats with an eye to getting one.  The good news is that despite cuddling with six Siberian females, all concerned report no allergic symptoms.  Yay!

Saturday Photo: First Morning of Standard Time

 It was "Fall back" time today, so we woke up extra early and made it to the Technoparc before the sun was up.  Frost on everything, birds still asleep, but a lovely sunrise.

Satuday Photo: Some Strange Creatures at the Lachine Rapids

It looks like some folks had a grand time preparing for Halloween at le Parc des Rapides de Lachine.  About a dozen carefully carved pumpkins were dotted around the park the weekend before the holiday, some of them in pretty hard-to-reach places.  Kudos for originality. 

 

Saturday Photo: Thanksgiving Greetings

Heat on, considering getting out winter coat. A chilly Thanksgiving day. Not at all religious but very grateful for all I and my dear ones have. Everyone should be so lucky!

Saturday Photo: The Sun Is Shining in the Trees...

 It's taken awhile this fall for the trees to turn colour.  Another sign of climate change?  Perhaps.

But the sun has begun to shine through the changing leave, giving back some of the light that that the leaves stored  during the warm season.

Oh, you say, it doesn't work that way.  It's just that the trees have stopped making chlorophyl and the underlying pigments in the leaves are now visible.

Maybe, but you can't deny that trees in their marvelous way have taken the energy from light and used it to make all those leaves, once so brilliantly green and now flashing gold and crimson. 

Saturday Photo: When Stars Fell on....

 This is the time of year when the stars are out...in the front yard.  I mean, asters are in bloom everywhere, rivaling the heavenly show.  Quite lovely.

Saturday Photo: Resilience, Or Solid as a Rock?

 Yes, that's a weed growing out of this rock. For some time I've been taking photos of the resilience of life--the way plants find niches to grow in the cracks in pavements, and shoots burst forth from stumps of trees.  This is the first time I've seen a very solid rock where a plant has found a place to spread its roots in the absence of any notable cracks.  And it's got a very nice colony of moss...

This is the way the world goes, one little eroding, infiltrating, invasive bit after another until it's all dust...

Saturday Photo: Sixty Years of Fun

We were good buddies, until he bought the car and asked me out for a real date.  After that, things developed and sixty years ago this coming Thursday, August 29, we got married.  

It's been a lot of fun, from the very beginning.  Word to the wise: choose somebody you really like to be your life partner.

Saturday Photo: Nothing at All..

 Time to take a break.  Dog days, August doldrums, other things to do....

Saturday Photo: Morning Rituals

 

In the morning everyone needs to freshen up a bit.  Glad to see that the ducks are back in our neighborhoood.