A time away

This past week Ralph and I went to Collingwood for a few days.  We were joined by Lawrence and Teresa and John and Grace and enjoyed some golf together.  Ralph and I went a day earlier with the intention of shooting some stars and simply to relax and have some fun.

It's interesting how the weather is changing.  We found that it was much cooler especially being close to the water.  Thankfully we had planned for this and had sweaters and jackets with us.  Ralph and I enjoyed a lovely sunset up near Thornbury.  There was some nice clouds adding some interest to the sky.  It amazes me how much earlier the sun is starting to set.  It goes down close to 8:00 pm now.  We stayed until about 8:30 and then headed back to the hotel to relax for a while before going out to photograph the milky way.  We weren't sure what to expect though as it had been pretty cloudy for most of the day.

We left the hotel at around 10:15 and headed back towards Meaford.  We had found a spot with a barn in the foreground which we thought would be nice to include in the photos.  Of course it depended on where the milky way was in the sky.  Hah hah, when we drove down the road, it was so pitch black out that we couldn't even see the barn.  We had to guess and only saw later if we captured it in our pictures.

There was still alot of clouds which added some interest.  What we didn't realize when scoping out the area, was that there were so many hydro wires.  I sure had to do a lot of editing to remove them.

We stayed at this location for a little over an hour and then thought we might try another spot however as we were driving it started to rain so we had to call it a night.  It was  probably a good thing as we had a round of golf planned for the next morning with everyone else.

The next day we played golf at Monterra which is right by Blue Mountain.  This was a pretty course to play and we enjoyed our time all together.

We enjoyed a nice bbq afterwards at a beach beside Georgian Bay.  There was lots of delicious food and it turned out to be a very beautiful day.

The following day we played at Lora Bay.  This is one of my favourite courses.  I love the scenery as it overlooks the Bay. It's so pretty.  Ralph and I arrived early so we went down to a beach just down the road and enjoyed a coffee.  We were surprised to still see colour in the sky from the mornning sunrise.

Golf was fun.  We sure do enjoy our time all together.  I look forward to our next adventure.

Wasps or hornets.... whatever they are

I am not a fan of wasps or hornets. I know that God placed them here on earth and they have a purpose but they give me goosebumps when I see them. 

I went back to the park by Burnhamthorpe today with the hope of seeing a hummingbird.  It came and went by so quickly that no photograph was taken. It was also pretty windy making it challenging to photograph the flowers.  As I was walking around I spied a hornets? nest.  It was very active with lots of hornets or wasps going to and fro. I set up my camera and tripod (far away) and attempted to get shots of the activity. The nest was amazing and so beautiful in its intricacy. It was constantly being worked on.  I thought I would do a little research to see if I could learn some more.  This nest is a "hornets" nest.  Below is a link on how they are built.  It's actually very interesting.

I spent about an hour and a half watching them.  It's amazing how fast they are.  I set my shutter speed at the fastest it would go and my ISO to auto letting the camera make the selection.  I think I'll need to do a bit of research to see how I can get a clearer picture.

I did take a few picture of the flowers but not many. As I said it was very windy making it a challenge.

I am very thankful for the summer flowers.  It gives me something to challenge myself with. I hope you to are blessed with God's beautiful creation around you.

What once was is no longer

Have you ever had it where in your mind you envision something and the more you thought about it the more excited you got. I had that recently. Last week I asked Ralph if he had noticed if the sunflowers were blooming at the Joshua Art Gallery. He had confirmed that he had seen them and of course me being me, I started planning an early morning photo excursion. I thought I could drop him off while he played golf and then I would spend a few hours photographing the beauties. In my mind there would be a myriad of colours and I started planning different compositions. Oh how fun it would be just to get out and see them. So, early Wednesday morning I got up at 5:15 with Ralph and got ready for my morning adventure.  I had hoped that there would be some mist rising because of the temperature change and thought that I might get a nice shot of the early morning sun over the pond at Pipers Heath. That was not to be. When we turned into the drive of the course there were several workers on the green beside the pond and definitely no mist. I wasn’t off to a good start. After saying goodbye to Ralph I headed to the gallery. To be truthful I drove right by it. As I glanced to my right while driving by I didn’t see any sunflowers at all. Hmmm, they must have planted them on the back side of the garden. I turned around and headed back. Upon arriving at the garden I discovered that there was only a few sunflowers. Probably leftover seeds from the previous year. The garden itself had plenty of vegetables and other smaller flowers like lavender planted but wasn’t what I had planned for. I stayed for a short while and took a few pictures and then decided to drive along Burnhamthorpe Rd to see where it would take me. So much construction and new development was underway. The road was not real pleasant to drive on. I turned off onto a country side road for a while but that wasn’t enjoyable either. I was driving the speed limit (60) and cars were wizzing by me. Alas, my dream of a fun outing didn’t turn out as planned. 

I decided to go to Whole Foods and do a bit of shopping for some groceries. That took a total of 7 minutes. Hah hah...what a morning it was turning out to be. It was now 8:10 and Ralph wouldn't be done until at least 10:30.  I parked at the Mall thinking  I would do some Mall walking.  No luck there either as the doors were locked tight. I guess they are discouraging Mall walkers because of Covid.  Oh well.  I decided to slowly drive back to the course and see what caught my eye along the way.  I noticed an interesting piece of art so I pulled into the side road and there was a park that I never knew existed.  I parked the truck and went exploring.  What a beautiful park it was filled with many gardens full of flowers.  I spied a few photographers grouped together near one garden and they all had "huge" telephoto lenses on.  Curious, I approached and asked what they were shooting.  Hummingbirds they replied.  Respecting the social distancing, I chose not to join the group, but rather made a note to myself to come back early one morning and see if the hummers were there when it wasn't quite so busy.  I continued to wander around the park and took full enjoyment from all the beautiful flowers.  It was a good way to the pass the time while Ralph finished his golf round.