Whitby Fire Cooling Us Down at the Harbour

This week has been hitting temperatures of over 90 degrees and with no air in our place, it's been a little hard to take for sleeping and such. But, ah well, it's life lol!

We went for a walk to the pier, probably about 8pm, on the Monday. It was Just as hot out at the waterfront but it was a fun walk.

The sky was brilliant for one thing. Besides that, I got a chancer to get some different subject matter than jsut birds and animals and plants. The Whitby Fire Department was down pumping water from the lake and spraying it back over the channel where the boats come in and out. The jet ski guy was lucky because he got to feel the spray as he went by. I am sure the rest of the peole on the pier were silently wishing they'd turn and spray us because it was filthy rotten sticky sweaty Hot lol!!!!

Creating with my Original Photos

Years ago, I opened a Zazzle account. Mainly, I created products which featured reproductions of my original artwork. Slowly, I began working with my original photos.

Zazzle has taken some huge strides since I first began there. The product variety is huge, the creative possibilities are almost limitless, and quality of the products I have test ordered were good. The canvas bag I carry to work everyday, I personalized with an image I shot, and I was thrilled with the quality, and that was even using a cropped image which I had to resample and wasn't wite the ideal file size (not recommended if not for oneself).

Recently, I have begun to consider taking advantage of Zazzle again, and creating products featuring images I have taken, of which I have thousands.

A favourite item I created recently, inspired by my love of reading and a photograph from one of our favourite places, Lynde Shores in Whitby, is a Kindle case. I have shared it and the link to the item below.

The Joy of Reading Kindle Case

Mink Playing at Whitby Harbour

We've run across these creatures at various times on different outtings, around Durham Region. Minks! Actual minks, right near where we live. Crazy. However, by looking into it, we learned they are not uncommon in Southern Ontario at all, near the lakes, rivers, and marinas.

The other night at Whitby Harbour, we spotted a pair, frolicking, wrestling and swimming, near the shore, in an area not really accessible by foot but close enough to see from the railinged walkway beside the inlet.

So cute! They were wrestling and then would come up on the rock, sit beside each other, then back at it. It was getting dark so the shots I got weren't fantastic but nice to get anyway. A lone heron stood on one of the rocks as well, right near them. One mink swam out and then climbed up on a rock outcrop which is made up of clean fill most likely, with metal pipes and such sticking out. Made for such an odd scene, living creature becoming part of a silhouetted man made materials, all becoming visually one urban sculpture.

Apropo Rings - Found on Etsy

I happened to be looking for a pendant I saw on a woman during a Go Train ride to work one day. It was a cute chubby bird pendant. I had no luck finding anything like that that wasn't brand name fine jewellery and pricey. However, I found a couple items that are more up my alley for jewellery style anyway - on Etsy. I decided to forego searching eBay as it's become almost like a junk fleamarket scenerio which really hampers searching - one needs to slog through hundreds of repetative junk listings to find anything unique in many of the categories. It works better for very specific item searches.

Although in many ways Etsy does have some of those listings, it does have a lot more hand made unique artisan items still. By no means were these rings I found real expensive, but they so suit 2 of my current interests :-) One being taking photos which I guess is a long long standing interest, playing a huge part in reference for paintings and portraits in the past, and now for the joy of photos being my finished artistic image. Secondly, though I will cop to this still rather reluctantly, not quite mentally committing to it - Birding. Some friends and my kids call me a "birder" but I still insist I am Not one lol! Though I can name some birds jsut from their sounds now and recognize quite a few more by sight lol! Though, I will admit, I and my boyfriend are thrilled to spot something for the first time, see what we can spot, and in my case, try to get at least one half decent shot so we can identify unknowns lol!

These rings symbolize the enjoyment myself and my boyfriend get out of our hikes and walks, the simplicity of them.

So, I ordered my little camera ring and my birdie ring from a shop on Etsy. There are some cool little pieces in this Etsy Seller's shop, which I'll link to below :-)

Esty Shop

RINGS :-)

Mud Lake, Port Colborne

Made a trip down to Welland this weekend, to visit my aunt and step dad who were storing a round oak table for me. We decided to make a trip to Mud Lake, an area we had passed several times on multiple trips from Port Colborne to Welland back in the fall. My Grandparents came from Port Colborne.

It is not a large Conservation area, it can be travelled around in 1 hr, 2-3 if one stops and gawks and takes pics like I do. It is a man made wetland which now has a well established ecosystem happening. It's quite beautiful. The mosquitos on the one side of it though, wreaked havoc with us. With no bug spray, you'd last 5 mins at best in there in a couple areas.

There were a lot of extremely interesting things to see. When we first entered, there were huge tall wild cherry trees, just dripping with cherries and birds after the cherries. The path was literally strewn with cherries, and in other places only pits and stems of cherries. The birds were always ahead of us, scattering as we walked so no good looks at them nor pics. There were also wild strawberry bushes, fruit we could reach to try, as well as the odd apple tree. Given the area, The Niagara Region, it is most likely at one time there was an orchard there.

We were also treated to some rather interesting critters. A white crab spider, a female American black duck hybrid most likely, with her almost grown ducklings, leopard frogs leaping high into the air to escape our feet as we walked to the edge of a pond, humongous and teeney dragonflies, tiny toads, and one honking huge Bullfrog in the marsh. Waxwings were everywhere as well as Blue Jays. Marsh Wrens could be heard all over though not easily seen, as well as Swamp Sparrows. Huge scary frog sounds came from the marsh. We saw a female Wood Duck but very far away.

It was an amzing place to visit.