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Sick with a cold, so I stayed at home today. Still, I needed to take a “picture of the day”, so I bundled up and went outside to take some pics of the emerging flowers in our garden — in the pouring rain.

Trillium plants just shy of blooming

Labels: rain, trillium

Annie Chasing the Ball

Annie’s started a class at a local recreation center where she is learning to play soccer. She plays with a lot of kids who are bit younger than her, so she is soaking up what the teacher tells her while the rest (mostly boys) tend to fidget a lot.

During the last 15 minutes of the hour-long class they let them play a game. Annie managed to score two goals, for a 2-0 win!

Saw this when I stepped out the door this morning. Went back and got my camera and shot this.

Labels: moon

Up until today I’ve never ventured into the vast scrubland that lies just south from the office tower I work in at 55 Commerce Valley Drive West up in Markham. Partly because I have to cross highway traffic in order to get to it, but also out of feeling I had too much work to do to spare the time.

So today I ventured forth with camera and telephoto lens in hand. Here’s some of what I saw:

A groundhog keeps a wary eye on me.

Wild pussywillows

Dried out teasles.

Labels: Livingstone Park, Markham, pussywillows, teasles

The current window display at the Bata Shoe Museum. At night.

Labels: Bata Shoe Museum, surreal

…in droves in Markham. Had my camera out and shot this pair flying between the office buildings.

Labels: Canada Goose, Markham

Don’t know if they will be useful or not, but have posted several of these shots (the ones I could attach names to) to Wikimedia Commons in the hope that someone might think them worthy enough to illustrate an orchid variety for Wikipedia.

That’s how old I am today: 43. My daughters made me some chocolate brownie cupcakes for my birthday, and here’s the one they put the candle in:

I figure it is time to start blogging again. Have changed the layout to better accommodate the pictures I intend to post. The layout is basic (and ugly as sin) but will change that over time.

Labels: birthday cupcake candle

After an all-night sail from St. Lucia, we arrived early in the morning at the town of Fort de France on the island of Martinique.

Our first view of the town of Fort de France

We started to come into the east port of the town, which took us by a French frigate stationed there (the Ventôse), but in the end the anchorage wasn’t deep enough so we sailed back to the western part of the town, and anchored offshore.

The French frigate Ventôse alongside the light ferry ship Francis Garnier

Shortly after anchoring we went ashore to see the town. By this point it was late in the morning and was getting increasingly hot. We didn’t find the people in the town to be at all friendly, though we did our best to speak in halting French. Stil, it was a pretty town.

Walking up a street in Fort de France

The cathedral in Fort de France (Cathédrale Saint-Louis de Fort-de-France), Martinique

Erika with a yellow flower she found placed in her hair

The Tricolore flies over Fort Royale; Martinique is considered part of France, so we visited Europe while in the Caribbean (and paid for the privilege in Euros).

Annie and Erika sorting out the shells Annie had collected

Some sample shells

The beach adjacent to the west side of Fort Royale

Close-up of a collection of shells (and these were the rejects!)

Twilight over Fort de France