Justfolk's photos

We were just stepping out the front door to go somewhere when my wife pointed out a tiny patch of first bloomers, snow drops in a sunny corner of our front lawn. It may be two months before these blooms finish up -- I expect lots more frost and snow before spring really comes. But in the meantime we can admire these first blooms.

Our friends, and we, are still pretty risk-averse about crowds. But, a couple of nights ago, six of us went out to a new local restaurant and ate a lovely halal meal amongst people breaking their Ramadan fast. There was no cause for a scowlery.

There was some salt on top of the stove and the morning sun was slaking in over it. So I thought I'd take a picture. I didn't notice the red thread until I looked closely at the picture.

This top section of Feaver's Lane in downtown St. John's, down from Queen's Road to Bond Street, is really just a footpath nowadays. The lower section, which runs between Bond Street and Gower Street, is somewhat wider. It's one of the public rights-of-way that were preserved after the Great Fire of 1892 but which, as spaces maybe wide enough for moving vehicles, were superseded by other nearby streets. But it's still an official roadway that the City lights. But it looks like the livyers must shovel the snow themselves.

I went this morning to have some blood tests at the hospital nearest our house. I budgeted my time for twenty minutes at the feeder behind the hospital beforehand. I was lucky and, within my time window, saw not only the Pine warbler I was hoping for (he'd been there all winter), but a Downy woodpecker too.

I've geared up in hopes of taking a picture of the eclipse in three weeks. And I've been trying to get used to taking pictures of the sun. From our back deck this afternoon, the sun is behind trees: those dark areas on the sun's disk are not sunspots; they are out of focus branches and cloud. On April 8th, I intend to be not only where the eclipse will be total, but out from under any nearby trees. I can only hope there'll be no clouds.

I worked for decades in the same building as B and we knew each other well. I never met his daughter R until the morning a month ago when I ran into them behind a local hospital. They, like me, were hoping to see the winter-rare Pine warbler we knew was there. None of us did see it that morning. Fuji 200 film in Rollei Prego 125.

Katie is a reporter/videographer. A month or so ago she wanted my opinion on something. A deal was struck: I did a short interview and she let me take her picture afterwards. Thus this. It was a cold morning but my little Rollei Prego 125 did the job. Fuji 200 colour film.

John's a former neighbour whose children still live much of the time next-door to us. He often comes by our place to help shovelling snow. That is what he was doing this day a couple of weeks ago. I took his picture with snow falling all around us with my Rollei Prego 125, on Fuji 200 film. I scanned the negative a little hastily but I like the effect.

The moon, two and a half days old, sinking down into the horizon, with Jupiter presiding above. The shutter speed was slow enough that I got a fairly good picture of the unlit part of the moon. The old fellas, the ones in my grandfather's generation, used to call that the new moon with the old one in its arms.

Or so I assume -- that this is the same orange-crowned warbler I've been seeing fleetingly, and at long intervals between sightings, but from time to time since last fall. We got 80 cm of snow a few days ago. I was glad then to see him show up today for his three-minute cameo appearance.

After supper as I sat down to read in my favourite chair, after much shovelling yesterday and today, I looked out the front window. This is what I saw.

Two flickers came this morning in the wake of a huge snowstorm, now calmed, to check out the peanuts. They were both males. This was the less antsy of the two.

Our latest storm has not passed by yet. The forecasters are telling us the final count will be about 80 cm. I shovelled a safety path from our two outside doors tonight but I didn't dare start on most of the deck. We won't be sitting in the deck chairs tomorrow morning sipping our tea.

Today we are getting a big snow storm. It is slowly passing by us, taking well over twenty-four hours to go by, and it is leaving behind something in the area of 80 cm of snow. It won't be finished with us until sometime tomorrow. All day today we had birds feeding at our feeder or nearby. I counted nine species: Northern flicker, American goldfinch, American robin, bluejay, crow, starling, chickadee, rock pigeon, and junco. Here is one of the bluejays.

This, an RCAF Globemaster III, if you want to know, was circling over and over, at a low elevation today, before it finally went the ten km north to the local airport and landed. It looked like it was practicising air drops.

This cat has been visiting our deck from time to time recently. Today, in a thick dwigh of snow, she found a hiding place to spy on the dozens of juncos, snowbirds, feeding. But the birds knew her ways, probably better than she theirs, and they stayed in the tree while she was there. I got down on my hands and knees to look at her just on the other side of the window. She was a little curious about me and came up to the window. Then she turned and left. And I had to turn the picture somewhat to make it resemble plumb.

On my way across town today, I was behind this truck for most of the time.