Jack’s Walk

Fashionista with a happy tail, ©voyager, all rights reserved

This is Jack this morning and you’ll notice that his tail is out of focus. That’s because he was wagging it for the first time since his surgery last week. He had a few post-op complications, including a vein that popped out and bled for 2 days before the vet had to add 3 staples to his incision. Even after the staples were inserted the area oozed for another few days. That finally stopped on Sunday, but it wasn’t until this morning that Jack looked up at me and smiled his goofy guy smile. Now I can relax a bit. It’s another week before the stitches come out, but the incision is looking good and Jack is his usual happy self again. I’ve never been happier to have an out of focus photo.

 

A Spider Drops in to Visit

At some point Affinity became the go-to place for spiders and Nightjar continues this tradition with a wonderful set of photos taken at dusk.

I’ve noticed a lack of spiders on Affinity lately and since there is one currently living right in front of my bedroom window I thought I would share. I’ve only seen it after sunset, I think it’s one of those spiders that only sit in the middle of the web at night. I got home late today, saw it and went inside to grab the camera to get some silhouette shots against the evening sky, but the light faded too quickly and I had to resort to using the flash for a few more photos. The flash really brings out all those hairy and spidery details, making the last photos particularly unsafe for arachnophobes I think.

All photos are posted under the fold.

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Vanitas of Mushrooms

As tends to happen, I’d forgotten about these beauties. This is a fungal skeleton I came across one early autumn morning, and in that delicious light, it was irresistible. The word that comes to mind is fragility.

©rq, all rights reserved.

©rq, all rights reserved.

Translucency at its best.
©rq, all rights reserved.

Delicate like a thin film of soap.
©rq, all rights reserved.

One with the light.
©rq, all rights reserved.

For more mushroom fun, I found this wonderful piece:

And Sting has the perfect song for us:

Tree Tuesday

 

This week we have an incredible tree from Down Under that’s full of big, bright, colourful flowers, courtesy of DavidinOz.

The first 3 are of a huge Bottle Brush tree, an Australian native that has been exported to other climes.Look closely in 2 & 3 and you will see bees had at work.

4 & 5 are of a different tree, but all the better to see why they are named …. Bottle Brush.

Cheers, David

©David Brindley, all rights reserved

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Jack’s Walk

 

The tracks at Corner of the Beach, about 15 minutes outside of Perce, ©voyager, all rights reserved

Lack of routine maintenance now equals expensive major repairs, ©voyager, all rights reserved

When my husband was young there were daily trains going to Perce, a little town at the end of the Gaspe Peninsula. The train brought supplies and tourists and was the main form of transportation for residents of the town to get Quebec City and Montreal for specialist doctors, hospitals, shopping and schools. Over the years the trains started coming less often and finally in August of 2013 the train stopped coming at all. Today train service will only take you as far east as  Matapedia and good luck getting farther east from there because even the buses have stopped going to Perce. It’s all about economics. More people drive nowadays and there is an airport in Gaspe that handles a lot of supply and tourist traffic. Also, track maintenance is expensive and everybody thinks somebody else should pay for it. The tracks in this photo were a vital part of life in the Perce area for just about 100 years. When I first started coming here 20+ years ago we used to wave at the trains from the beach as they passed us by.  I miss that.

Monday Mercurial: Bunnies don’t care for Christmas

But they did like a few days of dry weather so they could go out and munch some grass.

bunny

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Fleckchen is now almost as big as Molli and definitely as mischievous. In spring my dad will have to remove their hutches and close all their lairs and hiding places.

bunny

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Molli didn’t want to pose for a picture.

bunny

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Fleckchen didn’t care as long as I didn’t step on his grass

bunny

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Let’s Start the Week with Roses

More photos of the famous Ruston Roses courtesy of DavidinOz.  The pink roses at the end look so fresh and fragrant that I wish there was “smell-o-vision.”

Some photos showing the scale of the garden at Ruston’s Roses. You can also see the potential if the new owners succeed.

 

©David Brindley, all rights reserved

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Jack’s Walk

Jack won’t be allowed to take walks for the next 2 weeks so I thought this was a good chance to post some of the photos I took over the summer. Today I’m sharing the place we overnighted on the way to Perce. It’s a little place called Saint Luce, Quebec and we arrived just in time to watch the sunset over the St. Lawrence River.  There are a few more photos under the fold  and you can click for full size.

 

Sunset on the St. Lawrence River, ©voyager, all rights reserved

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David Ruston’s Roses

From Lofty, the story of the man behind Australia’s famous Ruston’s Roses.

This is a statue of David Ruston in a park in Renmark, a tribute to the man and his contribution.

… Ruston’s Roses in Renmark, once Australia’s biggest rose garden. David Ruston began working here at 18, and developed a life long passion for roses. He became world renowned, and was for a time President of the World Federation of Rose Societies.  He built his father’s original collection of 500 rose bushes in to over 50,000 bushes. But he didn’t just grow roses, he was also an expert floral arranger.

Sadly, his health declined, as did the gardens, although they are still open to the public and with new ownership I hope the garden will return to its previous splendor and supply roses to the world once again.  The garden currently has a contract to supply rose petals to the Nineteenth Street Distillery in Renmark for use in their Gin.

David had a fall a year ago, and although he was present for the opening of the Renmark Rose Festival he was unable to participate.

I like the use of hard steel to display a man of flowers.

©David Brindley, all rights reserved

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Jack’s Walk

Jack is doing fairly well after the removal of his lump yesterday. The wound has 18 stitches and it’s on the back of his front leg running up to the top of his shoulder which turns out to be a difficult place to keep covered. Every time he stands up the dressing slides down to his toes and the area starts to ooze a bit of serous fluid tinged with blood. We see the vet later today and I’m hoping she has a solution for this. I tried using a child’s sock with the toe cut off to keep things in place. That didn’t work. Then I tried a long swath of veterinary wrap wound tightly and that didn’t work either. Ditto for Kling wrap and a tensor bandage. He’s pretty sleepy today so it’s not too much of a problem, but it will be in a day or two when he’s brighter. The stitches stay in for 2 weeks and no walks until they’re removed. I’ve added a surgical photo under the fold in case anyone is interested. It’s a bit gory, but we nurses like that sort of thing. If you don’t or are squeamish please don’t click-through.

Not quite HappyJack today, ©voyager, all rights reserved

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