Meanderings of a Mermaid

So this image comes to you from a website that sells camera gear. Earlier this week I decided it was time to take the plunge and get a digital camera with a few more features. I especially wanted to be able to take good close up shots (which I can't do now with my existing digital). The model I am getting is a Canon Powershot S5 IS. Looks like it will do the trick. I especially love close up photography of things in nature. As a geologist and avid mineral collector I have specimens that are begging to be photographed. I even have the little studio set up already, a white box to help bounce the light around. And there' s lots of times that the rock shot I want to get is unatainable with the old fujifilm. I can do this with my Nikon SLR, but that is not was easy to get an image from film and onto the web. Anyone else enjoy close up nature photography? I challenge myself to get so close that the object is no longer easily recognizable. I am threatening to one day organize my o...

Lagoon Beach was the destination tonight. I hadn't hiked down here before and a friend and her dog showed me the way. It's a great and easy walk (well, a couple of little hills to get down to the shoreline). The leaves are falling and turning gold, and they smell so good. A little chill in the air meant that it was good to keep moving. Back home I covered the tomatoes, as I heard a low of 2 for tonight. Why chance it. There's lots of fruit on the plants, so I'd rather see then ripen outside. Back to the rocks. Of course the Pleistocene glaciation is responsible for the smooth and polished appearance of the exposures. Around ten thousand years ago the huge ice sheets melted back and revealed the newly buffed surface of the planet. The bright orange colour on the surface is a type of lichen that favours iron-rich rocks. And the shallow pools and divets were full of cobbles and pebbles, many that travelled hundreds of kilometres in those ice sheets. In both directions stre...

He turned to reach for a rag and caught her staring at the oil stain on the seat of his coveralls. It was shaped like a heart and she could swear her initials were inside the heart! He caught her glance and, winking at her, he turned back to the dirty work at hand. You know, I realized today that if it wasn't for all the mechanics in my life, there wouldn't be any men in my life. Yeah. Two vehicles and a new (very old) boat and trailer. Everything needs work. You just get everything humming along and you find a slow leak in your tire. Bah! At first I fretted about the accumulating costs, the time lost in shuttling vehicles and myself around, trying to schedule all the appointments. And have you noticed how every job now takes at least two appointments? One to scope out the problem and try to come up with a list of other things to add to it (just kidding, I think) and then you have to wait for the parts and then the specialist to be available. And then the second visit. And of ...

Time to close up summer. This shot is from a couple of nights back. Tonight it is raining for the first time since early July. Oh sure there have been meager little splurts of showers here and there, but no rain for ages and ages. So it's good to see, or at least hear, on the windows. Fall is my favourite season and so I can't wait for it to come. I love the smell of drying and rotting leaves and their crunch underfoot. I love that my dogs are more frisky and can't get enough of hiking around. I like feeling cool and having to bundle up in a sweater. I like being able to see further in the bush, after the leaves come down. The days are still long and so there's great opportunities for being active outdoors. The turning of the leaves and tamarac needles can be so spectacular. Some drives I do just to catch a glimpse of Van Gogh's spirit in the trees. Growing up in Southern Ontario my family would drive hours to reach a stretch of farmer's road where the hardwood...

No photo today. Just a challenge for you to find the image of Elvis in one of the two Nunavut photos I posted the other day. A bit eerie. And as you can see, Elvis Lives On!

This photo I took maybe 4 years ago just outside the capital of Nunavut, called Iqaluit. I lived there for nearly six years and absolutely loved it. I'm walking my dogs on a high ridge overlooking part of the airport. Month of June I believe. [ and yes, that is the ocean that freezes up! It takes an icebreaker in the first week of July to actually get rid of it!] I wanted to tell you about a very special project I am involved with. I am the technical writer for a book on the minerals and rocks of Nunavut. Pretty much an identification field guide, but beefed up in some significant ways. The thing I am most excited about is that the book will be translated into Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit people. I believe it will be the first book of it's kind. The second significant portion is that there will be segments on the traditional usage of minerals and rocks by Inuit. Both these sections will be done by specialists in translation and in gathering of this information from eld...

A couple more shots of my neighbourhood. Nice spot eh? I love the North Shore of Lake Superior and am so very happy living here. Get a load of the scenery. You'll have to pardon the grainy quality, but if I ever find the time I will try to re scan these old old slides with brand new technology. I'd rather be hiking. The upper image is a very typical shot of the coastline around here. Rocky, sometimes brutally barren, storm wracked, stunningly beautiful. The second shot is of the Sea Lion, a famous rock formation from Sleeping Giant Provincial Park. A diabase dyke has resisted erosion to remain as a strong, competent wall, even as the softer sedimentary rock around it has crumbled away. I will try to find some pics I have of this from over a hundred years ago and you'll really see the lion's head in those old black and whites. (yes, I took those shots too!! I am immortal after all = Goddess of the Seas)