I was walking at the edge of this field a couple of weeks ago when this rich array of wildflowers drew me to walk right into the middle of it. There were lupins of white, purple, blue and pink, white and red wild roses, and so many more flowers that I couldn't name. All of these were crawling with beautifully marked spiders, insects, tiny butterflies and bees. Now and again, underfoot, there was a crumbling bit of concrete which was the only evidence that a school, complete with large parking lot had stood there only a few short years ago. It reminded me of the poem by Shelley, "Ozymandias" which has the line "Look on my works ye mighty and despair". (link to the poem below for those who don't know it).
The earth has such wonderful restorative powers that it quickly produces great beauty and fruitfulness in places formerly occupied by dull, ugly and heavy concrete structures. Such healing of the scars left here really touched me.
This is for my friend Levy, who tells me that she reads all of my posts and loves them, though she is not on G+ herself. Thank you for that, Levy. This is for you.
I’m completely out of order here, but … hey! It’s my project and I’ll do what I want! 🙂
Today was Joni’s first day at the beach. It was hot and sunny and Arya’s owner called to see if we wanted to bring her down to play with their dog (1 year old) and introduce Joni to the ocean. The tide comes in at a terrific rate here and we had to time it before high tide, when the beach disappears completely under water. We all had a great time, with the two dogs playing and swimming in the waves and rolling about in the sand. When, after only a short time, we looked up, we had become cut off from our escape route back up the beach. After soaking my shoes in wading through the shallowest part of the water, I had to scramble up onto the rocks to work my way around the shore back to the exit. Joni went through the shallows below (which were not too bad, just too deep for shoes) and we met up at what remained of the dry part of the beach, making our way up to the boardwalk where the cars were.
Here you see Joni (left) with Arya on the right. Arya was obsessed with catching the Frisbee, Joni was just obsessed with having fun. And with catching Arya. I think I probably got a bit sunburned. I’ll know later. 😀 Incidentally, there was plenty of room for us all on this beach – people and dogs. There is no overcrowding on our sandy beaches.
Thanks for all of your great comments. I will get to them as soon as I can. Life is so busy just at the moment and summer is too short to spend longer than I need to at the computer.
Sometimes during my yearly photo project I am going to treat myself to sharing a photograph that was taken at a different time, processed for the daily share. (It's my project and I make my rules! :D) Today is incredibly busy for me and priorities have dictated that this is to be just such a treat day! Here you see a landscape photograph that I took while I was in Ontario. In composing this I was thinking of my wonderful mentor +Sairam Sundaresan from the +G+ Mentorship Program for Photographers in the fabulous Landscape Photography mentorship program that I was still working with (still am, actually). I also think of my fellow mentees, with a tip of the hat to you all, knowing how you are taking such great photographs after our training.
You are seeing a bay off the Ottawa River, with the town of Arnprior on the opposite bank. The woods through which I walked to find this were still and peaceful. If I were to think of Canadian landscapes that would always remind me of being in this part of the world, this would certainly be near the top of the list.
