If It Was Today...

Summer

Posted on July 12, 2013 by If It Was Today

Posted in Canada, Photography | Tagged Canada, Flower, Home, Photography, Summer | Leave a comment

Is This A Joke?

Posted on July 12, 2013 by If It Was Today

Imagine the scene. A teddy bear was sitting at the bar minding his business, when a pirate burst through the door. Two pirates actually, but who’s counting? He played it cool, nursing his drink and acting like everything was normal. It didn’t work. They spotted him and before he could react they had him locked in … a kiss. He was lucky to escape with his dignity.

No, this is not a joke. And I’m not making it up either. A few years ago I was sitting at a hotel bar in Riga, Latvia, when a pirate couple walked in. Now don’t get me wrong. A pirate couple is not nearly as frightening as a couple of pirates. But it isn’t what you expect to see on your typical business trip. And you certainly don’t expect them to start fawning over your trusty teddy bear traveling companion. But that’s the kind of thing that happened to me all the time when I traveled with Bernard.

Posted in Photography, Travel | Tagged Bernard Bear, Business travel, Riga Latvia, Teddy Bear | Leave a comment

A Slight Exaggeration

Posted on July 9, 2013 by If It Was Today

Okay, so maybe I exaggerated a little when I said I’d given up gardening. But I did give up a lot of my vegetable garden. The bunnies just love the tender pea and bean shoots. Even beets seem fair game. Ironically, they aren’t interested in carrots, but with everything else pretty much eaten, the only thing left for the worms was the carrots, so you can imagine how that turned out. Maybe it makes me a bad person, but after a few years I lost interest in feeding the local wildlife. So we switched to flowers. I can’t eat them, but then neither can the rabbits. And it makes the garden beautiful, not to mention my blog.

In case you’re wondering, the flower in the picture is a Gooseneck Loosestrife.

Posted in Canada, Photography | Tagged Canada, Flowers, Garden, Home, Photography | 6 Comments

Why I Gave Up Gardening

Posted on July 8, 2013 by If It Was Today

Nuff said.

Posted in Canada, Photography | Tagged Garden, Home, Photography, Rabbits | Leave a comment

Shades of Brown

Posted on July 7, 2013 by If It Was Today

The rain has stopped, at least for the moment, and the sun has come out. But the past week started me thinking about mushrooms, and I can’t seem to let it go. Probably says something profound, or more likely disturbing, about me but I’m trying not to go there.

So mushrooms. Have you ever looked at them in the produce section of the grocery store. In the trendy stores you’ll find mushrooms in an amazing variety of shapes and sizes. But the colors are all – well … shades of brown. Dark brown Portabella at one end of the spectrum, and numerous creamy white varieties at the other end.

Fair enough. You see those in the wild too.

But in the wild, you also see a wide range of other colors. Yellows, Reds, and even gray. But just to be clear, only one gray, and even then, it has yellow accents. Fortunately, there are no other shades of gray.

The kaleidoscope continues…

Posted in Canada, Photography | Tagged Canada, Mushrooms, Photography | 2 Comments

Life In A Northern Town

Posted on July 6, 2013 by If It Was Today

There are many drawbacks to living in a northern town. Take winter. Please. After four months of snow I think that anyone, whether in their right mind or not, should have had more than enough . And forget that “winter sports” schtick. Just how much skiing can one person do?

Now don’t get me wrong, there are advantages. Unfortunately most of them are the same as beating your head against a wall. It feels so amazingly good when you stop.

All of which brings me to the flowers, when they do finally arrive, sometime in July.

Somehow, after all that snow, cold, colds, running noses, frozen toes, and general unpleasantness, the flowers look that much more beautiful.

But don’t wait too long to get out and enjoy it. Winter’s coming soon.

Posted in Canada, Photography | Tagged Canada, Flowers, Home, Photography | 4 Comments

Lavender

Posted on July 5, 2013 by If It Was Today

One of my favorite memories of Provence is the sight – and the smell – of fields of lavender. It will be forever linked in my mind with wonderfully hot, sunny Mediterranean summer days. So it will probably come as no surprise to learn that I’ve planted lavender beds in my garden. It’s not quite Provence (which would make this another in the “not quite …” series of posts) but it still brings back fond memories of Provence. And it infuses the entire patio with the scent of lavender. Quite lovely. The bees are rather fond of it as well.

Posted in Photography | Tagged Canada, Home, Lavender, Photography, Provence | 3 Comments

Not Quite Jordan

Posted on July 3, 2013 by If It Was Today

A while back, one of the bloggers I follow, Middle East Moments, commented that “Jordan does do a good sunset“. She obviously has a knack for understatement. In reality, Jordan does amazing sunsets. My Jordanian sunset posts pretty consistently get more likes that just about anything else I post.

The ability to take a hint has never been one of my strong suits. So I’m not going to post another Jordan sunset. At least not today. Instead, I’ll treat you to a Canadian sunset. This one was taken from my garden this evening. The rather ominous looking clouds fit rather well with the wet weather we’ve been having lately. But at least it was warm today, so I’m not about to complain. No one would listen anyway.

Posted in Canada, Photography | Tagged Canada, Home, Photography, Sunset | 1 Comment

Rainy Days

Posted on July 2, 2013 by If It Was Today

When the promise of summer warmth gives way to cool damp days, on the first week of July no less, a not-so-young man’s thoughts turn to … mushrooms. They are strange, and more than a little fascinating, creatures. Or entities, or things, or beings, or whatever it is we should call them. So until the sun returns, I’m going to search my archives from past camping trips for interesting mushroom photos. Welcome to my world.