Jack’s Walk

Soggy leaves, ©voyager, all rights reserved

It’s another damp and dreary day around here and the weather forecast is for more of the same for days ahead. There wasn’t even moody fog today, just dull skies and soggy ground. Even worse, I tripped and dropped my camera and scratched the lens. The camera seems to be working fine, but for the next while my pictures may have a bit of scarring. I’ve been thinking about getting a better lens and perhaps this is the universe’s way of telling me not to wait any longer. In fact, it might just be time for an early Christmas/Festivus present for voyager. I’ll see how bad the damage is over the next few days and if it’s only minor I may try and wait. I think I might need to save a few more pennies to get the quality I want. I’m using a Canon T5i with an EFS 18 – 135mm lens. Any suggestions?

 

Jack’s Walk

The setting for our walk this morning came complete with mood setting mist and the intermittent caws of a murder of crows. Very film noir, so Jack and I pretended we were on the run from the mob and that we had to find a cache left somewhere in the forest for us. We searched high and low with our eyes and our noses and I’m almost certain I heard the crack of a pistol and the swell of violins, but alas! we could not find the cache. My trusted familiar, Jackson Brown, proved his worth yet again, though, leading us safely to the motorcar left for our conveyance to safety.

Deep in the forest, ©voyager, all rights reserved

At the Zoo d’Amnéville 1

It’s the autumn holidays here and we decided to go for one nice family excursion before we’re bogged down in postponed work again. We’d been promising the kids to visit that zoo in France for ages and finally decided to go. I know, for Americans 100km one sounds like your weekly shopping trip, for us it isn’t.

The zoo is in a smallish town near Metz that seems to consist of a thermal fountain, an amusement park, and a giant complex with restaurant, hotels, cinemas, parking and the zoo. The entrance fee is prohibitive, because in France most zoos are private enterprises and not public institutions, but we decided that we can afford it for a special trip, especially since we always bring food and drinks and therefore don’t have to pay the prohibitive prices inside.

To be honest, I don’t regret the money. It was a wonderful day and the zoo is amazing. There are no holidays in France, it was a Monday in October and there were at the most 150 visitors in the whole zoo. I guess in summer the people push you through, but now we had the leisure to enjoy the animals and the shows.

Of course I took a ton of pics. Original count was 2200, after weeding out the really bad ones there are 1300 left. I won’t post them all ;).

First part is the white lions. They are gigantic, at last 30% larger than the “normal” lions in the next enclosure. The couple has some juvenile cubs and as you can see, in the pics, the male was very interested in making some more…

©Giliell, all rights reserved, click for full size.

Lioness, lying

Lioness, standing

Juvenile lions

juvenile rolling in the sand

Snuggling lions

Male white lion

Male lion trying to mount lioness

Male lion tryinmg to mount lioness

Lioness fighting off lion

Lioness fighting off lion

Lioness fighting off lion

After his third attempt ended like this he threw himself against the glass of the enclosure…

Jack’s Walk

Paper Birch, ©voyager, all rights reserved

It’s been rainy for days with cool temps and even though I don’t like the weather at least the trees have finally started to change colour. Around our neighbourhood the first trees to turn are the birches with their bright yellow and gold leaves. Even on a dull, rainy day those birch leaves shine like sunflowers on a summer’s day. I suspect that the maples will colour up quickly now that the weather is decidedly set to autumn. I’m looking forward to getting lots of autumn trees to post from all of you, hint hint. I haven’t had any tree submissions in a while and I’d like to see what you’ve got.

Masterclass Horsehair Braiding

I don’t think I would have the patience or the dexterity to do this type of art, but Kestrel has it in spades. She’s sent us a gorgeous example of the horsehair braiding that she does and I’m in awe. Thanks so much for sharing, Kestrel.

 

Years ago a lady had me braid a horsehair bracelet for her from her horse. She told me she was really having trouble with a watch that she truly loved: an Ecclissi watch that was just simply falling apart. She told me she had bought it over 30 years ago but loved to wear it. This is how it started out:

©kestrel, all rights reserved

You can see the chains were falling apart. The lady asked me if I could possibly repair it with braided horsehair. She said she would really like it if it looked like twill. I set to work counting hair and working out how to perform this repair.

©kestrel, all rights reserved

The finished watch had 4 bands of 8-strand braiding on each side of the watch. Because I used two different colors I got the twill effect.

©kestrel, all rights reserved

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jack’s Walk

Autumn mums, ©voyager, all rights reserved

I love the autumn, especially the colour show of the trees and bushes, but so far our trees are still green. There’s the odd red or yellow leaf, but this year the trees are making me wait. It isn’t all drab, though. Autumn is also the season that big pots of colourful mums start to appear around the neighbourhood. Mums are hearty at this latitude and can even withstand a bit of freezing and they come in so many rich shades of reds, oranges and yellows, even delicate whites. I love them all and I’m pretty sure this won’t be the last photo of mums that I’ll post this fall.

Spider Silk

Due to drought, there probably will not be any meaningful aftermath this year. The meadows are green, but the grass is not even knee-height. But everything is covered with spider silk this fall, something that I did not notice other years. I tried to take a few shots.

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

Jack’s Walk

Jack at Southside Park, ©voyager, all rights reserved

What you can’t see in this peaceful photograph are the dozens of geese that were honking and charging us from behind. Jack’s never gone up against a goose so he’s fearless around them, but I’ve been bitten by geese and it hurts. They’re also fairly strong, so they make me a bit nervous. I’ve never had trouble with them at this park, though, especially in the fall when they’re not protecting nests or babies. Whatever the cause I decided not to linger and we skedaddled over to the concrete skate park.