In early February, on one of my regular walking routes, I found a spoon with a bent handle on an overpass. I picked it up off the sidewalk and put it on one of the railing pylons, hoping to get an arty shot.
It stayed there for a few weeks, and each time I passed I took more pictures. I began to think about taking it with me and photographing it in different places, just for fun. Continue reading
It’s a joke, if such a casual name is appropriate for something that uses Ancient Greek roots:
Hence, hexakosioi-hexekonta-hexa-phobia: fear of 666. Continue reading
What this bird does with its wings makes my shoulders hurt.
It sure isn’t the canonical hummingbird photo – hovering, wings fully extended – but it’s what I could get. And in any position, these are beautiful birds.
Maurice “Rocket” Richard was before my time, at least in the sense of me taking any interest in hockey. He played from 1942 to 1960 – all 18 seasons for the Montreal Canadiens. Continue reading
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Time: May, 1980-something
I’m organizing my first neighbourhood garage sale, thereby meeting people on my three-block-long street whom I’ve never even seen before. One is an American transplant, who tells me that on the day appointed for the garage sale, she’ll be working in the American booth at the Folk Festival. Continue reading
William Ronald Reid, Jr.’s life changed in his thirties.
Bill Reid was born to a Haida mother and an American father of Scottish and German roots. While working as a broadcaster with the CBC in Toronto in the early 1950s, he studied jewelry-making at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, and later studied classic European jewelry-making at the London School of Design. He combined European jewelry techniques with the Haida art tradition. His passion for Haida art was kindled by a visit to Haida Gwaii in 1954 where he saw a pair of bracelets masterfully engraved by the great carver and his great-great-uncle, Charles Edenshaw, after which, to use his own words, “the world was not the same.” – Bill Reid Gallery
Bill’s mother was a member of the Raven/Wolf clan, and it was through his maternal grandfather that he learned about their traditions. Continue reading
OK, maybe it’s mesquite. I’m still working on that.
But for sure it’s pretty at this time of year.
I grew up calling the archipelago north of Vancouver Island the Queen Charlotte Islands. In 2010 Haida Gwaii Reconciliation Act between the Haida and the BC government renamed the islands Haida Gwaii or “islands of the people.”
An earlier name is Xaadala Gwayee, translated as “islands at the boundary of the world.” Given the expanse of Pacific Ocean to the west, it’s easy to understand how they might have earned that name. Today, the islands host the Edge of the World Music Festival in August.
Trying for photos of the wild flowers so abundant along the road where there was no place to stop, I asked the Big Guy to pull into the parking lot of Tonto National Monument, above Theodore Roosevelt Lake.
My search for grand vistas framed by flowers was unfruitful, but I did hear and see a male northern cardinal, who posed nicely.
Posted: 2025 Aug 20
