A new beginning

I was on my way to the post office, this image caught my eye. What a great illustration of a new beginning!

Mean beauty, last post.

These are the last photos of this (giant?) thistle. I intend to rip it out as soon as the flowers have all withered. The ruler is 72 inches long.

Today at "Les Belles d'un Jour"

I took a few minutes at lunch to visit Michel, my neighbour, and catch a few shots of the blooming daylilies. It must be the peak of the season around here...





Some welcome shade...


A sea of flowers...

Beautiful peach roses

Shot at our neighbour's place...

Mean beauty III

For this photo, I was around five feet from the subject...
Oh! How I love my new camera!


At last, flowers! My giant thistle is blooming!

A brand new camera

My older EOS Rebel digital camera needed a good sensor cleanup, so I went to the local camera shop to get it done. Actually, I didn't know what caused these blurry spots on some but not all of my pictures. It appears that it's dust sitting on the light sensors. I suppose that this mostly happens with SLR cameras since dust can enter the camera body during changes of lenses.

Anyway, I also enquired about prices for macro lenses. As these were way too high for my budget, I then asked the salesman if a non-SLR could be a good alternative, mostly in regards to macro.

He then showed me what the latest Canon bridge camera could do...and I was flabbergasted!
The results were really terrific! The only thing that made me not buy it was that it runs on AA batteries, and I loathe AA batteries!

So he showed me the Nikon P90 bridge camera, which gave similar amazing results but featured an affordable lithium ion battery pack.

I took it home for a little more than half the price of a good macro lens, and I'm in love with it.

This photo of Queen Ann's lace is an example of what this little marvel can do:

Mean beauty, a sequel...

Today.
I'm holding a 6 foot ruler!


June 26th


June 14th


June 11th


June 5th


This picture was taken on the first of june
This thistle is growing and growing, who knows how large it can get?

Here's my first post about that mean beauty

Beware!

With summer, poison ivy is back!



Although it doesn't affect everybody, those that are affected go through itching hell for at least a couple of weeks!



This is what poison ivy looks like: when young it's reddish, shiny and the leaves point downward.
It later becomes green and looses it's shine. Sometimes a bush, sometimes climbing, it always features three leaves.





One of it's dangers is that it can be very small, almost unnoticeable...yet, it's far from innocent!

Tomato leaves and Impatiens capensis (crushed and applied on redness of the skin) are thought to help relieve the itchyness if not the propagation to other parts of the body.


Impatiens capensis © 2006 Derek Ramsey (Ram-Man)

A little piece of paradise...

This is a merge of two photos taken in Ausable Chasm (Upper NY State).
It features two things that are dear to me: running water and mosses...

A green bouquet

Illustration © Luc Normandin

We're back!

While doing my taichi, last night, on my driveway, I realized that the mosquitoes really are back, and hungry as ever!
This is an illustration that I made for Muskol, a few years ago .

Illustration©Luc Normandin

Smell this!

Today was a glorious day!
With smells of lilac and lilies of the valley, a cloudless sky, gardening, cooking, reading a great book, enjoying life...
What more can you ask for?

A lovely afternoon at Montreal's Botanical Garden

Yesterday was a holiday here in Quebec, so I enjoyed a beautiful afternoon with my daughter at Montreal's Botanical Garden.
The orchids greenhouse was particularly interesting.
Here are some photos that I took:

Scilla siberica

Mean beauty

This beast is over a year old.
Last fall, it was over one meter across, and, since it's in an untamed part of our land, I let it grow.
I wonder how large it will get!

Beautiful flowers, beautiful people...

This is about my neighbours, Lorraine and Michel, who have been cultivating Hemerocallis for over nine years now.
They have over 400 varieties of these. They offer a visit of their garden, which is beautiful, for a mere $4,00, and they also sell online.
They are very sweet people and dear friends of ours.
Photos Michel Servant