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Aurora, Oct. 7, 2024

Aurora Borealis as viewed from within the city, facing due east

This is not an every­day[1]Everynight. view from my back yard.

Aurora Borealis as seen from my back yard

…or my upstairs bedroom.

Aurora viewed through my upstairs window

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
1 Everynight.

Today’s Ride — Oct. 6, 2024

A field under a blue prairie sky

I went 13km today with my cam­era. I snapped a 20-pho­to panora­ma of the field at the edge of town, I saw Ursu­la, and I was remind­ed of yes­ter­day’s wind­storm (gusts of up to 110km/h, apparently).

Series: Bike Ride Photos

The entire series: Down by the riv­er; Bike ride birds; The ex-gar­den and the weir; Snap­shots of a ride; Across Town; Black­bird; North Hill cam­pus; Lilacs and coun­try roads; A pop of colour; Back lane flow­ers; More Breniz­ers; The riv­er is high; A bird and a reflec­tion; Rideau Park; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers; Storm dam­age, sun­flow­ers; Eleanor Kidd gar­dens; Scenes from today’s ride; All right, autumn can be pret­ty; Bike ride, April 10, 2021; Bike ride wildlife; Bike ride, May 16, 2021; Some flow­ers for you; Lilacs; Under the bridge; A fence, a tree, and the sky; Tur­tle Cross­ing; Ceme­tery crit­ters; On Reflec­tion; Week­end rides; Upon Reflec­tion; Deer and paparazzi; Sep­tem­ber Bike Ride; Corn & Sun­set; On Reflec­tion: Oct. 1st; Autumn Trees; A bit of graf­fi­ti; Novem­ber bike ride; Geese; Day 30; Quack quack; Skin­ny deer; Mon­day bike ride; Sat­ur­day snaps; Deer + Flow­ers; Bike Ride — July 17, 2022; The mead­ow; It seems to be autumn; Por­tal fan­ta­sy; Sla­va Ukrai­ni; Writ­ing Retreat 2023: Thurs­day bike ride; Bike Ride, May 20, 2024; Shy; Cana­da Day ride; A long ride; Cook­ie Ride redux; Writ­ing Retreat 2024: 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2024: The End; Bike Ride, Sep. 22, 2024; Today’s Ride — Oct. 6, 2024; Souris Val­ley; Bike Ride Pho­tos — May 19, 2025; Bike ride, May 24; Art in the trees.

Bike Ride, Sep. 22, 2024

Row upon row of sunflowers at the community gardens

I took my cam­era on today’s ride and snapped a few pho­tos, all, appar­ent­ly, of plants.

A tree with yellow leaves at the top, green leaves below

This tree stands in for a 1,000-word sto­ry about how I’m not ready for autumn to be here, but it is implaca­bly here nonetheless.

Sunflowers against the sky

There were quite a few sun­flow­ers plant­ed at the com­mu­ni­ty gar­dens this year. This one was being par­tic­u­lar­ly pho­to­genic today. Some­one, though, has removed the Ukrain­ian flag that used to fly there, and I’m not sure why.

Series: Bike Ride Photos

The entire series: Down by the riv­er; Bike ride birds; The ex-gar­den and the weir; Snap­shots of a ride; Across Town; Black­bird; North Hill cam­pus; Lilacs and coun­try roads; A pop of colour; Back lane flow­ers; More Breniz­ers; The riv­er is high; A bird and a reflec­tion; Rideau Park; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers; Storm dam­age, sun­flow­ers; Eleanor Kidd gar­dens; Scenes from today’s ride; All right, autumn can be pret­ty; Bike ride, April 10, 2021; Bike ride wildlife; Bike ride, May 16, 2021; Some flow­ers for you; Lilacs; Under the bridge; A fence, a tree, and the sky; Tur­tle Cross­ing; Ceme­tery crit­ters; On Reflec­tion; Week­end rides; Upon Reflec­tion; Deer and paparazzi; Sep­tem­ber Bike Ride; Corn & Sun­set; On Reflec­tion: Oct. 1st; Autumn Trees; A bit of graf­fi­ti; Novem­ber bike ride; Geese; Day 30; Quack quack; Skin­ny deer; Mon­day bike ride; Sat­ur­day snaps; Deer + Flow­ers; Bike Ride — July 17, 2022; The mead­ow; It seems to be autumn; Por­tal fan­ta­sy; Sla­va Ukrai­ni; Writ­ing Retreat 2023: Thurs­day bike ride; Bike Ride, May 20, 2024; Shy; Cana­da Day ride; A long ride; Cook­ie Ride redux; Writ­ing Retreat 2024: 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2024: The End; Bike Ride, Sep. 22, 2024; Today’s Ride — Oct. 6, 2024; Souris Val­ley; Bike Ride Pho­tos — May 19, 2025; Bike ride, May 24; Art in the trees.

Lightning — Sept. 18, 2024

A lightning bolt above the trees

There was quite the light­ning show from a storm pass­ing through. I set up a tri­pod in the upstairs bed­room, and it was bright enough, sus­tained enough, that I was able to check my focus ring just by the light from the storm.

It was espe­cial­ly impres­sive to real­ize the heart of the storm actu­al­ly passed just to the east of us; we caught the very edge of it.

Partial partial lunar eclipse

The full moon, with a shadow across its upper left side

Since our trees no longer block the sky[1]I see I haven’t blogged about that; long sto­ry short, one large branch fell, and the arborist rec­om­mend­ed we remove both maples. I still miss them., I was able to set up a cam­era on the deck to try and get a time­lapse of the moon being par­tial­ly dark­ened by Earth­’s shad­ow this evening. I went back out­side about 10 min­utes lat­er to see how it was going, and… Well, clouds had filled the sky. So I man­aged to get about 4 pho­tos, all told, and above you can see one of them.

Oh well. Like I said to my dar­ling wife, at least I did­n’t dri­ve twen­ty min­utes just to watch the clouds roll in.

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
1 I see I haven’t blogged about that; long sto­ry short, one large branch fell, and the arborist rec­om­mend­ed we remove both maples. I still miss them.

Writing Retreat 2024: The End

Wide panoramic shot of the hills to the north of me

I went for a bike ride today, and got a cou­ple of panora­mas: one of the hill­side to the north (above) and an inter­est­ing tree along the trail (below).

A tree growing almost horizontally

Then I cleaned up the cab­in, packed, and head­ed home.

So how’d I do?

I delib­er­ate­ly did­n’t set myself any goals this year. I took my bike, my lap­top, my cam­eras, and a bunch of books; this, I decid­ed, would be a vaca­tion vaca­tion, not—as it’s kind of turned into over the years—a work­ing vacation.

I read Rules for a Knight by Ethan Hawke, a book I did­n’t know exist­ed until Corey Redekop post­ed about find­ing it at a used book store; I read Anni­hi­la­tor by Grant Mor­ri­son and Fraz­er Irv­ing; and I read about ⅔ of Kurt Von­negut’s Blue­beard[1]And once this is post­ed, I’m prob­a­bly going read some more.. I wrote about 3000 new words, I think, in my “derelict star­ship” sto­ry. Since the cab­in own­er have Dis­ney+, I watched a sea­son of The Man­dalo­ri­an. I took a lot of photos.

It occurred to me, ear­li­er today, that this “writ­ing” retreat was real­ly about 65% pho­tog­ra­phy by weight, and I’m OK with that. Should I call it a “pho­tog­ra­phy retreat”? An “art retreat”? Maybe, but I’m not going to. I’m the one writ­ing these posts, after all, and I’ll title them as I see fit.

Good night, and good luck.

A branch, with a nearly horizontal tree in the very blurry background

Series: Bike Ride Photos

The entire series: Down by the riv­er; Bike ride birds; The ex-gar­den and the weir; Snap­shots of a ride; Across Town; Black­bird; North Hill cam­pus; Lilacs and coun­try roads; A pop of colour; Back lane flow­ers; More Breniz­ers; The riv­er is high; A bird and a reflec­tion; Rideau Park; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers; Storm dam­age, sun­flow­ers; Eleanor Kidd gar­dens; Scenes from today’s ride; All right, autumn can be pret­ty; Bike ride, April 10, 2021; Bike ride wildlife; Bike ride, May 16, 2021; Some flow­ers for you; Lilacs; Under the bridge; A fence, a tree, and the sky; Tur­tle Cross­ing; Ceme­tery crit­ters; On Reflec­tion; Week­end rides; Upon Reflec­tion; Deer and paparazzi; Sep­tem­ber Bike Ride; Corn & Sun­set; On Reflec­tion: Oct. 1st; Autumn Trees; A bit of graf­fi­ti; Novem­ber bike ride; Geese; Day 30; Quack quack; Skin­ny deer; Mon­day bike ride; Sat­ur­day snaps; Deer + Flow­ers; Bike Ride — July 17, 2022; The mead­ow; It seems to be autumn; Por­tal fan­ta­sy; Sla­va Ukrai­ni; Writ­ing Retreat 2023: Thurs­day bike ride; Bike Ride, May 20, 2024; Shy; Cana­da Day ride; A long ride; Cook­ie Ride redux; Writ­ing Retreat 2024: 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2024: The End; Bike Ride, Sep. 22, 2024; Today’s Ride — Oct. 6, 2024; Souris Val­ley; Bike Ride Pho­tos — May 19, 2025; Bike ride, May 24; Art in the trees.

Series: Writing Retreat 2024

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2024 (1); Writ­ing Retreat 2024 (2); Writ­ing Retreat 2024 (3); Writ­ing Retreat 2024 (4); Writ­ing Retreat (5a — Milky Way); Writ­ing Retreat (5b — Auro­ra Bore­alis); Writ­ing Retreat 2024: 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2024: 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2024: The End.

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
1 And once this is post­ed, I’m prob­a­bly going read some more.