Writing Retreat 2026, days 3–5

Concentric star trails

Let’s see here:

Wednesday

Wednes­day was rainy and cool. I did some edit­ing on the paper print­out of There’s Noth­ing Good at the Top, and fin­ished read­ing Julian Com­stock by Robert Charles Wil­son and start­ed Fear­less Jones by Wal­ter Mosley. I also dis­cov­ered that Far­go is avail­able to me on the TV, and so I watched the first few episodes of sea­son 1.

Thursday

Thurs­day was a bet­ter day; the sun came out and the tem­per­a­ture cracked the mid-teens. I wore shorts when I walked over to Poor Michael’s book empo­ri­um, where I had a mocha and picked up some books for a friend (I have enough books of my own, thanks). Back at the house I entered my edits from the paper man­u­script into my doc­u­ment, and made a few more updates. I still need to add a few scenes and update a few dream sequences, I think; make a few things more explic­it. The first draft is you telling your­self the sto­ry[1]As Sir Ter­ry Pratch­ett put it., but by the time it’s a sec­ond draft (which is what I’m work­ing on) it should be ready for oth­ers to read it too.

The sky was still clear after the sun went down, and it’s quite dark ’round these parts, so I set up my cam­eras in the yard, one fac­ing north and one point­ing pret­ty much straight up. The north-fac­ing one got about 2½ hours worth of 5‑second expo­sures for star trails (above); the oth­er one snapped a bunch of 30-sec­ond expo­sures of the Milky Way. I made time-lapse videos from both sets of photos.

The Milky Way (and the International Space Station)
The Milky Way

Friday

That actu­al­ly bled into Fri­day; all the pho­tos were tak­en before I went to bed at about 1am, but all the pro­cess­ing hap­pened today. I’ve also read some more, and I plowed through all of sea­son 1 of Far­go too, which told a taut story.

And now I’m going to have some sup­per, and then work some more on my edit­ing. Tomor­row I have to be up ear­ly, so it’s prob­a­bly for the best that it’s cloudy and rainy—I’ll be less tempt­ed to try and get more night­time photos.

Series: Writing Retreat 2026

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2026, day 2; Writ­ing Retreat 2026, days 3–5.

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
↑1 As Sir Ter­ry Pratch­ett put it.

Bike Ride Photos, May 10, 2026

A tree decorated with a grinning face

On Sun­day, I took my cam­era on a 30km bike ride, and got a few photos.

A goose on the side of a grassy hill
A 23-image panorama taken facing east from the 1st Street Bridge

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 Pho­tos, May 10, 2026; The neigh­bour­hood at twi­light.

Aurora in the city, Nov. 12–13, 2025

Aurora above the trees

The auro­ra data looked pret­ty decent last night, but I was tired. So I set up a cam­era in the spare bed­room, point­ed east, and let it click away.

I end­ed up with 3000+ images in a bit over 4 hours. The time­lapse video below is, as usu­al, 60× nor­mal speed, so that 1 sec­ond of video is 1 minute of real time.

Con­tin­ue read­ing “Auro­ra in the city, Nov. 12–13, 2025” →

The Milky Way at an abandoned church

The Milky Way behind an abandoned church

Last night the sky was clear and my bat­ter­ies were charged. I loaded up my gear and head­ed to a spot I found last fall: an aban­doned church south of me.

For almost the entire time I was there—about 10:45pm till 2am—it was just me and the fire­flies and the crick­ets. A truck drove by at one point (very slow­ly, because I’d seen them com­ing and turned on my car’s lights), but oth­er than that I was alone under the stars.

The Milky Way behind an abandoned church

Look at all those fireflies.

I did up a mul­ti-pho­to panora­ma, too, before I left.

Panoramic image of the Milky Way behind an abandoned church

Below is a time­lapse of the night. It’s made of 169 still images, each one a 30-sec­ond expo­sure at 11mm, f/2.8, ISO800.

It was almost 3am by the time I got to bed. It’s been a while since I stayed up that late. I think it was worth it, though.

Update

I just spent 90 min­utes or so stack­ing 16 images from my 2nd cam­era into this image of a por­tion of the galaxy.

A stack of 16 images of the Milky Way

Bike Ride Photos — May 19, 2025

A deer, not terribly afraid of me, watching me from about 20 metres away; a more skittish deer is visible further away, nearer to the willows at the riverbank

I went about 15km today with my cam­era. I set myself up with a chal­lenge: try to use the 35mm lens and the fil­ters I bought at the Dun­rea Flea Mar­ket[1]Which, as I’m sure you’ve fig­ured out by now, takes place in Bois­se­vain. a few years ago.

I set myself up with a polar­iz­ing fil­ter and a red-blue fil­ter (ie, one that will let through red light or blue light but not, it seems, both). It was a cloudy day and I fig­ured I might get a bit of dra­ma from the clouds by polar­iz­ing the red / blue light.

Did I suc­ceed? You tell me.

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 Pho­tos, May 10, 2026; The neigh­bour­hood at twi­light.

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
↑1 Which, as I’m sure you’ve fig­ured out by now, takes place in Boissevain.

Birthday Aurora

Panoramic photo of the aurora

Yes­ter­day was my birth­day, and the sky was clear and the auro­ra data were pret­ty good. So about 10pm I hit the road, and got these pho­tos about 15 min­utes from my house.

Above: an 11-pho­to panora­ma stretch­ing from west to east.

The stars were sharp and clear, too, in the cold air, so I snapped some pho­tos of one of my favourite con­stel­la­tions, Orion.

And because my cam­eras were nice and still for most of the time, I have a minute or so of time­lapse video for you. Each sec­ond of video is a minute of real time.

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; Bike Ride Pho­tos, May 10, 2026; The neigh­bour­hood at twi­light.

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.