sunset

Twilight at Spruces

Posted on by Patrick
Twilight at Spruces in Riding Mountain National Park

My friend Tim is camp­ing up at Wasagam­ing in Rid­ing Moun­tain. I went to vis­it him last night, and before I came home we went to Spruces to check out the twi­light. (We’d planned to check out the sun­set but we got to talk­ing, and time got away from us a lit­tle bit. So it goes.)

Some tall, leaning spruces

Some love­ly cre­pus­cu­lar light there.

We saw a wolf, too, trot­ting down the high­way, but I did­n’t get a pho­to of him.

Reflections at Sunset

Posted on by Patrick
Sunset at the edge of town

The clouds looked inter­est­ing, about ten min­utes before sun­set last night, so I grabbed my cam­era and went to the west edge of town. I man­aged to get the last sliv­er of sunset—see the pho­to above.

I also snapped some pho­tos of the sun’s reflect­ed light on the clouds:

Orange sunset light on the clouds
Sun­set light on the clouds

…and on the moon.

The half-moon
Sun­light bounc­ing off the moon

Writing Retreat 2020, Day 7

Posted on by Patrick
Minnedosa cairn with a plough on top

Fri­day:

  • I lay awake from about 4 am till about 5:30 am thanks to a cou­ple of thun­der­storms pass­ing through.
  • In the morn­ing, I biked about 6 km before it got over­ly hot.
  • While I was out on my bike, I took pho­tos for a cou­ple of panora­mas (one of which turned out as I’d hoped).
Minnedosa cairn with a plough on top
The plough cairn (panora­ma; 18 pho­tos, 50mm, f/2.8 each)
  • I wrote 500 words in Daniel, Daniel, Daniel, did some pre­lim­i­nary edit­ing of “The Slow Apoc­a­lypse” (though it might still be too ear­ly for me to work on this), and wrote 300 word in “Dried Flowers”.
  • I read a few more chap­ters in The Wiz­ard—as I approach the end, I’m torn between savour­ing it and find­ing out what hap­pens next.
  • I tried to come up with a coher­ent end­ing for Daniel, Daniel, Daniel, because while I know the final scene, I don’t have the sto­ry’s end­ing ful­ly fleshed out yet. It’s a bit frus­trat­ing, frankly; I’m the kind of writer that needs a sol­id end­ing before I start a project. I thought I had it, but the char­ac­ters are going their own ways.
  • I noticed the sky had got quite colour­ful about 9:15 pm, and stepped out­side in time to snap a pho­to of a love­ly sun­set. I only got bit­ten by 22 mos­qui­toes in the 5 min­utes I was out­side, too, so that’s a victory.
Sunset with clouds: blue, orange, pink, and indigo
Sun­set on a Fri­day evening
  • About 11:45 I went and got some pho­tos of Comet NEOWISE and the north­ern lights. (And anoth­er cou­ple dozen bug bites.)
Comet NEOWISE and aurora
Comet NEOWISE and aurora
  • And I man­aged to catch the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion as it went over­head, even though it tried to hide behind a cloud.
The International Space Station ducks behind a cloud
I waved to the ISS astro­nauts as they went by

All in all, a good Fri­day, even if it was a bit too hot to even think straight. (No sweet­er sin than air con­di­tion­ing, I tell you.)

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.

Series: Writing Retreat 2020

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2020; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 1 & 2; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 3; Writ­ing Retreat, Day 4; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, day 5; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 8; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 9; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers.

A tale of two skies

Posted on by Patrick
Orange sky through the trees

We did­n’t get the worst of last night’s storms. There was some light­ning and thun­der, a lit­tle bit of rain, and a 2½ hour pow­er out­age, but we caught the edge of the storm as it went by.

We did get some inter­est­ing skies, though.

  • Orange Sky
    Look­ing south­west at sunset
  • Purple-grey sky
    Look­ing north­east at sunset
Orange SkyPurple-grey sky