Back in Action; Back in Alberta

Thanks to a generous loan from the bank of Mum and Dad, I am back up and running.  And to celebrate, here are some photos I took while visiting Mum and Dad last month.  We went snow shoeing out in Kananaskis Country, out past West Bragg Creek.  The sun was getting low in the late afternoon, and I went a little nuts with the tree pictures.  Unfortunately this part of Kanaskis is under threat of a massive clear cutting.  Spray Lakes Sawmill is planning to clear cut over 7 square kilometers from this beautiful recreational area.  To find out more about this, and how to help stop it you can visit the Sustain Kananaskis website.

This computer is a sinking ship, and I'm bailing out files.

So, I was starting to get on a bit of a role there, catching up on blog posts... but unfortunately my computer has taken a turn for the worse.  What started as discoloured bars on the sides of the screen (crappy, but not so bad) turned into a three inch discoloured bar right through the middle of the screen.  I'm sure you can imagine how this would make photo editing pretty darn difficult.  That and it tends to be pretty head-ache inducing, as it flashes.  So, unfortunately my posts will be once again put on hold until I come across some some sort of technological fortune.  Happy internet-ing until then.

A Mass Murder of Crows

If a regular flock of crows is called a Murder, then we have a flock living near our house, that one could only call a Mass Murder.  There has to be at least 300 crows in this flock.  You know when they are around because of the amazing amount of noise that they make.  And when they take to the sky, its like being in the Hitchcock movie The Birds. One day on my way home from school, I was driving up our street, and there they all were, sitting in an empty lot... and in the trees, and on the power lines, and the on the surrounding houses.  I grabbed my camera and walked down to grab a few shots.

These guys were not at all concerned with my presence.  They are one of my favourite birds to have at WildARC; they demonstrate their incredible intelligence constantly, and they're beautiful creatures.

At one point, a gentleman walked through the middle of the lot, and the crows all took flight.

This guy had a lot to say.

That's a lot of crow.

Goldstream Trestle Bridges

It's been three months since I last posted.  You know it's bad when you're Mum starts reminding you.  But alas, I have become backed up with editing, and therefore, backed up with posting.  So I'm starting from the present (ish) and working my way back.

Last weekend I went hiking with a couple of friends, out to see the Goldstream trestle bridges.  It was a soggy, foggy, rainy day, perfect for walking along slippery railway ties.  Unfortunately Charlie had to sit this one out, due to the dangers of crossing the bridges.  But to be honest, she probably would have hated the rain anyway.

So we set out on this hike, that felt like it went strait up for a very long time (but that might have had more to do with the previous nights festivities), before coming out of the woods to see the first trestle bridge disappearing into the fog.

We were secure in the knowledge that the trains no longer run along these tracks, which is more then I can say for the last time I was up here.  It was during one of my trips to see my friend Hawley, before I moved here, and a friend of ours was showing us around.  He brought us onto the bridge convinced that the trains were not using it anymore.  Once we were in the middle of the bridge we felt the tracks start to tremble and heard the rhythmic chug of something coming down the tracks.  We scrambled back across the bridge as fast as we could, and dove off the side of the tracks (some more successfully than others) in time to see a truck driving up the tracks.  It was a little anti-climactic, but terrifying none-the-less.  This summer the trains had for sure been shut down, as the tracks had been assessed and deemed too damaged to be worth fixing.  Comforting, and yet not...

Nevertheless, up we went.

I am not a huge fan of heights, so I stayed firmly rooted to the middle of the bridge, and avoided looking down as best I could.  Its hard to express just how high up these bridges are, and I couldn't even guess at the actual height.  But as you can see, we were well above the tree line in a pretty impressive rain forest.  I'm pretty sure I felt one or two of the ties move as I was walking across that bridge too.

As a photographer, one just can't resist the simplicity of those converging lines.

 We crossed the first bridge, thoroughly soaked by now, and walked another 15 minutes up the tracks to the second trestle bridge.

This platform had a pretty good lean on it, and the last couple boards, along with the railing, were definitely rotting.

I had fun that day, even if it was rainy, and its good to face your fears sometimes.

Quick Kitty Pic

I found myself sitting inside in front of my computer, on another rainy November day today.  This inevitably means that the pets will join me.  Steve's favourite spot is atop the backrest of the desk chair.  I took this photo of him, which turned out quite well, so I wanted to share it quickly.

It reminded me of another shot I took of him back in July, but never got around to posting.  He turned 1 year as of August, and it seems to us that he's been filling out and becoming more masculine over the last couple months (he weighs in at approximately 14 lbs now, and can reach about 3 feet up the wall stretched out).  He's certainly a handsome boy anyway.

Baby Ben does Fall

My adorable nephew Benjamin and his parents came to visit at the beginning of the month.  He's 7 months old now, and since the last visit he had learned to sit up, and found a love for animals (dogs and cats yes, horses not so much).  We snuck off early one brisk morning to Mount Doug Park to take advantage of the beautiful fall leaves that pile up there.  Ben was a pretty good sport about sitting on the cold ground, and took up sampling the leaves.

He didn't seem to like the taste of them particularly...

 But he kept right on trying them.

He's sporting a cardigan my Mum knit for him in the above pictures, and modelling a sweater from Sitka's baby line in the ones below (they have some really cute onesies for babies, and adults alike).

One of the excitements of the weekend was that Ben learned to use rolling to get around.  He even travelled from one end of the house to the other, although it started off a little bumpy.  He's practising his new skill in the photos below.

Ucluelet/Tofino Camping

We recently took a trip up to the Tofino/Ucluelet area to camp at Mussel Beach.  The campground was beautiful, and worth the trip, as long as your car can handle the road to get there.  We arrived in time to catch the sun setting, and the moon rising, on a night full of more stars than I've seen in a long time.

This was the view from our little private spot on the beach.  And an HDR that I shot as well.

The next day brought a hot sunny day.  This was Charlie enjoying the sunrise, before it had started to really warm up.

The second morning the sun rose behind a heavy fog bank, making for some very dramatic lighting.

The strange weather wasn't deterring the paddle boarders though.

We decided to head towards Tofino and take a turn at random to a beach we hadn't seen before.  This lead us to Florencia Bay, also known as Wreck Beach.  As it turns out this beach gets its name from a ship (the Florencia) that wrecked in the bay in 1899.

These winding stairs lead down the cliff to the flat sandy beach below.  It was beautiful under the low clouds, and we enjoyed wandering along, and chasing the waves.  Although Charlie was a bit spooked by the wet suit clad surfers wandering out of the water, boards in hand.