The port authority is trying once again to entice eagles to nest on the roof of the terminal.
Pigeon guillemot.
California poppies.
Closed breakwater walk.
Dallas Road & pathway construction at the sea-wall.
CanBob PhotoBlog |
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Greeted by a harbour seal (who might be wondering why there are no cruise ships here!).
The port authority is trying once again to entice eagles to nest on the roof of the terminal. Pigeon guillemot. California poppies. Closed breakwater walk. Dallas Road & pathway construction at the sea-wall.
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Out for some exercise today. Lots of pink cherry blossoms on trees & petals falling to the ground & drifting in the breezes. The walk around Laurel Point has been closed for yonks, but the restoration work seems complete now. Great blue heron. Signage for new name of parkland. Walked up to the Empress & back through the lege grounds to Menzies & home. Lots of Spring blooms in our fair city! Raccoons don't have permanent homes. They have places throughout their home-range where they feel safe to rest throughout the day. Our driveway hedge is one of those places. My favorite route home from anywhere takes me through Beacon Hill Park. It is nicely uncrowded these days, and (according to Mrs Peacock) the Spring bulb flowers make the meadows magnificent.
So, my street - Dallas Road- has been experiencing a major disruption for over 2 years now (big buried sewer pipe to a new treatment plant). A few blocks near the breakwater are still like driving through a war zone, but much of the work on the road & new, wider, shared foot/bike path is finished.
Walkers (mostly masked) are well spaced & very conscientious of avoiding each other - runners, not so much. It is definitely Spring here, and my allergies kick in just thinking about all the pollen in the air. ;) I spent a while, a few days back, de-soldering the center-piece of a glass box I made years ago. The shell had been broken by some rough handling, and has been in a bin of repair projects since we move to Victoria. Today is the day to make it all better (inspired by the little Picard in my head saying 'make it so!')
I selected a replacement shell from a bunch that have also been in storage for years. Not a perfect fit, but close enough for me to fudge. Apply copper foil tape all the way around the shell. Fold the tape over the edges of the shell & press/smooth the tape. I needed a slightly wider copper foil tape to go on the glass that the shell will be fixed to. Folded & smoothed the tape on the glass. Placed the shell in a best fit situation. Plugged in the soldering iron & applied flux to the fresh tape. Spot-soldered the shell to test placement. Satisfied, so solder all the tape, in & outside the box. Wash project to remove remnants of flux. Dry it, and apply liquid copper sulphate solution to give the new silvery solder lines an aged patina look. Wash it again & set to dry. That's it for today! We decided to support our local little diner, the Beacon Drive In (perennially vote best soft ice cream in Victoria!), so we went for a fair walk today. Dallas Road for views of the Olympics. Neighborhood streets - contrast futuristic vehicle and fairy/gnome village around tree.
Got burgers, fries, & onion rings & took them to Beacon Hill Park to eat. Nice bench near the turtle log in Goodacre Lake. The walk home featured tulips at the James Bay Inn. But first some work in the craft shop. I am de-constructing (as opposed to demolishing) a glass box featuring a (broken) sand dollar (seashell). It took hours with a soldering iron, but the hard par is done. Next, I will clean up the mess, and select an appropriate shell to replace the broken one.
We walked to Fisherman's Wharf today. Lots of decorative cherry tree in bloom. Lots of pandemic caution signs. Still water = good reflections. Bare spaces where tables & seating used to be. Took my bike out for a shake-down at the deserted cruise ship terminal parking area. I call this a good day! These are generally strange days, but today was particularly odd.
In the dim early morning light, as I was at my computer, I glanced out to the balcony & saw what looked like a Christmas tree cut out of wood or cardboard sitting on a shelf of Jan's little greenhouse unit. I had never seen or heard of it before, so when it got a little lighter I went for a closer look. Turns out that I was looking at the negative space between 2 flower pots! The French term'trompe l'oeil' translates to fool the eye. Costco has started some early morning opening hours for seniors, so we drove to Langford to see. What we saw was huge line of fogy shoppers that snaked though a large section of the parking lot. No way, Jose! There's nothing on our shopping list that we are that desperate to buy. (Yes, we do have a good supply of TP.) BUT, there was NO line up at the gasoline pumps. Drove right up to the bowser & filled up for the cheapest fuel in over a decade! OK, I count that as 2 strange things. I have not been getting much exercise lately, so I decided I would walk around the block today. As blocks go, it is fairly substantial, and I always like to leave myself room for improvement. Had my first real look at a finished house that was constructed when we were away in NZ & then Aust. I noticed that someone must not have liked one of our street signs and that the blossoming cherry tree I see from my kitchen window looks good from the other side, too. Then came oddity #3 - a man riding a bicycle - wait or it - he had a white cat perched on his shoulder! At the corner of Montreal & Dallas is a new crosswalk painted on new pavement. This little thing has huge implications for the eventual completion of a multi year construction project. This is one of my favorite sub-seasons of Spring. Fawn lilies are beautiful, delicate, and not widely dispersed. I stopped near the Quadra Street entrance to Beacon Hill Park to get these pictures. Daffodils, magnolias, & peacocks are kinda cool too.
The outdoor art is from an earlier drive-by at the Cedar Hill Rec Centre parkland. |
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December 2020
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