My Monday posts will now focus on happiness. The goal is to start each week on a positive note.
I ’ve recently been seeing lots of clever memes from a Facebook page called “Hippie World”.
The memes are ai generated, so aren’t subject to copyright (I figured as much, but checked anyways to be sure).
Because, when I was a teenager, I was a wannabe hippie, because I’ve been an avid walker for many years, and because many of the songs referenced are on my walking playlists, this one spoke to me:
Happiness landed firmly this past week, as more and more signs of spring appeared on my walking trails.
The showy flowers on the Dwarf Russian Almond shrub in my feature photo made me smile.
Caraganas are also finally kicking out their masses of yellow blossoms now. These blossoms always bring back happy memories of my childhood home.
Everything is showing signs of life and rejuvenation after a cooler, dryer, and windier than usual May.
The grass alongside our many trails is greening up, and the trees will soon be completely leafed out.
Since returning home from Texas and after listening to rave reviews from my sister on Instant Pot Yogurt, I decided to finally give it a try.
My sister has been making her own IP Yogurt for some time and says she prefers the flavour and texture to store bought.
I’ve now made my second batch and to say I’m impressed is an understatement.
From one gallon of skim milk, I get 10 cups of Greek Yogurt (the container with the red lid contains 2 cups). It’s fat free and preservative free, and has the creamy consistency of Fage.
In addition, I’m saving the whey (in the jar on the left) from straining, to add to smoothies, soups, and baking.
Not only is the taste and texture better than store bought:
>The gallon (4 litre) jug of milk I use costs on average $6.50 Cdn ($4.72 USD)
>The 10 cups (2500 mls) of Greek Yogurt that the recipe makes would cost, on average around $21 CDN ($15 USD)
So, considering the no preservatives, the usefulness of the whey, the price point, and the better texture and flavour, the lengthy process is a win, win, win,win.
Over the past few years, there has been a bench alongside one of our walking trails here that has often had a small painted rock sitting on it.
I’ve always wondered who the generous artist was. Who would paint a rock and leave it for others to enjoy?
In my mind’s eye, it was a middle aged to older woman who was a member of our local artist’s guild. She would be of petite stature with grey hair, glasses, and a friendly smile.
The other day, as I was on that same path, there was a tall, heavily built, younger fellow walking ahead of me.
I saw him stop at a bench, take something out of his pocket, and spend a few moments. He was far enough ahead that I didn’t know if he was tying a shoelace or what he was doing there.
When I finally got to the bench, the young man was long gone. My feature photo shows what I found on the bench he had stopped at.
Now, did this fellow paint and leave the rock? Is he the one who has been doing this all along? Did he maybe take the rock on a previous stroll and was now returning it for someone else to enjoy? Did he just spy the treasure and stop to take a photo of it, as I had done?
That little painted duck provided much more than a gift of beauty along a hiking trail.
It afforded me the opportunity to speculate and examine my sometimes stereotypical assessments.
On my most recent morning walk, signs of spring were finally evident.
This time of year brings the promise of summer, especially along the hiking/walking/biking trails and it always brings to mind the little verse I learned in my childhood:
Spring has sprung
The grass is riz
I wonder where the birdies is
The birdy’s on the wing
Now isn’t that absurd
‘Cause everybody knows
That the wing is on the bird
I love imported chocolate, especially Swiss.
I’m sure that this love of “shocklat” (as my paternal grandfather called it in his Swiss-German accent) is both learned and genetic.
For Easter this year, in addition to my annual Lindt gold bunny, the Easter Bunny brought me a variety bag of Lindt bite-sized Easter Eggs.
I enjoyed the bunny bit by bit for a few days after Easter. I weighed every ounce that I ate and counted every calorie.
Even though they’ve called out to me almost every day from the treat cupboard in our kitchen, I’ve resisted those eggs … on most days.
Yesterday, I finally silenced them.
Many years ago, when I hopped in for a semi trip with hubs, he explained the USA interstate highway system to me.
He also explained what the drivers in their unique CB radio lingo were referring to in terms of the lanes on the highway through cities.
The left lane next to centre was the “hammer lane”, meaning that you had to hammer down (accelerate) in order to pass.
The right lane next to centre (excluding exit lanes) was called the “granny lane”, because this is where the slow traffic should be.
The centre lane was appropriately, the “sandwich lane”.
Our indoor track has three lanes, but they operate opposite to the highway. Our hammer lane is to the right of centre and granny lane is to the left.
The gal in the hammer lane in my feature photo had just passed me.
I’m usually a sandwich lane kinda gal, unless someone’s speed has them in the wrong lane. Then, I’m hammer lane all the way.
And then there are those who don’t play by the rules of the road and take up all three lanes at a less than normal pace.
As I come up behind groups like this, I call out “passing”, and the person on the right moves to centre.
Next time I’m going to call out, “hammer lane”.
Due to freezing rain and icy streets and sidewalks, this past week and most of the next week aren’t conducive to outdoor walks.
We’re very fortunate to have an excellent sports facility nearby that features an indoor track.
Despite it being nearby, I’m driving over there to do my daily power walking.
My feature photo is the view of the Legacy Park paths from the second floor walking track windows.
I did some editing to clean up the photo and add a touch of drama to the overcast sky.
Here’s the original:
The paths are more apparent in the original and it also gives a better sense of the height it was shot from.
Sometimes there are trade-offs in post processing, just as there are tradeoffs for walking indoors vs out.
On yesterday morning’s power walk, there wasn’t a breath of wind, which resulted in stunning mirror reflections on the river.
Because I didn’t want to slow my pace, I didn’t take the time to adjust the exposure on my iPhone camera before I took the shot.
The result was a slightly more washed out photo than what I had hoped for.
Our province’s motto is “Land of Living Skies”, so my goal in many of the landscape images I capture here at home is to honour that motto.
In addition to not taking the time to adjust the exposure, I didn’t wait until there were no vehicles passing by. I don’t mind vehicles in a landscape photo that showcases reflections on water, but only if the vehicles themselves are also in the reflection.
A bit of post processing brought the photo to how I envisioned the scene. I first removed the cars using the eraser in my phone’s native photos app. I then took the photo into the Lightroom mobile app for minor adjustments to exposure and colours. I added a wee bit of vignette at the end to draw more light to the main subject. Within less than five minutes of simple editing, I was able to achieve what was in my mind’s eye for this scene from yesterday morning (feature photo).
In some instances, I edit out telephone and power lines. This time, the lines were also a detail in the perfect reflection so I left them in.
Here’s the original.
