video experiment

i thought i'd finally test out the video function of our Nikon d5000. i don't really know what i'm doing with it yet. the video is not edited, it's just as is. m did put music in it to make it slightly less boring. also, i hope Ritche won't mind that we used his music! i better e-mail him to let him know.

squirrel(s)!

remember m's last post about the squirrels in our yard? it's true. we have a few hanging about, partying it up like it's, you know, 2010. our neighbour's walnut tree is akin to an all you can eat nut buffet for these furry creatures.

we have all sorts of squirrel. this one is Man on a Wire of the squirrel world.


this one loves to work on its tan.
and last but not least, the guilty one. so busted.

i really don't mind the squirrels. they are pretty cute and entertaining. but i do wish they left some walnuts for us. oh well. there is always next year.

sunday collection 23

There is a walnut tree in our yard. Or, more precisely, our neighbour's yard. The branches of which reach over the fence and flop mostly into our yard. Quite possibly for this reason, we also have a mild squirrel infestation. These conditions lead to the expression of a fundamental equation to which I had not been exposed - until now:

nuts + squirrels = yard-work

I so love yard-work.

pura vida.

i spent a couple of months in Costa Rica in 1996. it was so long ago now it seems! i went as part of an Environmental Leadership Program that was organized by a local environmental youth group here in Newfoundland in partnership with Canada World Youth. there were other youth from Nova Scotia and Costa Rica in the group, 20 of us in total. we lived in a small town just outside of San Jose called Los Sitios. we were each placed with a host family. it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

Costa Ricans or Ticos are very warm and friendly people. they have this contagious love for life -- pura vida. pura vida literally means "pure life" but it means way more than that to all the Ticos and Ticas that i have met. it's a greeting. it means cool. it's a sense of community. it's overcoming and persevering. it's a celebration.

we have plenty of reasons to celebrate and be thankful for...

we actually broke 20 degree celcius yesterday! it was sunny, warm and everyone's humming with energy.
the other day was my birthday and i got two birthday cakes! i'm a lucky, lucky girl. this one is from m. we shared this yummy, sugary thing for breakfast.
and this cake was made by Holly. little K wanted to help me blow the candles.
little K's holding her hair back because her dad told her (on her last birthday) that she should do so in order to avoid the hair catching on fire sort of scenario. she remembered the handy tip. smart girl.

and right this very moment, my bestfriend is in labour and can have her baby anytime now. super exciting!

life outside our windows.

it's rainy and drizzly tonight. i thought it's apropos to post a picture of this bird, shot through our rain soaked window. it suits the mood.
these two photos were taken over three weeks ago, the same time i took these.

not to get down on our seemingly endless greyish and cloudy spring, we do occasionally get a burst of sunny days here and there. we've had a bit more sunshine in the last week than what we've been having on average in the last couple of months. the little buds on this tree outside our window had remained tightly shut for what seemed like forever.
but look! five days of warmish weather, where the sun would poke its head for a little longer visit than usual, and this is what happens.
nature is pretty awe inspiring, don't you think?

take a picture

Sometimes you just have to take a picture, no matter what the subject is.

Golden hour was especially golden yesterday, but I am lazy. So I shot this out our window.

slow as molasses.

a couple of weeks ago, a friend's mom made a rather observant comment. she said that Newfoundland has the longest spring. i agree with her. we really do. just look at the buds on these trees outside our kitchen window. they sure are taking their own sweet time.

April 24
April 29
May 14
May 15, okay, this is just a day after the one above.
today, May 18.

see? hardly anything has changed in almost a month!

two minus one.

these two birds were photographed from another window, same part of our home but different corner. it was raining quite a bit that day, as you can see. i thought this pair looked so sweet, getting soaked in the rain together while their tails touched -- their outline forming a heart shape.
more saccharine moment.
but wait, someone ruffled someone's feathers.
i wonder what happened...

it's been awesome posting a little series of the winged and feathered family this past few days. i wanna post more but maybe a little break from it would be a welcome change.

birdlove.

these two were spotted outside our window sometime last week.

i have been noticing a definite sense of manic and frenzied activities among the feathered kind in the last month or so. plus, they are everywhere it seems -- flying like mad up in the sky, hanging out on tree branches and power lines, even on sidewalks. ah, spring love.

setting sun.

this was taken a week ago when K and I were driving towards Portugal Cove. the sun was slowly setting but it was still really, really bright, as if it was giving everything its got before it burns out completely.

wintry spring.

the last couple of weeks had been this weird dance, of shuffling back and forth, between spring and wintry weather. what a tease. but it's okay really, as long as we get sunny days like what we had today.

i took these pictures while out on a walk this afternoon. i liked how the shadow of the tree on the snow crawls up the door of the shed and connects with the trees behind.



the boy and girl statues are pretty cute. though, i'm not sure i would have them adorn our backyard to be honest. plus, we don't have a backyard anyway. but if we did, definitely no statues like these, cute as they may be.

brrr.

instead of birds singing and flowers blooming, this is what we got last night.


oh well. a girl can still dream of sunny skies and soft serve ice cream, right?

in between days.

waiting for spring.

part 2.

accompaniment to m's video post. rain, drizzle and fog in photographic version.



the photos above were taken from the turret part of our place. our turret is not grand in the castle kind of way, but it is surrounded and hugged by trees, which is pretty amazing.

new camera

I have a new SLR that can shoot video. Here is a quick test @720p.

Another dreary day in St. John's. Thank goodness it's not snowing though!