Happy Birthday, Teddy!

May 16, 2012 by Mark | Leave a comment

One year ago today our furry little monster was born in Beaumont, Alberta. Chris & I were visiting my mother in Yorkshire at the time but we managed to keep in touch with our breeder back in Alberta for regular updates on Teddy’s progress. Upon returning to Canada, we spent six weeks in Leduc, Alberta visiting Matt & Sarah last summer and during our stay we visited Teddy regularly to check on his progress.

Teddy was nine weeks old when we finally got to take him home with us last July. Since then he’s travelled across Canada to Kincardine, Ontario in Phaeton Place, on to Nova Scotia with me in the Vue, back to Ontario with Chris & I in the Vue in September last year, south to Florida with us in Phaeton Place last November and back to Ontario last month. He is certainly a much travelled young pup but he loves traveling and his favorite perch in the motorhome is right up on the dash as we motor along.

To celebrate his birthday, we took Teddy out for a nice stroll along the river trail in St Jacobs this morning and also paid a visit to Creature Comfort Pet Emporium for some more natural pet food and a new stuffed toy squirrel birthday present. Teddy’s had a tough day and is laying in the sunshine snoozing on the dash. He’s a great little guy and brings us joy very single day. Happy birthday Teddy!

 


She’s Baa…..ack!

May 15, 2012 by Mark | Leave a comment

I had a busy day today.  I’ve procrastinated washing Phaeton Place for the last week or so but can’t put it off any longer.  Green Ace Park only allows washing of RVs until May 17th each year.  I was going to leave the wash job until Chris got home but the forecast for tomorrow is cold & rain and there just isn’t any more time.  Serves me right for leaving it until the last minute I suppose.  Anyway, I broke out the power sprayer as well as the soft brush.  My main concern was doing the roof by myself and minimizing the number of times I would have to go up and down the ladder to the roof carrying the power sprayer hose and wand.  I managed to get the hose and wand up the ladder and tied to the top of the ladder before going back down to turn on the power and water.  Once up on the roof, it was a pretty simple task to hose off the back half of the roof before moving the power sprayer forward so I could get at the front half of the roof.  The sprayer really did a great job removing the muck from the slide toppers.  With the roof done, I broke the rest of Phaeton Place’s wash into sections, soaking down a section with the sprayer before using hot water and soap with the soft brush, followed by another rinse with the sprayer.  I was surprised the entire job only took a little over two hours and left very few water spots.  I felt so good after the wash job I even tackled vacuuming, dusting and polishing the inside of Phaeton Place!

Chris spent the last two nights with Sarah in Kingston visiting Matt.  She caught the afternoon ViaRail train into Toronto and then on to Kitchener. Her train pulled in at 7:15 pm and I was on the platform to greet her.  I even managed to grab the above video with my iPhone.  Chris was tired from over two weeks of almost constant traveling but jumped at my suggestion for supper at Swiss Chalet.  She loved the train ride from Toronto to Kitchener so mush that we are thinking of taking the train in to Toronto for a day this summer.  Makes more sense than fighting traffic.


Killdeer

May 12, 2012 by Mark | Leave a comment

Killdeer OilWith the recent release of Adobe Photoshop CS6, I’ve gone back to some of my photos from earlier this spring and played with them a bit inside of PS CS6.  Here’s another one of a killdeer I took in Red Bay, Alabama while Phaeton Place was in the shop in early April.  I’ve used the oil painting filter but dialed it down a bit so the effect is not quite so harsh as in my last post.  Even with the oil painting effect applied there is still plenty of detail in the feathers.

St Jacobs Retirement Home

Teddy and I went for a walk along the river in St Jacobs the other day.  I’ve resigned myself to the fact that photography with my full size cameras is almost impossible while walking Teddy.  It’s just too difficult to control Teddy while at the same time trying to wield a full size camera with larger lens.  He’s getting much better on the leash but it isn’t fair to him when I interrupt his walk to stop and take a photograph or two.  My iPhone gives me pretty good results though and it’s much easier to carry it in a pocket than a big camera slung around my neck or over a shoulder.

Old Shop

Teddy & I locked up Phaeton Place and headed up to Kincardine and Hanover on Thursday for a couple of nights to see family.  All I really had to do was shut the water off at the tap, switch off the hot water heater, throw a few things in the Vue and we were on our way.  We had a nice lunch with Elson & Isabel in Kincardine and then Elson & I went for a little tour in the Vue north and east of Kincardine just to see some of the rural scenery.  Port Elgin and Southhampton were still quiet as the summer tourism season is not quite here yet.  The drive along Lake Huron in Port Elgin is fabulous.  Chris & I looked around there last fall for a spot to put Phaeton Place this summer but couldn’t find any campgrounds that could accommodate our size.  Sure is a pretty area of Ontario though.

Wind Turbine

We stayed with Karen & John in Hanover for a couple of nights and headed back to Green Acre Park this morning.  Teddy & I took the scenic tour back to Waterloo and popped into Luther Marsh Conservation Area near Grand Valley.  It’s my first time there and I can tell this area will be great for wildlife.  We saw a few songbirds in the trees as well as some Canada Geese with young ones on the lake but they quickly scurried off when I got too close with Teddy.  I did manage to grab a couple of shots from the side of the road though.  The old shop is on one of the side streets in Mount Forest and the cartoonized (courtesy of the Topaz Clean plugin) wind turbine above is near Grand Valley.

Chris & Sarah are on their way back to Ontario from Nova Scotia in the morning.  They’ve had a good visit with Chris’s parents as well as her brother and sister who also popped by the house.  They are hoping to make it into Quebec tomorrow and roll into Kingston, Ontario by mid afternoon on Monday.  ViaRail is the chosen method of transportation from Kingston to Kitchener on Tuesday afternoon.  Chris is tired but the road trip went well and was absolutely necessary.  She’ll have plenty of time to rest up before we head back to the UK in June.