Sunlit Sunday

I think I caught the only sunshine we're going to see today. A bit of golden sun came through my kitchen window making shadows of my pinecone garland and birchbark snowflake hanging across the window.

The pinecones stay up through the winter, and then I must really attend to the kitchen curtains I've neglected for the past ten or more years!

The sunshine was there for only a few minutes, and now has gone behind a dense layer of cloud that I see stretched far across to the west. Temperatures are on the rise again after a very bitterly cold week with high winds. Now that we're into February, I doubt we'll get any good snow cover this year.

Today will be back to decluttering again after an unsatisfactory visit with my dad yesterday. I could only rouse him from his sleep enough for him to say "It's cold in here", and then he drifted off again. I spent my visit tidying up his room ... ie. going through his closet, desk and bureaus to search for things he has hidden away. Yesterday it was the thermostat that he ripped off the wall ... again :[ 

I may or may not head down to the marsh today to get a few more pictures of these little guys ...

There was lots of sunshine down at the marsh earlier this week, and all the little critters were enjoying it.

The blue jays in the birches were so pretty against that winter blue sky.

Happy Sunday Everyone!

Linking up with Karen at My Little Home and Garden 

for Sunlit Sunday!

To the Woods!

This morning I bundled up two little companions to go for a walk with me in the woods. Yesterday was so dark and dreary that I had the lights on for much of the day! SO today with the sun coming out between the clouds I thought I would get to the woods to refresh our minds. We've had very little snow this winter, and without snow there is not a whole lot for me to do outdoors with the little guys in my care. Last night we got a nice dusting of snow which if no good for tobogganing, at least it looks pretty!

We headed down to our favourite little woods right here in town on the edge of Lake Ontario. The path through the woods is relatively short and very easy, but my companions today were anything but cooperative. They cried and whined and sat down and lay down and just wouldn't walk with me! It was really frustrating. You have to pay for parking, and even though I put plenty of money in for lots of time, we ended up racing back to the van before our time on the meter was up! Here's a photo that now makes me laugh, but at the time ...

Yes, this is a child in my care, left abandoned on the trail ;)

I didn't bring any birdseed with me (and I just couldn't face stopping at the store to first buy birdseed as it's such a pain to get kids in and out of car seats when they're wearing full winter gear ... ie. snowpants). We went empty handed, but the chickadees came to say hello despite our lack of food. 

And so did the ducks and the geese. 

I like playing with the exposure of the duck photos when I get home.

The Canada Geese were very restless and so noisy! A great cloud of them flew over at one point, maybe 100 or more geese with a cacophony of honking. It was amazing! I got only the tail end of this spectacle through the trees ...

There were a few blue jays flitting through the trees too, but I only got a couple of unsatisfactory photos of them. I'm sure they didn't want their photo taken as they kept going higher and higher up into the trees and there were too many branches between my lens and their pretty blue feathers. 

I think I'll have to get down to the marsh on the weekend when I am on my own and can enjoy a bit longer walk and a bit more freedom :) 

Thanks for stopping by!

Wendy

Sunlit Sunday

Yesterday my husband and I took a little jaunt into Toronto to visit a couple of wood supply warehouses. These places deal with reclaimed wood from old barns, old warehouses, etc. One guy had the luck of collecting some old wharf planks that were unearthed along the waterfront recently. The wharf had been buried under landfill, and when developers dug down for the foundation of yet another condominium, they discovered this entire wooden wharf and they sold it off. The wood store guy was thrilled with it, but he learned that the wood is actually toxic from all the pollutants in Lake Ontario, and you could only use it for certain projects. He also had a ton of old stable doors taken from the Royal Winter Fair barns and auctioned off. We left with only a small purchase of this interesting maple slab for a tray or to maybe just hang on the wall because it's so pretty. The pattern is created by worms that got into the live tree and caused the tree to go through some distress. The tiny black dots are the holes where the worms went into the wood.

One side

The other side

Just the right size for a tray!

I keep seeing lots of people joining Sunlit Sunday lately, and just this morning I had taken some photos of the sunrise. I'm joining in with Karen of My Little Home and Garden for this new-to-me meme. We've been having some beautiful sunrises and sunsets lately ... unfortunately the sunset photos get far too many hydro wires spoiling the view. The sunrise shots are through the backyard. This beautiful display was over in a quick 15 minutes, but it was gorgeous while it lasted!

I didn't get much decluttering done yesterday what with driving in and out of the big TO, but here's a little pic of something I have put in the "goodbye" pile ... my son's little hiking boots from when he was about 4 years old. I like the worn toes on them from riding his little car down our driveway. The toes on his shoes and boots were often worn through as he pushed along with his feet and dragged his shoes along the pavement. I have loved keeping these little boots, and it's killing me to get rid of them. But this is the kind of stuff I'm dealing with, and I thought I'd take a photo as a reminder of those happy days ;) I now have my kids' little baby things down to one outfit each and one pair of shoes each. Yes, I have an even smaller pair of shoes for my son, and they too have the toes worn off ;)

Happy Sunday Everyone!

Wendy

Need a little sunshine in your day?