Pride of Canada

It's colourful, it's noisy and musical, it goes round in circles and it's distinctly Canadian..... it's the Pride of Canada Carousel. 
The Carousel is an environmentally friendly solar-powered fine art merry-go-round enclosed in an open glass pavilion on the newly built "Downtown Markham" area. The urban folk artist who created the magical carousel creatures, Canadian artist Patrick Amiot, has used all kinds of junk, oops, I mean found objects including hub caps, car headlights and old oil tanks.

This particular Remington Group doesn't manufacture guns.... they are a property developer company.

You won't see any standard carousel horses here, apart from this one being ridden by a goofy Mountie. Love his moustache, it's a broom, and the horse's hooves are irons.

You can go sailing on the Bluenose... famous Nova Scotia racing schooner,  with a giant moose next to you.

 How about joining this dog sailing along in the bathtub?

 Or take a ride on a seaplane, to deliver the mail to the Manitoba north country.

 This delectable mermaid just swam in from Prince Edward Island, according to her licence plate. I like the strategically placed maple leaves!

 Back to school next week, don't miss the yellow school bus.

Here's the man in the moon, closely followed by a couple of chickens.

A view looking up at the reflection of the carousel in the roof. Rides are $2.00 for only about 2 minutes.... rather expensive I think, could cost a lot to take all the grandies there because I'm certain they'd want to ride on all the different creatures. One ride just would not be enough. More pics to come....

Moonshadow

Oh, I'm bein' followed by a moonshadow, moon shadow, moonshadow---

We didn't have any of those fancy eclipse glasses, so we made the children stand with their backs to the sun, poked a pinhole into the middle of a paper plate, and let the sun shine through onto some white card. Sort of pathetic..... but it worked.

Fairy Tree

My friend has fairies living in a tree at the bottom of her garden.
How do I know?
Sssshhh be very quiet......

 I knocked on the door, but nobody was home, out attending to some fairy business no doubt..... or perhaps they were hiding?

 And there's even a magical alligator guarding the lily pond.

Tournament Time

Summer is on the wane, evenings are getting noticeably shorter, it's the middle of August already and that means softball season has come to an end for my grandchildren. That's too bad because the young players have just started to come together and work as a team. Another couple of weeks would have been perfect timing. They are finally thinking ahead and planning baseball strategy.... and as you know, baseball is full of strategy.

But it's not quite over. Just one last blast on the town's baseball diamonds.... the highly anticipated annual Baseball Tournament!

Our family has been ably represented since June by numbers 3 and 4 on the "5 and under' Yellow team and number 5 on the "8 and under" Red team. And now it's time to challenge for the championship!

 "5 and under" Yellows played against "5 and under" Reds at a well attended 10am game on Saturday morning. Lots of enthusiastic mums and dads, and aunts and uncles cheering them on. And at least one Nana.... me.

I have no idea if the Yellows beat the Reds or vice versa, I don't think anyone was keeping accurate score, but after the game each player got a drink, a slice of yummy pizza, and was presented with a "solid gold" trophy by the coach with a handshake and some words of praise. And you have to hand it to the coaches.... they are teaching basic baseball skills to five year old children who really don't have a clue what it's all about, and the coaches do it with kindness, loads of patience, smiles and a huge sense of fun.

"8 and under" Reds took on the Black team in an early 8:30am game, then challenged the Blues for the final at 11:15am. Skies were mostly blue with some grey clouds, so we all had fingers crossed that the rain would stay away.

It was a hard fought game. Reds led from the start with some snappy fielding and a couple of spectacular home runs, but Blues came from behind in the final innings to take the game 13-12.

 After the game, a drink, a slice of pizza and another "solid gold" trophy for each player. As the coach gave out the trophies, he gave each player an individual pep talk noting their considerable baseball achievements during the summer such as memorable home runs, double plays, spectacular base running, and how each person had improved, what they need to work on for next season, and his hopes for them in the future. Hooray for the coaches of these teams, they deserve "solid gold" medals!

 And the happy recipient of a trophy. He's going to join the rep team during the winter to hone his baseball skills ready for next season. He really really REALLY loves baseball.

Note: I was surprised to find that this is blog post number 899, just one more to go for 900! Perhaps I should have saved this comment for the next post. Thank you to all the bloggers around the world who have read my ramblings since I started this blog in November 2006 and have left me comments.... Happy Blogging to you all!

Sunset on Steroids

The sunset reflected beautifully on the cumulous clouds on the horizon so I grabbed the camera and went to the nearby church parking area.
This is how I saw the clouds....

....but with the function selection turned to colour enhancement, this is how the camera saw the clouds.

Which one do you like best?

Juried Art Again

A few more of the paintings that were chosen to be shown at the Juried Art Exhibition in the spring. I regret not taking note of the artist's names and the titles of the works. Sorry artists, if you happen to see this post.

This was a small acrylic painting, approximately 9"x12" I think.... brightly painted ice fishing huts on a frozen lake. A lovely feeling of isolation and yet community..... and cold!

I loved the colours of the dramatic skies in these two matched landscapes. And they looked perfect displayed on the red wall. Often the colours surrounding a painting can make such a difference to the appearance and effect of the finished product.

What's going to happen when that bird in the top right corner finally makes a landing?
I'm holding my breath.....

This was my favourite painting in the show, it was large, about 36" x 48".
Memories of the artist's dad's workshop.  I stood and looked at this painting for a long time, visualizing the man who worked here, building things and repairing things. Just like many dads.
I can't remember the artist's name but I remember the title: Portrait of a Good Man.