Second Sun

I'm not sure this officially called a 'second sun' but I was sitting in my living room yesterday with my friend Alex (who studies atmospheric sciences) when I noticed what looked like a bit of a rainbow in the clouds, it was yellow and red. I didn't know what it was but she said she was pretty sure it translated from German (her first language) to 'second sun' in English. I couldn't find anything about this on the internet this morning so if anyone knows anything about this, feel free to fill me in!
It's not much of a photo but I thought it was interesting anyway.

Sunday Sunset

The sky really got my attention this evening; different apertures and shutter speeds produced some fun differences!

In lieu of sunflowers

One of my neighbours told me about a sunflower field that she thought I might like to photograph; she told me about it ages ago but I just never found the time to drive all the way out there. I still see a lot of sunflowers in yards so I thought I'd go out this afternoon in search of this field. I definitely found it but unfortunately I was a bit late to capture them while they were alive; but to prove I did go there I took a photo of some dead ones anyway :(

Since I was driving around anyway, I stopped a few times to take pictures when something caught my eye. We had strange skies today; mostly cloudy but every now and then the sun would peek out. I liked how this field looked - dark but with a bright sky!

There was barely enough room on the side of the road to stop to photograph this spectacular red barn (the colour is spectacular, not-so-much the barn) but I did manage to get one. I LOVE buildings that are falling apart!

There were 4 horses in this group including this little guy who decided I was more interesting than eating :)

I have a soft spot for cattle so when I stopped to photograph something else (what I think I'll use as my contest shot this week) and saw this I had to shoot them too. This little baby, when lying down, looked more like the size of a cat. He's still a bit wobbly :)

The Thunder Rolls

Did we ever get a storm today! When the deep, dark clouds started to roll in it was still sunny on one side of my house and almost pitch black on the other. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. The sky changed colours so many times and then it just got dark and started to POUR. I tried really hard to get a shot of the crazy lightning but you could only see it sporadically through the thick clouds and my hand-eye isn't that good anyway. Regardless, here are a few from today's storm! The sun is shining intermittently now :)

Sunset on Fallowfield

Not my greatest photos ever - I took these from a moving vehicle - but we had a beautiful sunset last night that was refreshing after all the cloudy/snowy days of late so I had to take some shots.
We celebrated Kevin and Tracy's recent engagement with tacos and wine (total yummy-ness, if not a little strange!). Brannon was asked to be Kevin's Best Man so that's pretty thrilling!
That's 2 really late nights in a row for us; I think we'll sleep well tonight!

Skies

The sky underwent a number of transformations today; I wish I'd been able to capture them all on film.

Moments of illustrious brightness!

I particularly like this one because it appeared like the sun was shining only on this one branch.

Banff

What can I say about Banff? It was peaceful, majestic and bright. From the moment I arrived I enjoyed myself. I had very little precious spare time as you know I was there for a conference. I feel I should mention that I thoroughly enjoyed the work-related aspect of being there as well. I learned so much, met some wonderful and highly intelligent researchers/students/financial donors/patients, and left feeling inspired about what I do (and those who know what I've been experiencing in the lab for the last several months will understand how important some inspiration actually is). I spent every free moment running around inside and out with my camera and came home with 400+ photos. Needless to say, I can't post more than a few but if you would like to see a slightly bigger sample of what I took please see my facebook link:

From a distance...

This is what I saw as soon as I walked out of the hotel driveway. Not too shabby!

A view from one of the hotel terraces.

The Bow River in the village of Banff isn't completely frozen yet.

Another spectacular view from the hotel.

I can't help myself when I see gorgeous cloud formations. Banff had so many!

The mountains as seen from under one of the hotel arches.

I took a walk down one of the trails and found some icicles forming along the Bow River.

Everything was frosty!

A replica of the Fairmont Banff Springs made entirely of cereal and candy!

This tree was easily 30 feet high!

Finger Lakes wine tour

I've managed to find a few minutes to put up some photos from this weekend. I took a lot of photos so choosing so few was difficult. Anyway, we had a great weekend that included a day of winery/vinyard tours and many many tastings. Y.U.M. My favourite wine was a white vignoles from the Anthony Road winery. I would highly recommend it. I wasn't such a fan of the reds from the region in general but their rieslings are wonderful! :)
Anyway, here are a few pics from the weekend. I'll be MIA for the next while so I'll see you all when I get back from Banff.

Aging

The meadery has honey in their wines and it's made on site.

We saw a lot of great skyscapes; I didn't get pics of them all though.

The science nerd in me liked this scene...the erlenmeyer flasks placed next to the wine; I swear it was like this when I found it.

Vines in the winter

Grapes on a barrel

I love the reflection of the barrels in this piece of equipment

All the halls were decked....

This home (beside the Fox Run winery) was destroyed by fire.

I just thought the name for this wine was cute; it's a good thing we had a designated driver.

Tuesday randoms

I had a plan for what I was going to photograph today and while I held up my end of the bargain, the only person who could help me, bailed on his. Hopefully it'll work out tomorrow so for now I'll keep you wondering. So, I had to think of something else to shoot today......these 2 photos are completely unrelated to each other and also totally random. The first one I took from the hospital parking lot as I made my way to my car this afternoon. I was surprised to see the sky like this as it snowed for most of the day and is currently snowing again. This is a raw photo that I haven't "fixed up" in any way.

I'll leave this second one to your imagination....take a guess as to what it is.

Sunny Sunday

We had a really late night last night and, therefore, got up late this morning (seriously, it was almost noon). We had a great breakfast with Kevin and Tracy then headed to Smiths Falls to celebrate American Thanksgiving with Brannon's family (for anyone following my blog who doesn't know, Brannon is my hubby; and our sister-in-law is American). Usually Brannon's a get-from-point-A-to-point-B-as-quickly-as-possible kinda guy and doesn't really enjoy when I ask him to pull the car off the road to take some pictures but today he was a good sport.Most of these I took while we were in transit but he did stop to let me take some photos of the house with the caved-in roof. Enjoy!

Snowy cattails

We saw this deer hangin' out right across the road from Kevin and Tracy's; I couldn't get close enough to get a better photo but she's beautiful all-the-same.

I was informed that there was an old log home at Fallowfield Rd. and Dwyer Hill Rd. whose roof had collapsed; sure enough we found it. I would have loved to have gotten a little closer but the area was entirely fenced in. Maybe another day when I'm feeling a little more daring, I'll hop the fence and get a closer look!

The skies were nothing short of brilliant this afternoon.

Again, I took this one through the front windshield...

I think I was just lucky to get this one as the sun started its descent.