renaissance poisson

every august, we have the vancouver island exhibition, our local agricultural fair. i haven't gone most years because i missed the dates. this year i seem to be on the ball. i love ag fairs. found a spinner who was helpful enough to correct my drop spindle technique (self-taught), which resulted in instant improvement; i actually managed to spin a very consistent bit without fighting the spindle at all. i learn physical skills so much faster if i can actually watch somebody skilled perform them close up than if i learn from textual description with still images. these guys breed cotswold sheep and angora goats on gabriola island, and i'll visit them soon, i think. she also had the dream spinning wheel for life on the boat: an ashford joy. OMG, perfect.

i took pictures of animals and stuff until i ran out of batteries. first, baby animals. :)

	sleeping piglet *melt*		piglet has a stick this is the last second during which this piglet is in sole possession of said stick. :)
	in hiding "blanc de hotot" rabbits, an endangered breed.		muscovy ducklings this is only half the clutch. can you imagine pushing out 18 eggs?

the view from my window is basically 3/4 cedar hedge and 1/4 sky. it was much improved when i put up the birdfeeder. now i just need to remember to clean the window. :) these birds are house finches, a male on the left, female on the roof. i get quite a few different birds there; at this time mostly chickadees. of which i can't take pictures because they're too damn fast.

janet asked for it, and so i went out this morning to take pictures (usually we go late in the day when it's too dark for that, but the cats like it). clicking on the thumbnail will take you to the gallery, which is sequentially ordered and annotated. and as a bonus, there are cats!

the paramour and i went to victoria yesterday. primarily to buy new boots for the both of us. i'd found out that mountain equipment co-op has a brandnew store there, which rules. and i was up early enough on friday to pester the paramour into a quick start. i remember enough of victoria from when we lived there to score free parking, and we checked out sports trader, ocean river sports, and capital iron on the way to MEC. the paramour hadn't ever been to the latter, and we didn't really spent much time browsing, boots being foremost on our minds. but even for somebody like me who isn't much into shopping, capital iron is a fun store.

boots at MEC was easy-peasy; the first pair i tried fit like a glove (salomon remains my friend); i tried a couple of others just to be sure, but those were it. turned around to see that the paramour had tried and liked the very same kind. amused the salesperson.

while the paramour paid i wandered around a little and saw that seaward has a cute little play kayak out by the name of intrigue. seaward is a local company, and i really like the underwater view panel. this would be a fun toy to carry along on the boat.

we were reaching the limits of our attention span for shopping and decided to head out to james bay where we used to live, leave the truck there, and walk back downtown to scout for food and decide what else to do. and lo, the pacific undersea gardens called to us. this underwater acquarium had always, always been closed when we'd felt like checking them out before, and even though we were sure it was gonna be relatively cheesy, it simply had to be done. and yes, it was cheesy, but still fun, because they sure did have a lot of local fauna. "kelp forest" -- not so much kelp as that i'd call it a forest, no; there was an occasional strand of kelp present. the "specially designed tidal pool" was the measliest touching pool i've ever seen, and the poor anemone did not wave its tentacles about -- who could blame it? but lots and lots of rock fish, a wolf eel, and a pacific octopus, and i communed with fish for a while. also, getting out of the sun was a good thing.

this is my favourite picture of a curious rockfish checking me out. i really need to get off my ass and get windows installed; i tried to remove the noise caused by the low light conditions with the gimp and i just don't get the same results as i get with noise ninja.

after that we wandered along the inner harbour, casually looking at the vendors who were there for the annual ICA folk fest (more carvers than i've seen before, but rather less variety otherwise). the folk fest wanted money to get in to most of the stalls (and of course the main stage), but since it was late in the day we didn't really want to spend the money, and just wandered around downtown. went into the lush store, since everybody has been raving so much about lush. it made me want to eat. :) ended up at millos for greek food, which was fine, but not superb -- that was ok though, we were aiming for "fine".

dropped by dallas road and the shore to look at the sun casting pink setting rays onto the olympics and then home, with just enough light to make it across the malahat. i always want to stay longer in victoria. once we're on the boat i'm pretty sure we'll spend part of our year there.

so my cunning plan for regular, say, weekly LJ updates while i am in monomaniacal work mode is not working. i shall have to endeavour to devise a better plan. other than communication with fellow human beings i am doing great; i even fought off a cold; it got stuck in my throat for a mere 5 days (which was unpleasant, sure, but better than if it had marched on into my sinuses and head). still working all day, every day, and having a blast. this is the longest work streak i've had in years, and i am so happy about it.

in the meantime, i offer some cat pictures to make up for my absence. i finally got some nice shots of persis -- black cats are very hard to photograph. she's settled in completely -- i'll never figure out cat hierarchies; she is the smallest and youngest (albeit no longer a kitten), but she isn't afraid of any of the others; she even chases bacchus when it pleases her. she's getting along with all of them decently; just last week her and cal slept together on the same spot for the first time. only bang remains a little stand-offish, but he no longer hisses everytime he sees her. she sleeps more than the others, but when she's awake, she is also more curious (and less fearful). her favourite sleeping place appears to be on top of the paramour or myself when we are sleeping. she really is like a little familiar -- maybe i should try and get her to ride on my shoulder, *snicker*. she's also started to play; the old shoelace does its magic for this cat as well. cheapest toy ever!

( pictures behind the cut; click to see larger versions )

in the lawns of men. ( dare to find out )

the paramour wrote about yesterday's outing. so i put up some pictures. the pictures are mostly not up to my usual "show them to others" standards, but i think i am at the limit of what my camera (and lack of patience to build a blind and lurk for hours for just the perfect shots) can do with underwater salmon, and the rest of them belong to that walk, so there you are.

in honour of the paramour's return, i made a collage.

( ~90k picture )

i was going to share this a couple of days ago, but then forgot:

( amazing photograph taken by cassini )

there's bang.

and i am at 1,451 books catalogued. today was a bit slow going because what little japanese manga i have is a bitch to get entered.

( and here's the bang picture )