Late Wednesday Edition WWC: Fear & Four

First off , thank you all for your well wishes yesterday, I am feeling better. The Dr. said it isn't pneumonia it is more than likely viral and he gave me a prescription for prednisone - the dreaded steroid that helps, but what else does it do? Well, for starters, I am running on about three hours of sleep, have a raging headache and all of my arthritis is kicked into high gear. On the good side, I am coughing 75 % less and can breathe. Enough about me, you came to see photos.

The weekly word challenge is for the words Fear and Four this week, so I give you:

click to enlarge

A whole lot of fours stop here

I live on four zero AV(e) don't know where the E went

Four uprights (yes, soccer)

This little guy has more than four colours and showed little fear of me.

You have to be fearless to do this job.

I was playing a game - can you find fear? Yeah, pretty easy.

The WWC is brought to us by the fearless Tink of Pickled Beef (usually on Tuesdays). if you would like to see other submissions click the link on my side bar. If you would like to join in the fun, drop by and Tink will give you all the details.

Have a great day.

I'm gonna be late

I suck..well, I have a really bad cold actually, so I won't be posting a WWC today. I might get it up for tomorrow though. In the meantime check out the link on my side bar for other peoples entries for the words Fear and Four.

Have a good day.

I'll bet you never thought I would post about sports!

On Saturday, two of the world’s top professional soccer teams, the Everton Football Club of the English Premier League and the Club Atletico River Plate of the Argentinian Football League, played for the Edmonton Cup at Commonwealth Stadium. Argentina won 1-0.

Okay, so why is she telling us this?

We were once again at Taste of Edmonton tonight. Once the tickets are bought, you have to use them up, they are no good for anything else and we wanted to hear Tom Jackson as well. While we were listening to Mr. Jackson, we noticed a soccer team walking around in the crowds, but the jerseys they were wearing didn't indicate who they were. Of course, their skin tones suggested they were not the English team.

My friends are good soccer fans, as was I once upon a time and we would have gone if the tickets to the event weren't somewhere around $200.00 each. The turnout for the game was sad at only about 16K. It was closer to 30K a couple of years ago when whatever team Beckingham is now playing for came and played an exhibition game against Vancouver. It was about that big a turnout a few years before that game when Brazil came and played. Why Edmonton? Good question, it is because we have a grass playing field, required for international soccer.

We wondered tonight whether the players were a bit disappointed at not being mobbed as they would have been at home, or a bit relieved that they could just walk around unmolested. Don't get me wrong, there were a few people that knew who they were and shook hands and spoke with them. It is just that soccer is not a big sport here and besides, we Canucks are so damned polite...my friends wouldn't go and speak to them.

So, this was a busy weekend here in festival city, the Capital Ex finished, the Taste of Edmonton finished, we had soccer and Indy racing and record breaking temperatures. Well, they felt like they should have broken records, if they didn't I would be surprised. The only thing we went to was the Taste of Edmonton though, you will never catch me at Indy racing - too noisy, hot and crowded and they use temporary stands with no shelter from the sun and last year you had to buy your water from them, you couldn't bring it from home - ppbbbbtttt! At $3.00/bottle FU. They use the downtown airport that is only in partial use these days btw, so no trees or grass anywhere.


Well, I think I have given you enough links to keep you distracted from the fact this is a lame post, so I will quit now.

For more My Town Monday posts, drop over to the new blog page.
Travis Erwin had real life interfere with his care and feeding of the beast he started, so Clair Dickson kindly set up a page devoted solely to MTM. Thank you Clair.


Have a good day all.

Croustille Au Fromage

OMG these are SOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo good!

The Creperie restaurant has been missing from the Taste of Edmonton for the last few years. This is due to the popularity of the event and having to rotate establishments in and out every couple of years. One of their offerings is Croustille Au Fromage(Deep fried cheese crepe) served with yoghurt & garlic to dip in. We made the mistake the first or second year after tasting them of going for lunch (cheaper) and being told they are only served as appetizers for dinner - they are made from the unused portion of the crepe batter that was made for the lunch crowd. We asked what was in them and were told.....Gruyère cheese & crepe, deep fried and the dip is just crushed garlic in plain yoghurt. Sounds really simple doesn't it?

The dip is amazingly simple - if you can find plain yoghurt, either crush some garlic in it and let it sit, or use garlic juice.

The crepe part is not so simple, making crepes is a bit of an art in itself, but they never specified how to add the cheese. We have tried mixing it in the batter...okay, but not great and that is probably how they do it, but they just have a finer grater or something. We have tried melting it onto the crepe once it has been flipped over, that sort of worked, made a mess of the fryer though. Whatever you do, don't just put the cheese on the finished crepe fold it and try to fry it....it makes an awful mess of the fryer. Cut the crepe into quarters, fold and throw in a deep fryer until golden, or you have made a big mess.... drain on paper towel, pull out the dip and chow down.

I am sorry to say I don't have a photo to share with you. They were gone before I thought of it, and the restaurant will not be there on Sunday when we go again. They change some of them midway through, there are that many that want in. Needless to say, I am stuffed again, but we had no weather woes tonight, Sunday may be another tale to tell though ;)

Have a good day all ;)

Note: I was just looking at the menu on the link above and see that they now serve these for lunch as well.

WWC: Half and "W"

Tuesday as you all know means Weekly Word Challenge time. This week our lovely hostess with the most-ess has given us the letter "W" and the word Half. I must confess, I have been waiting for "W" for so long, I forgot what the word was, and had to scramble for photos ;)







Our new Art Gallery must be over Half finished if they expect to open in the fall.














"W" Yes, that is snow still on the ground, that is how long I have been waiting!
















Half a kid and half pants (cause they sure aren't shorts)















That's all folks.... if you would like to join drop over and see Tink at Pickled Beef, to see more entries, click on the link on my side bar.


Have a good day.




P.S. Is anyone else having trouble getting the photos and words to line up lately? I have had to publish and edit this 6 times now!

A food festival, a concert and a wee storm

We went to A Taste of Edmonton on Saturday night, mostly to see the band "The Stampeders". They were a '70's Canadian band and there were only a few of those that made it big.

When we got there it started to rain just a bit and then a bit harder, then it stopped.








Then the skies started to turn back to blue.
















And changed their mind. The saying "if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes" applied last night.















So, we ate in rain showers and then had a brief respite. The band came on and while the clouds threatened, nothing much happened.




















It even seemed to clear a bit, for a little while anyway. Then the wind picked up and the great black clouds started rolling in. The band skipped over their new stuff to go right to the favourites and we started getting ready to leave.











This is what greeted us as we came out from around the seating area. We ducked into the subway, cleared the dust from our eyes and went to wait for the LRT. THIRTY minutes later we hear a slight noise crackling over the speakers.... no-one could make out what it said though. Fortunately some fellow called the ETS number and then announced that the train was not coming, so that passed by word of mouth.







We made our way topside and had apparently missed the worst of the storm, we made our way to this bus shelter before the rain began again, with big hail.



Here's a little video - no sound though.








I shot lots of video of the band and was so disappointed when I downloaded today to learn that I managed to turn off the mic at some point when playing with the settings. I don't even have The Stampeders on CD to upload a song to make background for you, sadly they are still on vinyl. There are lots of songs on youtube though ;)

The rest of the ride home was a bit freaky, the power was out just over the hill from that last photo, the ETS has changed bus routes, so we weren't sure where we were going to wind up, but we did manage to make it home, in spite of a couple of changes and transfers & walking in the much reduced rain. Good thing I have a little flash light on my camera bag!

More storm stories here.

Hope you all had good weekends and have a good day today.

Presenting.....

I got photos! They are not very good photos, but you can see the birds. I have eliminated the possibility that they are Merlins, wrong colour.

I checked with What Bird again and am no further ahead in identifying it. They may be Prairie Falcons, in which case, they are way far north of their usual areas, the call is close. They may also be American Kestrels, but they would have to have been the females or juveniles - again, the call is close. The only other thing they could be is Peregrines, there has been a nesting pair living year round in down town Edmonton for years now. Not exactly their usual hunting grounds, but they are there, too bad the call and the colour are not quite right.

The first two shots are the same bird. I am not sure clicking to enlarge will make it any clearer.



This is the second one and shooting into the light, all I have is silhouette - um and his dinner.

This is the third one we could find. A good shot from below that shows the detail of his tail (no, he restrained him or herself).



And as we were ending our walk, this was how the sky looked.


We could hear a fourth, but didn't catch sight of him/her. If anyone can give me another choice of bird, the call sounded most like the Merlin or the Prairie Falcon.

Have a good day all.

I'm a bit excited!

A friend and I usually take a walk around the neighbourhood in the evenings (about a mile) and tonight, we went a different direction. We saw at least three falcons! In the neighbourhood just south of where we live hanging around one of the school yards.

Just little ones and I ID'd them from the cry right off, as being either falcons or hawks, then we got a good look at the underside as one flew directly overhead.

Alas, I didn't have my camera with me and it was dusk enough that I couldn't be sure of the colouring.

We are going to go again a bit earlier tomorrow night - with camera and binoculars and sit quietly to see if we can catch sight of them again. Fast little buggers flyers that they are I may not get anything but blur.

I checked out What Bird and they may be either Merlins or a Sharp-Shinned Hawk, the Merlin call is closer though.


Hopefully I will have photos in the next day or so.

Have a good day.

WWC: "O" & South

Hello Tuesday! Weekly Word Challenge time and today we are challenged to represent the letter "O" and the word South. Please click to enlarge.




Plenty of "O's" here at the food store.














Two South ends ;)











I hadn't seen one of these hooks before.














Storm coming in from the South.













My Roots camera bag.

















The wee little compass (smaller than a dime) I have on my keychain showing which direction South is.













So, there you have it. If you would like to join in the fun, stop by and see Tink at Pickled Beef. Check the Link on my sidebar for more participants.

Have a good day all.

I don't know why...

but I started a new blog. Ostensibly to post the photos that don't get posted here. We'll see how well that works out. I may just drop this blog if I find I am doing more there. I don't know. The link is on the right at the top of the page.

Check it out, or not.

Have a good day.

WWC: Happy & Blue - how are you?

Ack! I almost forgot, so I went to the archives to see what there was and realized I hadn't posted these before. They are from before the computer crash...I am so glad they were able to repair it without having to reformat.

This was the sky one day and it was such a pretty blue I just had to take the shot.








We found this happy fellow while walking by the river.













And this maybe not so happy fellow also on the river trail.
















Same sky a few minutes later much more intense blue.











Sorry, that is all for today. If you would like to join the weekly word challenge, please see Tink at Pickled Beef and she will set you on the path.


Have a good day all.

Fireworks!

I need a sturdier tripod and to see if I can get a remote trigger for this camera.

Oh, well....this shot shows just how light it still is at 23.15 hrs. It also shows how far away the fireworks are ;) If you enlarge, you can just make them out sort of in the centre of the treeline.










This year we were supposed to have a monster fireworks show.












This might have been one of them, or just a very interesting effect by my camera.

















Of course, I may have missed it altogether, or they cancelled it at the last minute. I know they started earlier than they stated.

















I was shooting some on automatic with the fireworks setting and tried some on the bulb setting, I think so far the auto setting is best.









I'll try again at New Year's provided it isn't 40 below or some such stupid temperature.

Have a good day all.

Happy Birthday Canada!

There will be celebrations across our country today celebrating the British North America Act which united the four provinces of 1867 into one country.



Me, I'll be doing laundry and maybe some gardening ;)






Have a good Canada Day everyone!