There is never a dull day when there are kids in the house. There’s always some surprise waiting around the corner. But I’d never encountered any surprises in the kitchen. It’s not a place they frequent unless they are hungry. But with the two younger grandkids, when they were 2 yrs and 3++, I’ve had some lovely discoveries. While we were hunting high and low for some “lost” things upstairs in the bedrooms, family room, and even the dining room, the ‘lost ones’ were up to mischief in the kitchen!
This is what I love about photographs. They dredge up memories and it’s lovely to relive those moments. And if the pics remind you of things like this, it’s so wonderful.
We searched high and low for Myra’s “Bunny bedroom shoes.” We didn’t find them and neither could she. Needless to say, she was quite upset. The next day, I found them cozy and snug on one of the shelves in the (everyday) crockery cupboard. She had no memory of putting it there herself. So we had to agree with her version of how they landed up hobnobbing with the china plates and bowls. “I think they were lost and walked into the cupboard by mistake.”
Reaching Out!
And another day, I walked into the kitchen to see a little glove reaching for an orange. Keen to hear the owner’s explanation, I asked her how it got there or was she trying to reach the oranges, which were out of her reach, using a glove.
“No. Not me Dadi,” she quipped, “it is Zara’s glove! See!”
“I see it, baby. It’s not you at all,” I agreed.
“I told you. Not me,” she beamed.
I enjoyed all five of my little ones to the hilt. And as time passes, the conversations change, and other things draw their time and attention.
They are grown since then… There’s a pre-teen, three eight-year-olds, and the littlest is just five. The conversations have changed. But the love, happiness, and caring just keep growing. They add so much joy and laughter to my days.
A pic I took some years back from the kitchen! I heard the sound of a plane or planes, perhaps. One doesn’t usually hear that much sound close by. It would be a rare sight of a helicopter, at times, and its drone that identified it. One saw commercial aircraft flying way up but one didn’t hear them. So out of curiosity, I peeked out. I loved what I saw. The plane/s had left two smoky trails that formed a V. So I stepped out the door that opened onto the backyard and clicked this beautiful picture. “V for victory”, I said to myself. It was as if this message was written in the sky, especially for me. I needed it then. I hadn’t gotten over my lock, stock, and barrel moves, two of them – two countries within four years, and the insecurity that I felt because of feeling ‘rootless’.
Pic: joy Clarkson Titled: V for Victory
Yesterday, I came upon this picture while going through my cache of photographs. And it spoke to me once again. The same way. I needed this reminder. A nudge that helped me to recall all the ups and downs I’ve dealt with (alone) face-on and come through, if not with flying colors, all in one piece and without losing my sanity or never-say-die spirit. The highways and trails of life are not always ideal, straight, smooth, easy, wonderful, or even safe, but sometimes, our journey just has to be on such paths. And I’ve traversed almost all of the categories – good, bad, and terrible. It was only my faith in God and the trust that He walked with me and went through every high and low, and even unsafe stretch with me that brought me safe and whole this far. I trusted my GUIDE. So when I saw this photograph once again, it echoed what I had said back then when I first read the message in the sky: ‘V’ for VICTORY!
This tree has its own identity and beauty. It’s different from all the ones around it and that is what makes it stand out from the crowd! It makes it more beautiful. In a swirl of shades of green, it’s a swathe of swaying white. Standing out and outstanding!
A closer view of it below. I have no idea what tree it is. I saw it while on my walk. It looked amazing!
The clouds in the sky don’t always come out to blackout the sunlight, sometimes they come to hug the sun.” -Joy Clarkson
“I gazed at the clouds floating above. They appeared so light floating high in a cerulean sky. Carefree and free of the weight of fears, worries, anxieties: no burdens!” -Joy Clarkson
“I love to stand at the window and gaze at the clouds in the sky. They remind me that everything changes. Life changes. Situations change. We change too!”-Joy Clarkson
“Cotton balls or wooly sheep? I thought. They traveled on steered by the wind. They have no choice but to go where the wind takes them. The shepherd wind and its flock of sheep.” -Joy Clarkson
On another day, at Tim’s, I was amused to see how Farley had appropriated that area for himself… his territory, and how he would defend it! I’m glad I could capture it in photos. I do have a short video that I cannot share here.
I espy Farley walking to the garbage bin outside Tim’s. Behind, I see a crow, also eager to forage for food at the same place. Farley hasn’t noticed it yet, or then, chooses to ignore it.
Then he senses movement and knows that the crow is edging into his territory.
He turns around and flies into a rage, literally! The crow is caught unawares and hops away and out of reach.
But Farley isn’t giving up. The crow is certainly intimidated and tries to protect itself. As if it knew it was trespassing.
Once he chases it outside the boundary of his territory, Farley walks back triumphantly to have his lunch. The crow hangs around a little while, not attempting to cross the line but stay at a safe distance. Then it gives up and flies away.
Ever since the pandemic and lockdowns etc. Farley, I’m guessing, gave up eating at his new haunt! Now though this place has opened up, Farley is missing… I miss watching him. Especially how he’d scrape off every bit of mayo that dropped on the sidewalk!
This was first published on Capturedjoyaimandshoot.wordpress.com, my photoblog.
In over a year of visiting Tim Hortons, almost every day, this was the first time I saw garbage strewn outside. I had just entered and having bought my tea I sat at a seat near the window. I was shocked to see garbage lying on the sidewalk by the parking area right outside the window.
I knew there was a garbage bin outside but there’d never been garbage on the walk. I was wondering who could be so irresponsible and crass as to not put their trash into the bin carefully. That’s when I saw the culprit – a gull! I immediately christened him Farley, the gull who’s always in search of a snack! He walked out from where he was hidden by the wall. I watched him go about opening closed plastic containers and gobbling the food. I noticed Farley ate what was inside a burger and not the bun which it tossed.
Farley loved the mayo! Wherever the mayo fell when he tossed, turned and shook what it was he was eating, he went to each white spot and, literally, scraped as much as he could off the ground!
The people at Tim’s and Wendy’s were informed but before they could attend to the mess, he had his time.
There was a plastic bag that was filled with stuff but the bag was tied tight at the top and the plastic was too strong for him to tear. He tried. And tried. Again.
He dragged the bag off the sidewalk; pulling it with his beak and making stops to peck at it furiously. It was of no use. The bag didn’t give.
Finally, he gave up and flew off. He’d had his fill.
The mess was cleared soon after and no one would have even known what Farley had done!
On second thought, I wondered why gulls had to come into a city and eat fast food. It was food for thought and I came back and Googled it. There were a whole lot of articles about it and quite a few not in favor of the seagulls and their forays into the city. There were reasons that seemed valid. I had a lot on my mind when I went to bed. Well, nothing as grand as a plan to save the world or gulls or… but quite a bit!
It was one of those lovely sunny days in Summer; a weekend too! So we went down to a fair in the Harbourside area. On our way to the car park, I noticed a group of people excited about something happening down, in the water. They were all gathered by the railings and their conversation was animated, their faces intent as they watched whatever was going on below.
The curious one, as always, in the group, I turned right and walked to see for myself. I found a place among the spectators at the railing and looked down to see what was going on. Had someone drowned? My jaw dropped!
What I saw was amazing.
There was this guy on a tiny paddle board, with all the paraphernalia an artist needed, painting a huge mural on a huge wall. What was astounding was that he didn’t fall off the board, nor did he mispaint a single brush stroke as his board kept bobbing and shifting when he reached up, down, left, or right to create this fabulous picture of a girl almost submerged…whether she was drowning or whether she was just rising out of the sea like a mermaid, I couldn’t say. Her expression could be interpreted as anything according to how you saw it.
During the short time I stood watching, I saw him lose one of the paddles which drifted out of his reach before he could grasp it. So he had to go after it, retrieve it and get back to work again. So let me tell you who this man is and also that he is quite well-known in the artist circle, it seems. Meet Hula aka Sean Yoro.
The work I saw him doing was this one:
And here he is getting ready to go after the truant paddle!
I was so engrossed in watching him I almost missed the artist sitting down on the ground beside me and painting the painter (Hula), in the water, painting too! If I didn’t almost fall over him, I wouldn’t have caught this fantastic scene of- a painter painting a painter painting! {how’s that for alliteration! ;)} Here you are: He’s made a seat for himself on his skateboard… what passion these guys have!
That’s it for today.
Hasta Mañana.
This post was first published on capturedjoyaimshoot.wordpress.com
When I was a girl, I would look at the clouds and find figures of humans, animals or figments of my imagination floating in the sky. At times Mummy would join me and we’d laugh at some funnies and even make up stories about whoever or whatever we thought we saw in a cloud. These moments passed with time and cloud watching was relegated to the chapter called ‘childhood’. Through teenage years and young adulthood, there were many other things engaging my interests and clouds weren’t among them. Until I came to Canada, decades later!
People spoke of its natural beauty, no doubt, it is marvelous but I came here after living in Chile and India and have seen nature’s wondrous beauty in its many forms…mountains, hills, valleys, and plains. Rich flora and fauna, lakes, rivers, seas, and oceans, fertile greens and arid zones. Different cultures, foods, and people. Canada was among one of these until I discovered the old mates of my childhood: clouds! The glorious clouds in Canada’s blue skies!
Ye glorious pageants! hung in air
To greet our raptur’d view;
What in creation can compare,
For loveliness, with you?
~Bernard Barton
So, with an old iPhone, I clicked pictures of the ever-present changing clouds that broke the monotony of the wide expanse of blue sky. I didn’t find forms in them, I found joy, exhilaration…I found immense beauty in them. Most of my mobile shots are of clouds because…well because they are so beautiful and I have to capture them. Like time, they do not remain the same and keep changing with every passing second. Look at them with me and enjoy them.
Today I’m sharing the ones I took at St. Andrew’s and on the Highway while driving to and from. The Highway ones have all been shot from a fast-moving car. One may say, ‘you could have stopped,’ but, no, we couldn’t keep stopping. So I did miss some beauties on the way.
“See yonder little cloud, that borne aloft, so tenderly by the wind, floats fast away, over the snowy peaks.”
– H.W. Longfellow
Some ride into the sunset, some drive into a cloud bank!
The one below was taken when we made a pitstop to pick up some coffee and hot chocolate!
I had an awesome day at St. Andrew’s and I clicked, and clicked, and clicked…the sky over the sea was amazing with its cloud display. But those pics are for the next post. Here are a few I managed to get, from the cache of pics I took on the way back home, that are ok to put up. {Remember: We were driving on the highway, no need to mention speed! I was shooting through the front windscreen. I am a grandma with a phone camera, in love with clouds…no experience, no photography knowledge. Just love!}
It was raining on the way back and when it fizzled down, this is what we saw…a rainbow! The road above the one we were on seemed to lead to the end of the rainbow…to the pot of gold!
“Clouds suit my mood just fine.”
-Marie Lu, Champion
How many of you, go back to the days when kids would try to find images in clouds… animals, birds, fish, human faces, or shapes?
I am not too regular with my photography these days, so I am planning to close down my photography blog: capturedjoyaimshoot.wordpress.com. I am transferring my photographs here, where I am more regular.
These photographs were clicked when I first came here in 2017.
Driving around the city, a new one, in a new country where I was visiting my son, we stopped at this point which is tagged as the Photo Spot. It definitely qualifies as a great spot for photographs.
So armed with my old faithful iPhone, I clicked away. I hope you can catch the beauty and serenity of this place through my not-so-perfect photos! I love quotes and combine them in my posts when my own words fail to convey my thoughts and the impact of the beauty, serenity, peace of my surroundings, and my own feelings that are overflowing. The thoughts and words whirling around are hard to harness as properly coherent whole sentences. The quotes express my own thoughts, more eloquently.
“The river asked me who I was to be gazing so longingly into her curving body of cascading dreams and shifting beauty.” – Todd Crawshaw
“Are you watching the #boats?” Cornelia guessed. She craned her neck to see if there was any excitement on the river.” -Lesley M. M. Blume
“There is another alphabet, whispering from every leaf, singing from every river, shimmering from every sky.”
― Dejan Stojanovic
“I thought how lovely and how strange a river is. A river is a river, always there, and yet the water flowing through it is never the same water and is never still. It’s always changing and is always on the move. And over time the river itself changes too…Even the greatest rivers- the Nile and the Ganges, the Yangtze and the Mississippi, the Amazon and the great grey-green greasy Limpopo….must have been no more than trickles and flickering streams before they grew into mighty rivers. Are people like that? I wondered. Am I like that?…..” -Aidan Chambers
The ducks swam undisturbed by our human presence. We spent some time here taking in the peace and the immense array of nature’s beauty.
Too soon, it seemed, it was time to leave. But, I’ll be here for some time and will visit again… and again!
I think I’m missing the flora and fauna of my surroundings in NB. I miss the crows that would often alight on the trees behind my room and the ones that frequented the big one outside the dining room window. So, I hopped over to my photoblog to view some pics I’d clicked through my window. I liked these ones and the refreshed childhood memory of my pet crow Cagha. A crow that I didn’t call my pet because it was caged. But a crow that flew free and wild but visited me and responded to my call if it were ever in the vicinity. I am sharing this post I’d written much earlier for my Photoblog.
Through my window, I watched a scene played out within seconds between 8.21 am and 8.22 am, on the branches of a tree. At 8.21, I observed a single crow land on a branch. Quick on its tail came the second one. That’s when I decided to click them.
I hurried but by then, I saw the third fly in and perch by them. I clicked furiously and before I knew it the third whizzed off. The other two continued in silent companionship for a while and then made for wherever their heart desired. Somehow I found some humor here and also nostalgia.
‘Two’s company, three’s a crowd,’ I thought. My mind going back to #Cagha… my ‘Cagha with a ghungroo’! A ghungaroo is a small dancer’s bell. A number of these are either stitched to a panel of cloth or strung on a cord which is then fastened around a dancer’s ankle.
I was looking for some quotes about crows and found quite a few; poems, quotes, sayings. There are so many things written about crows and not all complimentary or kind. Its black color and lack of any aesthetic features, its nature – predatory, all seem to go against it.
Back in my country, crows don’t come under such strong discrimination. At least, I’m not aware of it. In fact, superstition says, if a crow sits on the roof shingles, patio, verandah, garden or branch of a tree in close proximity to the house, faces your property, caws away to glory, it means you’ll be having guests, usually, unexpected ones!
When I was a little child, and we lived in the Southern part of the country, locals believed that eating crow’s meat would cure whooping cough! I cannot vouch for this cure but it remained a popular belief.
To me, crows were sneaky snatchers. I’ve had sandwiches and other eatables plucked out of my hand many a time. But as a child and an adult, my attitude towards them has never been one of hatred or dislike.
In fact, as a little girl, I found them interesting. I associated them with the occult, magic, and other sinister activities and since I loved reading about witches, ghosts, and everything scary, yes, they had my attention; crows were intriguing. This anecdote from my childhood will illustrate this better.
CAGHA my pet crow –
We lived on a Naval base in the South on a manmade island in the backwaters. Flocks or should that be a murder of crows flocked to our big front garden daily because I and my brother would feed them with crumbs or anything we could snitch from the store. I would call out “Aaa, Aaa,” {”come, come”} with an outstretched arm, goodies in my cupped hand {that’s also how, sometimes, my food would get snatched out of my other hand! ;)}.
One day, a young crow landed plonk in the middle of the spacious front verandah where I sat astride the balustrade eating and feeding the crows as usual. My elder brother picked the bird to inspect what was wrong because it was hobbling, and couldn’t fly either. Someone had clipped a few of its wing feathers haphazardly and injured one leg.
We swung into action. It was so exciting.We yelled for Mummy.She always knew what to do when we were stumped! Especially with wounds, cuts, bruises, or illness. She’d come up with some home remedy that would work winders.
Sometime later, Mummy, with the cook’s help smeared turmeric and some kind of oil, coconut or mustard, I’m not sure, on the wound and bandaged it. They put the poor thing in a cage that had once housed a parrot that escaped. I removed a small brass ‘gunghroo’ from my ankle bells {Indian dancers wear them around their ankles} and tied it around the neck loose enough so it wouldn’t choke, and tight enough so the bell wouldn’t fall off.
We nursed Cagha, that’s what I named the crow, back to health. The wing feathers grew back a bit and it would hop and make short flights around the room until one day, Cagha flew out the door and perched itself on the balustrade of the front balcony. There was a sudden shout of joyful cawing from a few fellow crows gathered outside; in the garden and the tree outside the wall.
Cagha cawed, spread his wings and joined the tribe. I was sad, lost and alone.
Many days passed and Cagha never returned. Mummy consoled me saying that the season had changed and the crows would be back after a few months. Still, I would ritually make my calls for Cagha every day from the front verandah. I have always been the ever hopeful, persevering one!
She was wrong.
Cagha returned after two weeksor so.
He flew down to where I was, bigger and stronger, with the ghunghroo jangling around the neck. Words can’t describe my joy! Our twosome companionship carried on a few months and then, Cagha disappeared.
Later that year, I spotted him, the jangling bell giving him away. He was in the branches of the tree outside. I called to him. No response. I gave up.
Then I heard a flutter of wings, a caw and there was Cagha. He flew in like the wind, perched near me for a split second, and took off. Not alone, but with the other one on the tree. He had forged his own twosome – COMPANY. I made it a CROWD!
“Goodbye Cagha,” I whispered softly.
My seven-year-old heart was broken!
Years later in my teens another pet, the wild and free kind, a chipmunk named ‘Chippy,’ conveyed the same message to me with a tiny nip on my palm!It didn’t break my heart, but it took me by surprise!
It's In The Tale 
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