Pure Randomness

So much of life, it seems to me, is determined by pure randomness.

Sidney Poitier 

Just as the title suggests, I have a few random photos for you from late spring and early summer, which don't really fit with any other collection of photos, so I'm sticking them here.


The northern shore of Lake Ontario is only about fifteen minutes from my place in Mississauga. Frank and I headed that way one day, in early summer. After lunch, Frank sat by the water while I went for a walk. I took a few distant photos of this family. A mother walks her restless child over to other family members. The woman on the rock appears to be in deep thought while another one prepares lunch. It's the lovely turquoise and orange colours and serene atmosphere that drew me in.






Mama settles her baby as a couple of gulls watch on.






While we're people watching, this man was hoping to find the radio he had just dropped while fishing by this dock near my home. It was unlikely that he found it - at least not in working order.






Someone must have stepped in it one time too many. This was a outside a low rise apartment building. The yard space is not enclosed and leads right into the park.






Most of its leaves are their usual green but a couple of the branches of the serviceberry bush turn scarlet very early on in the growing season. This photo was taken in May. The tree had produced blossoms but not the berries by this time. It produces just one sprig of red leaves like this every spring. I know not why.






Until this spring, I never noticed how very pink the young shoots of the fuzzy sumacs are. I shot this at a fast shutter speed so the colours appear a bit more intense than in reality but not by much.







This poor tree. A couple of years ago, its branches were removed and the bark marked with a florescent orange X, as an alert for its eventual removal. It wasn't removed. Instead it gave off the slightest growth by the end of that summer. Last year, it had a slightly larger selection of leaves and it still escaped the buzz saw. This year, its leaves filled out more and we were beginning to believe that it was bringing itself back to the land of the living.

We've had a lot of rain and strong wind recently. On one such day, my neighbour Caroline and I went out for a walk shortly after a storm. We discussed this tree and how it seemed to have such a will to keep on living, and how we hoped it wouldn't be cut down. We were still talking about it when we reached that point in the path where we encountered it. We both fell silent. All that new growth which you see above, was lying on the ground beside the tree. It had all extended from a single branch which was narrower than my wrist. Its growing weight combined with the turbulent weather was too much for that branch to bear. I still hope they don't cut the tree down.






Getting up close and personal with an iris leaf after a rainfall.






I'll leave you with this image of the highway just before where we turn off to drive the last ten minutes to our new home. Eventually, I'll be sharing more photos from there. I just need to move in for good, first. ;)

More photos coming up in a few days.