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Biking Toronto's Photo of the Day

  BikeBy  -- Originally uploaded by LexnGer

I just got a note saying this photo was a Photo of the Day on BikingToronto.com. Cool.

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BikeBy

BikeBy
Originally uploaded by LexnGer.

I just got a note saying this photo was a Photo of the Day on BikingToronto.com.

Phil the Frog on 50 Paces

And it was said that Sunday was a day of rest.  But not for us. 

My last full day on the island started with a phone call from Cathy at the Gondola Point Grocery - over 20 people had dropped in asking how to get down to see the trees.

Her big, and valid, concern was the number of people who wanted to see the 50 Paces Project but were intimidated by the hill.  It is steep, packed hard and slippery at the best of times.  Lord knows there are many times when I'm intimidated by that ***ing hill.  Since I had never considered that anyone would come to see the trees unless they were already on the river, I never considered the hill. 

Cathy has been suggesting people try going to the Cameron Road and walk over to see the trees from there.  Luckily, John & Cathy don't seem to mind all the questions. 

We had a whack of visitors, including a group of 6 people who flagged me off the island for a "photo to put on flickr". I'm not sure it's kind to photograph someone who's been walking 2000+ paces a day and has been on an island with no running water for a week.  But I figured since I was sneaking along the cliff photographing them, it was only fair to let them take a snap or two of me.  Hopefully we'll never see those online.

Sandy, Mary Jo and Zara came to visit too.  On their way across the river they met a man hanging a frog on on the first/last tree... yes hanging a little stuffed frog on the tree and photographing it. 

As it turns out he was taking a portrait of Phil the Frog, who has been criss-crossing the world since the turn of the century (aka 01-01-00) as part of RunThePlanet.com.  Phil arrived in town Friday to visit local host (whose name we never caught - or shamefully forgot) for a week or two.  Phil's host heard about the 50 Paces Project "had" to photograph Phil on the first and last trees on the path.  So he did, AND got a photo of Phil on a dogsled too. 

How cool is it when two wacky projects intersect?!?

We crossed the river again, but this time to the glen side, for a lovely dinner party with Tim Frink - a local historian and author.

Dinner? Cassoulet and Apple Pie w/ Calvados soaked raisins. Yum!

 

Technorati tags: phil the frog, 50 Paces Project, kennebecasis river, new brunswick, island time, mather's island, moose island

After promising you regular posts...

After promising you regular posts from the island as the 50 Paces Project progressed, I found the Gmail-Vox combo didn't give me full photo functionality for my moblogging (I honestly have no idea how I got this posting onto Vox w/ a photo)...

The regular readers of unsweetened.ca got daily updates and you... well... you get a quick post-title list to use to catch up.

• Feb 17th - Way we go boys
• Feb 18th - Trees trees trees
• Feb 19th - Snow day
• Feb 21st - Building a path to shore and Trees In!
• Feb 22nd - CBC This Morning and CBC Morning
  
• Feb 23th - Media, media, media
• Feb 24th - Harvesting art
• Feb 25th  - Morning over long island

And while I'm processing the hundreds of photos I took on my camera in the last 10 days, there are some additional cellphone quality photos over on unsweetened 365

Morning over long island

Harvesting art

Back on the river today to fix my mistakes.

Yesterday I hung art on the 50paces tree -> the 500paces tree. Then I walked to the 1000paces tree and hung photos to the 550paces tree. Well almost. There are actually 21 trees meaning the last tree is the 1050 tree.  So as of this morning the 1050paces tree is all decked out in 1000paces photos. Crap!

So today I plucked photos from it's branch before hanging the correct photos. Then I proceeded to harvest and re-hang nine more trees.

Meanwhile skidoos and ATVs zoomed up and down the river at breakneck speeds.

The weather played about ranging from a light snow wafting down to heavy snow and wind making the far shore vanish.

In the midst of this we had visitors to the gallery! In fact at one point there were 3 separate groups walking the path and checking out the photos. How cool is that?

[edited 02/27/07: to add tags, photo and fix spelling... damn I hate typing with my thumps.]

Technorati tags: 50 Paces Project, kennebecasis river, atvs, snow, new brunswick

Media, media, media

 

Friday was designated photo-hanging day. We were joined by Mary (seen above) from CBC tv, Grant & Cindy from the Telegraph Journal. They each walked across the river to meet us at the first tree. Then came with us as we hung photos on the first 10 trees. Constantly asking each other to get out of their shots of the trees and us hanging photos. Part of the problem was that I kept making them help. Hey, there were 3 of them and only 2 of us. No way they were going to  get to just stand around without helping. We had a great time. I hope they did too. Then dad took their gear back to shore and up the hill with the dogsled while i finished up the trees.
We have about 100 photos that we held back to hang with our Molly, but it looks line she'll be staying in town. There's also another 50 with no tree. (Due to my mispacing.) Not sure where we'll hang those, but we'll come up with something amusing.
Someone has already showed up at the store to see the installation - cool! Someone else has passed along the message they'll be using the concept to work with her social services clients. 

CBC Morning

 

To be in town for a 7:45am interview, I needed to meet Sandy at the store between 7am and 7:10am. Not so big a deal he I hit the river at 6:40am with the dogsled. Well that is if the dogs bother to move slightly faster than molasses. They didn't. Then they dumped of on my ass halfway down the hill. Twice.
When i pointed out they were bad dogs and that i'd like them to go faster on the way home, they agreed and took off without me.
Another benefit of the 50paces trees is that bad dogs some times get caught on them halfway across the river so i only had to walk 500paces to get back on the sled.      

50 Paces 4-ways

On Vox: CBC this morning

Yes, it's true, I was on the CBC this morning talking about the 50 Paces Project... and yes, my typing has improved because I'm using a real keyboard. I have 150 photos to label that need me to have internet...

» Read more on Vox