Elora Gorge Waterfall

Elora Gorge Waterfall
Originally uploaded by Alan Norsworthy

Sometimes you have to push yourself
It enables you to find your boundaries, your limits.
I doubted myself.
In the face of an upcoming challenge I had doubts ...
Could I ?
Would I ?
What if ?
As it turns out the challenge was / is far less than I imagined.
The thought of failure is harder to face than the failure itself.
Still I had to prove to myself that I was/am up for the challenge.
Oh I am tired and sore but I have banished those demons that haunted these last few days.
Some will laugh and call me silly or daft, stupid even but once those niggling doubts are allowed to take root they are worse than weeds.
I gave myself the strength to face them and in the facing they withered away.

This reminded me of a poem ...

.. by Ruyard Kipling

IF…..
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son

When the fields turn to gold

When the fields turn to gold
Originally uploaded by Alan Norsworthy

Those who know me know only too well how I relish the first hint of Autumn.
The cool nights and warm days of September are, to me, so much better than the oppressive heat and humidity of July and August.
Sleeping with the windows open is a pleasure especially when you have a down filled duvet.

Ah yes, Autumn not only is the weather better but the harvest of squash, root vegetables and fruits make for splendid dinners, "comfort food". Those hearty stews and soups forgotten during the heat now tantalise the thoughts.

Who could not love this time of year....

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. ~George Eliot

Singing Sands-moonscape

Singing Sands-moonscape
Originally uploaded by Alan Norsworthy

I think I have used today's quotation before but it pretty well sums up how I feel when I am "out there".

A recent trip up the Bruce peninsula found me at Singing Sands.
A place of such incredible diversity and breathtaking beauty.
A place that will call me back time and time again I am sure.
From flora and fauna, to the windswept wide open shoreline the almost alien landscape of the Alvars* and the majestic Lake Huron sunsets.

* "These areas of grooved and scraped stone are a globally rare habitat known as an alvar. Only select areas within the Great Lakes basin (including Ohio's Kelley Island), Sweden and Estonia have alvars. Created thousands of years ago when the mighty weight of the glaciers passed over the area, you can still see grooves and markingsfrom where they scraped over the bedrock"

Quote from

http://floraofohio.blogspot.ca/2011/07/rams-heads-on-singing-sands-bruce.html

We really are blessed with some of the most interesting, complex, rare and breathtakingly beautiful landscapes here in Canada.
I am glad that these places are relatively devoid of people,
Selfish?
maybe.... :-)


I remember a hundred lovely lakes, and recall the fragrant breath of pine and fir and cedar and poplar trees. The trail has strung upon it, as upon a thread of silk, opalescent dawns and saffron sunsets. It has given me blessed release from care and worry and the troubled thinking of our modern day. It has been a return to the primitive and the peaceful. Whenever the pressure of our complex city life thins my blood and benumbs my brain, I seek relief in the trail; and when I hear the coyote wailing to the yellow dawn, my cares fall from me - I am happy. ~Hamlin Garland, McClure's, February 1899