Project 365: One of these things is not like the others (sing it with me!)

There’s no doubt that the dominant theme in this week’s project 365 pictures is autumn: rich reds, yummy yellows, outrageous oranges. Is it just me or is this one of the most spectacularly colourful autumns we’ve had in years? Thank you Mother Nature!

But, in the way the exception proves the rule, my favourite image in a week filled with saturated colours is this first image in simple black and white. I like the picture, but I am head over heels in love with the subject. On Sunday, we took the boys on a treasure-hunting road trip down Highway 31 (Bank Street way south) to Merrickville, where we poked around McHaffie’s Flea Market for the better part of the morning. We found a couple of fun things, including Pokemon cards for the boys (sigh) and another vintage camera (a Duaflex II this time) for a very affordable $12.

It was on the way home, though, that we stopped in at Aubrey’s Antiques and I fell in love. When I saw it, I literally gasped in surprise and delight. I’ve *always* wanted a manual typewriter, but I never imagined I’d find one with this much character. And my darling Beloved bought it for me, wrangling the price down to an affordable $30 splurge. Isn’t it beautiful?

I figure it’s circa 1920s, maybe as late as early 1930s. It’s a Portable Underwood, made in Canada by the United Typewriter Company of Canada, serial number 533186. It’s in fantastic condition, works like a charm. I figure it was so affordable because of how the keys are backwards like that. (Just kidding, it’s flipped like that because the viewfinder on the Duaflex uses a mirror, so through-the-viewfinder pictures are reversed.) I can see this beauty showing up in many of my remaining 365 pictures!

And speaking of road trips down Highway 31, have you ever been through Williamsburg? Each time we drove down to Upper Canada Village, I wondered about this abandoned theatre as we passed by. My menfolk are becoming increasingly benevolent toward the 365 project, and were happy to stop and let me take some pictures of it on our way home.

The Picadilly Theatre opened in July of 1935 (not too long after my Underwood was built!) but closed its doors forever in December of 1959. According to this article, the owner keeps paying the property taxes on the empty building her grandfather built and won’t sell it or tear it down because her father, who died in 2003, wouldn’t hear of it. Another vintage beauty, no?

This was one of those “oh no, it’s almost dinner time and I haven’t managed to take a single picture all day” kind of shots. Quick, what’s photographable? Okay, crazy-coloured shrubbery in the backyard, good idea!

From there, the autumn leaves only got more spectacular as the week went on. Another one of life’s little curiousities I noticed this week was that raindrops only seem to bead on the back side of leaves. Why is that, do you think?

These two are from yesterday morning. I was driving to work about 20 minutes before the sun came up, and I noticed that because it was so cold (two below freezing, brrrr!) there was a lovely mist coming off the Rideau River. I pulled off Prince of Wales to take a few pictures at the Black Rapids lock station, and got totally sucked in by the beauty of the sunrise and the fall colours.

This was taken from the bridge you can just see in the photo above. The tree in the foreground was literally raining leaves — I wish I’d had video mode on my camera to capture it, I’ve never seen anything like it!

If you don’t mind losing the feeling in your fingers, poking around in the leaves by the river at dawn is not a bad way to start the day!

I just realized that including the typewriter and the Picadilly and all the autumn leaves falling off the trees, my 365 pictures this week are almost exclusively about things past their prime. Except, of course, for these handsome young things.

As I said when I posted this one to Flickr, they make my heart sing every single day. This one is pretty cute, too, when he’s not into mischief.

So I need your help now. By 3 pm today, I’ve got to post one of the leafy-type shots above in a Flickr contest I’ve entered. I won the first round with the typewriter shot, so now I’ve got to post something I’ve taken in the last five days. I’m caught between the raindrops on the leaf one and the one with the path leading to the bridge. What do you think? Help me pick!

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