Eleven is an interesting number for many reasons: it’s the first repdigit, in English, it is the smallest positive integer whose name has three syllables; it’s a prime number; it has it’s own name in English and many Germanic- and Latin-based languages but is the first compound number in many other languages’ and is the first numeric-palindrom in decimal. Eleven is also how many years the Photo Blogging Challenge has been running! Way to go, host PJ and all PBC participants! 🙂

At the start of March, I took a few minutes to think about the many ways I could try to encapsulate eleven photographically. I discarded some ideas immediately. For example, on my upcoming birthday I’ll be turning X1 years old, so I’m striving to build the capacity to do X1 push-ups (not all in a row, but in one exercise session). So I’m working my way up to X-1 sets of 10, plus one set of 11. How to photograph that?

I jotted down other ideas that either didn’t come to fruition or didn’t result in photographs worth sharing. These included a few landscape photos shot at f11, a photograph of my 11-speed city bike, or some way of photographing Group 11 of the periodic table (copper, silver & gold), taking a snap of a 7-11 (convenience stores that are ubiquitous in Canada), and the “11 secret herbs and spices” chicken I cooked in our new air fryer.

Now that I’ve bored you with ideas that didn’t pan out, it’s time to share my favorite photographs of eleven, all taken March 2024:

1. Canada Flag

This particular flag is flying at one of the public schools in Canmore. Across the country, the Canadian flag was at half-mast for about two weeks in March, to honor the passing of Brian Mulroney, who served as the 18th Prime Minister of Canada, from 1984 to 1993.

Here’s your mini-history lesson for today…Lester B. Pearson (later elected Prime Minister of Canada) played an essential role during the Suez Crisis of 1956, for which he was awarded a Nobel prize. At the time, he witnessed Egypt’s objections to the Red Ensign, Canada’s unofficial, de facto flag. The objection? It included the Union Jack, symbol of a nation opposed to Egypt’s interests at the time.

Once elected Prime Minister of Canada in 1963, Pearson struck a committee to come up with a distinctly Canadian flag. The first design that came before parliament had medium blue edges (to represent Canada from sea-to-sea) and three conjoined red maple leaves on a white background. It was deemed too Quebec-centric. So a new committee was struck in 1964.

In the end, the all-party committee unanimously voted in favor of the current design, loosely inspired by the flag of the Royal Military College of Canada. The simplified maple leaf has eleven points, a design decision made after the original artwork with thirteen points was deemed too hard to interpret after wind tunnel tests!

2. Elevenses

I almost never take a coffee break. But on March 11th, I had a morning appointment, so my usual breakfast routine went out the window. As a result, I sat down late in the morning to enjoy a cinnamon bun while tackling the daily Wordle puzzle. I took this shot at 11:11 am on March 11.

3. One-pan Chocolate Cake

One-pan chocolate cake is a family favourite. I usually bake it a couple of times/month. It’s super easy. In a 20 cm (8 inch) square pan, mix 1.5 cups all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup granulated sugar, 4 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Once well-blended, make 2 small holes and one larger hole in the dry ingredients. Add 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla to one small hole, 1 Tbsp vinegar to the second, and 5 Tbsp vegetable oil to the large hole. Pour 1 cup of lukewarm water over everything and mix thoroughly. Top with a couple handfuls of chocolate chips and 2-3 Tbsp of chopped nuts. Just in case you weren’t counting, that’s eleven ingredients.

Bake at 325F for 30-35 minutes. Serve warm with ice cream, whipped cream and/or fresh berries. I made a cherry pie for Pi Day and had some homemade cherry pie filling leftover, so served a version of deconstructed Black Forest cake instead.

3. Training Hike

We’re hiking for two weeks in Scotland later this spring. But hiking season in the Canadian Rockies doesn’t really start until mid-June, sometimes even mid-July. So how to train? To avoid sore muscles/feet while exploring the Highlands, we’re trying to get in one longer winter hike each week, while avoiding avalanche terrain. We haven’t been very good about packing snowshoes, so a couple of times now we’ve done quite a bit of post-holing, which can be hard on the feet.

Here’s Mr GeoK, looking in remarkably fine spirits, more than 11 km into what turned out to be an 18 km (11 mile) hike in and around Canmore. For more photos from this adventure, check out Mr GeoK’s Relive video recap.

5. One Elk Short of a Dozen

Photographing eleven of something is one of the easiest ways (IMO) to capture the idea of eleven. How lucky for me, then, that during one of our March walks we encountered a small group from the larger Canmore elk herd – eleven, to be exact! They are browsing in Mine Meadow, below some of the beautiful mountain peaks that surround the town. Ha Ling, on the far right, is a short, steep and very popular hike.

That’s it for my five photos on the idea of eleven. Please take a few minutes to hop on over to host PJ’s blog. You’ll find the link-up for other participants at the bottom of his post.

Please consider joining the Photo Blogging Challenge as we start year 12. The theme for next month is “Point of View.” We’re a very friendly blogging community. All you need are five photos and a blogging site. The amount of accompanying text is entirely up to you. Hope I see you joining in a month from now. 🙂