Winter Just Doesn't Want to go Away!

We've had some warmer days and a little bit of melting.  The piles of snow out front that were 6 feet have now subsided to 4 feet, but it's the middle of March for Heaven's sake.  We don't need this!  The forecast does look promising, but we have to wait for next week first.  I'm beginning to feel cooped in.

This beautiful sunny day three weeks ago was the peak of our snowfall; the yellow chair was almost buried.

In fact both chairs had a heavy cap of snow.  But I thought maybe those chairs would give me the basis of a comparison as the melt progressed.  The melt has progressed very slowly (most days not at all), but here goes.

We had a fairly big melt at first, the snow just sinking down into itself.

When you get a big melt, the snow surface is left hard and crusty.  At times you can walk right across snow like this.  But there's still 16" of snow here.

A few days later it snowed again, raising the snow level back up and leaving a surface of powder snow.

Then it melted again, though just a little.

Over the last 2 or 3 days it melted down a little further.  Today is a bright sunny day and I'm sure the snow is going to melt  even further.

And just to remind you, in case your memory does not extend

this far, this was the garden last year on this date - dwarf Iris peaking up!

A Fluttering of Goldfinch!

 We have seen virtually no birds at our feeder all winter, so we were pleasantly surprised to see a great wild fluttering of Goldfinch out the window a week ago, and they were back today. There seemed to be at least 20 of them, coming and going quickly.  Goldfinch will normally sit at the feeder and eat seed after seed, so to see them coming and going so quickly was impressive!

When we first looked out the Goldfinch were coming and going everywhere!

They just stopped at the feeder for seconds, replaced by other presumably hungry birds.   We did see a Chickadee and a couple of Nuthatch among them.  Today we spotted a House Finch among them.

At least some of these birds were starting to look bright yellow, a sign that spring is indeed coming.

Look at the number on the ground in this photo.  Our view of the seed eating party under the feeder was cut off by a snow drift, but I still counted 13 birds in this photo.

Meanwhile, we have two days of melting going on before we dip back to freezing temperatures.  The snow is still four feet deep out the front window.

Canadian Patriotism

 I've been delighted to see the proliferation of Canadian flags down our street.  Neighbours have stuck them into snowbanks and are letting them blow in the breeze.  It certainly says something about Canadian patriotism.  In an abrupt change from 200 years of friendly history, we have the American president, DT, to thanks for this, and it's unprecedented.

Our family is not the type to go south for a holiday, winter was always just too much fun.  But we've travelled east and west more than most I suspect.  We've been through most of the northern states and always found everyone kind and friendly.  We've driven east through New York and New England on our way to the Maritimes, and home again the same way.  We've driven west through Chicago, all the way to Idaho and north on our trips to the west coast - stopping in Yellowstone along the way.  We've been to the tulip farms of the Skagit Valley in Washington and driven to Alaska.  

Having driven to both coasts a total of five times, we've developed a deep sense of pride in Canada, and we've always been welcomed in the U.S. 

The sudden change in American politics that has left us as enemies instead of friends is seriously puzzling and deeply upsetting.  It's hard to separate the official views from what individuals may feel, even though we know it's mainly DT and his cronies who feel this way.  However, I do fear most Canadians will be adopting something of an anti-American view because of this.  Don't take it personally, but we will no longer be friends in quite the way we were and that's a shame. 

This is our immediate neighbour's flag; stuck high in his snowbank.    

The tariffs DT says will start on Tuesday just seem nonsensical.  Our economies are already so integrated that America depends on our oil exports.  They've built refineries specifically to handle the type of crude we ship.  The auto industry is so inter-linked that it would be hard to separate it out, with parts shipped back and forth, and new auto plants built to specialize in building those parts.

I have to wonder who is advising DT.

But the comments about the 51st state are far more troubling.  And given how Trump has behaved the past week, they are much more troubling now.  They are an attack on a country that has been one of America's best allies, deeply insulting and aggressive.  Many Canadians are furious.  Then I could touch upon how he has treated Ukraine, but I won't.  I'm afraid most of us just can't believe it!

But the positive side of this is the sudden burst of Canadian patriotism I'm seeing.  The Facebook feed I'm getting is full of Canadian flags, often in front of the spectacular scenery we are so proud of.  'Buy Canadian' is sweeping the country, and that includes cancelling trips to the U.S. as well as trying not to buy anything from billionaires like Bezos!

I can only hope the turmoil the world is now in passes peacefully, though Canada may be only a small corner of the story.  

More on Snowshoeing

 There are different types of snowshoes, and you need to match the type with the snow conditions.  I've already shown you the large 'Huron' snowshoes.  Then there are the mid-size 'Bear Paw' snowshoes, and the small modern plastic ones.  These small snowshoes are really best for a packed trail, and the Bear Paws for mid-deep snow, but the big ones are best for truly deep snow. 

On organized snowshoe hikes I always found it a waste of effort to wear either of the larger snowshoes, but as long as I wasn't breaking trail, the small ones were fine.  They are a little more effort if you're the one breaking trail, but I never was 'cause I dragged along at the back!  On a field like this with only 3 or 4 inches of snow, they're great.

So usually I just wore the small ones to go walking in the nearby woods with Roxie.  They weight hardly anything and are easy to use.  If it's your first time, you should maybe try them first on a packed trail if you're worried.  With the big ones you do have to sort of lumber from side to side with each step.

These are a couple of other winter toys I used regularly.  I had a big (44" wide) snowblower that was attached to the front of our lawn tractor which I used to blow out our drive.  To be honest I loved doing that snowblowing.

And then I had a roof rake which I used to pull snow down off our roof where it drifted heavily on the lee side after a storm.  You just had to stand out of the way when the snow came down!

Memories of Snowshoeing

 After cross-country skiing, snowshoeing was my favourite winter activity when we lived in the valley.  It's such a neat way to walk in deeper snow.  If nothing else it keeps the snow away from the top of your boots.  It also leaves a really neat track behind you.

On this occasion I was using my traditional 40-year old 'Huron' snowshoes, large and wide with a tail at the back.  I bought these on our way to a trip in Algonquin Park, where we snowshoed in loose fluffy snow 4 feet deep!  We still sank in a foot even with these.  As you can see, the harness has been replaced, at least twice I think.

It was a glorious day in the woods, probably not deep enough to really require these large snowshoes, but deep enough to have fun using them.

It was a couple of days since a nice snowfall, so there was at least 6-8 inches of fresh powder.

It makes fascinating patterns clinging to the branches.

And it was definitely clinging to those branches!

I always wore mukluks to use snowshoes, particularly these older ones made with real gut rather than plastic!  The hard edges of heavier boots can damage the webbing.

Have You Ever Seen Hoarfrost Up Close?

 I love the distant views of hoarfrost in the treetops, but once I photographed it up close it was incredible!  And another idea is to aim directly at the sun, but position it behind a tree so you enhance the real sparkly effect.  What do you think?

These are three of my best sparkly photos.

And these my best close-ups.  Aren't those flat ice crystals amazing?

 

Hoarfrost!

 I can only remember three times over the past couple of decades when I saw hoarfrost in the trees.  It`s magical, turning all those branches bright white with sparkling frost crystals.  You have to get out there for any pictures, because it will melt in the sun by lunch or earlier.

The view out our back window at the last house.

Such frost requires specific atmospheric conditions to occur.  Still cold nights mean that the surface of tree and shrub twigs is below the freezing point, and high water vapour condenses and freezes immediately, building up ice crystals that grow as the temperature drops..

You also need bright sunny days to see it.  A few more tomorrow.

Remembering William

 Our oldest son William would have turned 48 today.  I can't believe it!  It's 10 years since his water bomber went down while fighting a forest fire in northern Alberta.  He was described as a hero at his three memorials, and I believe it.  He was looked up to by his crew as a leader.

Will decided to become a pilot and nothing stood in his way.  After college he flew out of Kenora, on Fiji, out of Prince Rupert, for Wasaya Airways in northern Ontario (the big twin engine freight planes), and finally for Conair, the fire-fighting company out of Abbotsford, B.C.  I've just finished reading the 96 tributes to him on the Forever Missed website, and he's uniformly described as a kind, compassionate friend.  He always put safety first, and he had a dry sense of humour.

This is my favourite photo of William as a pilot, because it shows him 'living his dream'.  After we passed a large forest fire on our way to the Yukon, complete with water bombers, his dream became to be a water bomber pilot himself, and after 10 years of flying he made it.  His passing so young was tragic, but knowing that he had followed his dream somehow makes it a little easier.

Ten years later I think of his brother and sister and how much they have lost.  I hope their memories serve them well.  Here are three pictures illustrating those memories.

William and his sister Katherine, out of Twillingate, Newfoundland, 1992.

Yes, that's an iceberg in the background.

William and his brother Matt, in the meadow on Manitoulin about 1988.

It was just teeming with Monarch butterflies.

The whole family on our first trip west, at Lake Agnes in Banff National Park, 1986.

So many wonderful memories.

More Winter Shadows

 It wasn't just along roads that I noticed winter shadows, fences sometimes also created striking patterns,. And sometimes when I was snowshoeing along a trail through the woods I would come across an interesting pattern of shadows.   

On a big cattle farm, this was a pretty serious fence to maintain, but it casts neat shadows .

Another fence, just down the road from our previous home.  This fence looked like it could use some maintenance!

Not exactly a fence, but there's an old fence buried in there somewhere, overgrown with shrubs that are creating these beautifully curved drifts.

Some interesting patterns in shallow drifting snow.

And sometimes it's just a beautiful scene in the woods.  Winter shadows were always a striking part of the world around me.  Today they're limited to the occasional shots of the tree shadows out behind our home, on the open golf course.

 

 

Winter Shadows

Back in those good old days when I was driving, one of the things I really noticed was the shadows across some of the roads I drove down, usually quiet side roads .  These were the east-west roads of course and there was no traffic so I could just stop in the middle of the road and get a picture..  These were years with normal snowfall, much less than we're getting this year.  On bright sunny days the patterns were striking.

Sometimes the snow was sticky and outlined all the tree trunks in white.  Hope you enjoy these.

These are for Rosalea, who featured a similar photo in her post of Feb. 2nd on her blog Chronicles from the Hill.  Hope you all enjoyed them!

I could keep posting pictures of our snow - yes, it's snowing again today - but I don't want to overdo it, even though the snow is certainly overdoing it this year!  I don't remember seeing snow outside like this - ever!