The Year in Review

I always enjoy going back over the posts I've made over the past year to remember how the year unfolded.  The twelve photos I've chosen usually represent the seasons as they changed, and sometimes they might even be good photos, but not always.  The collection certainly reminds me of what I enjoyed about 2025; hope you enjoy them too.

January - My memory of last winter is of lots of SNOW, deep snow creating six foot snowbanks.  But in spite of that we started out with a January thaw and visions of green grass between the white patches!

February - But in February the snow did arrive, and it piled up just like the snow on our snowstick's back, light, fluffy and deep.  Without a thaw it just accumulated relentlessly.

March - By March the world out front looked like this, deep snowbanks you could not even see over.  Backing out was tricky!

April - Then magically April arrived, the snow melted and the earliest of our spring flowers bloomed, these deep blue dwarf Iris.

Msy - By May many things were in bloom, including our beautiful Red Bud.

June - In June we undertook our annual pilgrimage to Petrel Point Nature Reserve, a Great Lakes fen ecosystem.  This property has a boardwalk I can safely ride.  These are Grass Pink, taken in an earlier year.

July - In late July our own garden is in full bloom, with the blue Lavender and bright red Day Lilies among many other flowers.

August - August is the time we look for Monarch butterflies, and we're usually successful in finding a few.

September - In September we drove up to Big Bay, a great beach for skipping rocks, with a convenient ice cream outlet nearby.

October - This year we went on our longest adventure yet, all the way up to Tobermory where I posed in front of the Bruce Trail cairn, joining many others who have completed an 'End-to-End' hike.  This was undoubtedly the highlight of the year for me!

November - Fall this year was postponed for a whole month, bringing the coloured leaves I always saw in mid- October, instead in mid-November, the clearest sign of changes in the schedule of the seasons due to climate change that I've experienced.

December - Winter came early this year, bringing us nearly a foot of snow before Christmas.  Unfortunately for the kids, it nearly all melted by Christmas.  It's back now though, as I write this 3 days before the year ends.  This was the best year yet!

Cross-country Skiing Part Two

There was another favourite trail at Glenelg, this one longer, with hills, and mostly through beautiful hardwood forests.  I rarely skied this trail alone, but regularly skied it with a friend or two.  I'd call it a moderately challenging cross-country trail, and it was certainly popular.  All these trails are groomed and maintained by volunteers.

The trail starts over an up and down route that keeps your eyes on your skiis.

Soon the trail dips sharply down through a stand of cedars that I always found a little tricky.

It came out on the margins of a small pond.

Soon after that you come to a trail junction and you have to make a decision.  One direction takes you on a larger loop, the other takes you back toward the entrance, though it'll still make an hour-long ski.  The second option also takes you to a road crossing that opens up another group of trails, including those down in the swamp, these on private land.

I rarely took the longer loop, because I like the features of the alternate.  One of these is a long hill that I always enjoyed.  It always looked like a long way down!

But in the middle of that long hill is a dangerous trail junction.  If you were going too fast you'd sail right past.  If you thought you were an expert, you might try to turn sharply without slowing down enough.  I was there when one of our group did that and broke his ankle!

My usual choice was to cross the road and get down into the swamp.  The trail required another sharp bend at the bottom of this hill, but then you were safe.

And the trail through the swamp was just magical!  It always made me think of The Lord of the Rings.   There would be regular openings into the black water below.  This is one of the places I would always stop and just soak up the atmosphere.

After that it was still a fairly long trek, initially uphill, but eventually back to the entrance.  So glad I've got these memories!

Cross-country Skiing Part One

 My favourite winter activity before getting paralyzed was cross-country skiing.  And here in Grey County we have several great skiing locations.  My favourite was always the Glenelg trails, just south-west of Markdale.  Here, anchored by a 400 acre parcel of public forest, but expanding onto several private properties, were miles and miles of groomed trails.

On the east side of Hamilton Lane is an interesting network of trails on private land that made an easy hour-long ski, with few significant hills.  It always felt safe coming here by myself.

The trail led around the edge of a pond and into the woods.  It wasn't long before I was skiing along the edge of a large field marked by a line of big old Sugar Maples.

Then I cut across a snowmobile  trail and came to my favourite trail, the Long Piney Woods Trail, a completely straight trail through planted pines.

It was an easy run as you can see, going gently downhill.

You had to rise up a short hill where you lost sight of the continuing trail for a minute, and then crested the rise to build up speed on the other side..

But then you went downhill fast to the end.  The only problem was the abrupt ending, where you had to stop and then turn right or left.  More than once I crashed at the end, once with people standing there watching me!  But it was fun.

After that you simply had to ski a flat trail back out past a row of beehives, and around the other side of the pond to the car.  A really enjoyable short ski.

Merry Christmas!

Ten years ago when I was doing all my photography with a big Nikon camera, I was playing around with light painting, a technique where you move the camera when getting the shot.  Seems appropriate for having a little fun at Christmas, so Merry Christmas!

This is the tree I was trying to get a picture of.  And below are the light painting results.  

If you're interested, all these were taken on a manual setting, between 1/2 and 1 second exposure, with the lowest ISO setting at 100, and just moved by hand.  I have no idea how you would do this with a cellphone camera!

May all of you enjoy peace and love at this Christmas time.

Hope Haven Farm, Part 2

 I continued down the tractor trail in the woods until it petered out, and started looking for an easy way forward.  The staff needed a wide trail to allow for both a horse and rider, and people walking on each side for safety.  But they also wanted to minimize tree cutting, so I was looking for a route that could be wide with minimal clearing. 

From my point of view, the woods was fascinating.  I've always loved how young Beech saplings hold on to their leaves.

This old log was a tapestry of beautiful mosses.

This is a tinder fungus, also known as the Iceman fungus.  When dried it can be used as tinder to start fires.  Pieces of this fungus were found in a fire-lighting kit carried by Otzi the Iceman, a 5000 year old mummy found frozen in ice in the Austrian Alps in 1991.  That's a fascinating story in its own right.  I always think of the Iceman when I see this fungus; it's fairly common along the Bruce Trail.

As I worked my way out to the edge of the woodlot I came on a few stretches of old fences, both cedar-rail fences, and a well built but overgrown old stone fence.

I left hoping that the managers at Hope Haven would find the trail I had flagged useful, though I knew that any work on it would wait until spring.  Then I entered the hospital, had surgery, became paralyzed and never got back to see the results.

Hope Haven Farm

A few years back, I helped with a small project to extend a trail through the woods for horseback riding.  Hope Haven Farm is a facility to help the disabled build confidence through equine therapy.  With a herd of several carefully selected horses and a large arena, they provide a range of activities that make a difference.

Volunteers play a large role in supporting activities and in fund-raising.

 The horses on the team are selected for their peaceful tolerant nature.

Here are a Norwegian Fjord horse and a Haflinger Draft horse, two of the small herd.

The project I was asked to help with was extending a trail through the woods on the farm so they could use it for riding.  I say riding, but it's really walking, often with a helper on each side for saetyf.

It was the time of year when things were beginning to freeze up, though helpfully there was no snow on the ground.

There was an existing tractor trail into the woods, but it petered out before reaching the fields.  By extending this, it could be used as a walking trail, forming a loop with crossing those fields.