It's February 1st!

Here's a winter interlude, interrupting our summer canoe trips for a moment.  Today is February1st, and here in the north, it's a brilliant sunny day.  If you take my word for it, you could actually feel the warmth of the sun outside, the first triumphal hint of spring to come (though we have to get rid of a lot of snow first)!  

So here's the view out our back window, though as with all these photos the editing doesn't remain true to colour in such bright sunlight.

The unhealthy Sugar Maple out in the golf course still looks good, with two small recently planted pines beside it.

And here's a view you don't often get, taken from the kitchen window.

It was sunny, but still cold, so I wasn't seeing any melting snow, though I tried to convince myself that the snow on the back of the chair was melting.

I'm intrigued by how these plants get buried.

The drift off the roof at my front window is hanging down a good two feet now.

And the snowstick is almost completely buried.

Tomorrow is Groundhog Day, widely celebrated in the northeast and here in nearby Wiarton.  Will he see his shadow or won't he?  Will we have another six weeks of winter, or won't we?  Checkout Wiarton Willie, Punxsutawney Phil or Shubenacadie Sam tomorrow to see the results!

A Note on the Editing.  In extremely bright sunlight like today my camera automatically darkens the picture to try to balance the light.  It's a problem whenever you take pictures in a snowy landscape.  But editing to try and get the photos back to being bright again distorts the colour.  You can see above, snow often looks bluish, and the sky sometimes looks almost turquoise.  But they're close to correct colours if not perfect!