My New Hat!

We met my sister and brother-in-law Saturday for lunch at one of our favourite restaurants downtown.  It features a great breakfast menu, which I took advantage of.  We had a nice visit at home after, and I got the perfect early Christmas present from my brother-in-law!  It was a brilliantly fluorescent orange hat!

You've all seen my fluorescent orange summer hat, but I have to tell you it's pretty chilly for this time of year, and one effect of my paralysis is that I do feel the cold a lot more.  The best part is that Mrs. F.G. likes this one, and will let me wear it out in public - perfect.

But you really have to see the full winter version to appreciate this - warm black furry fabric on the inside and bright orange on the outside, right down to the ear flaps.  And complete with a silvery band of reflective tape, great!

But that's not all!  It arrived complete with an easily attachable red flashing strobe light that goes on top!  You really have to see this to believe it.  Maybe I'll take a video for you in a darkened room  There are about six different patterns of red flashes you can choose from.  This will keep me amused for years!

Today's Weather Bomb

Weather forecasters seem to be coming up with more and more exaggerated terms to describe our weather forecasts.  We have weather bombs, catastrophic driving conditions, historic records, and dangerous commutes.  There's some truth in all of them, and I learned yesterday that there's actually a technical definition of the term 'weather bomb', something to do with pressure differences between the upper and lower atmosphere.

It's a common comment in the weather news that climate change is leading to new extremes, not just overall warming of the planet.  The 'polar vortex' ( I thought that used to be just the jet stream) is bringing more arctic air further south and mixing up what used to be our 'normal' winters.  At any rate, today we have a messy mix of freezing rain, ice pellets and now snow.  It's the freezing rain that's most dangerous, and we're hoping for better driving conditions by morning.

But it was the ice pellets which got picked up by my wheelchair tires that caused the most trouble for me.  When I came inside they started to melt of course, and that meant I had to sit for an hour on the mat before I was dry enough that I could move.  And if the snow continues to accumulate out there things will look pretty white by morning.

I've watched the weather forecasts all week as we went from an 'unprecedented' low pressure system in the north Pacific, through 'unheard of' snow in northern California, evolving into a 'dangerous' Colorado low, to Ontario's 'weather bomb'.  In this case it's all come true.

Meanwhile I still haven't figure out how to download the recent photos off my iphone and I'm getting supremely frustrated!  ...........,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,  Wait!  Hold on a moment!

I have just figured out a way to email selected photos to myself and then download and save them on my newly repaired desktop!  It is not intuitive at all, and you have to plunge onward ignoring what appear to be simple on-screen instructions that don't actually work, but I persevered and eventually got 2 photos from the other day and one from an hour ago downloaded and then uploaded into the blog, so here they are.  Even better, you can edit them in this process, perhaps more easily than in Lightroom.  I'm back to being a happy camper.

Today's weather, mostly ice pellets, but now snow.

We've had a lot of severe shoreline-damaging waves with each storm.  Both the town and private shoreline owners are going to have to spend a LOT of money fixing things up - and the water level is forecast to be higher next year.  Here the waves are splashing up on the shoreline boulders leaving a few shoreline trees dripping with ice.

The November Landscape

The November landscape fascinates me.  A constant melody of browns, greys and greens punctuated by stark black tree trunks.  With the leaves gone, you can see through the trees and spot hidden buildings.   The landscape opens up and tells you it's story.  Try and visualize it as I take you along.

The fields are most noticeable, ranging from the light pale brown cornstubble to the dark brown earth of a few fields that have been ploughed, from the rough green of harvested hayfields to the bright new green of winter wheat sprouting.   Trees and forest occupy almost as much of the landscape around here. Dark green spruce planted around farmsteads, a surprising amount of planted pine forest, and the distant deciduous woodlots.  As well there are a number of swamps which might be the grey of dead trees through light brown of the cattail patches to dark green of the cedars.

Now that I am just a passenger in the car I can enjoy watching the sights pass as we drive. Yesterday it was down to Pebbles restaurant in Varney, where we met good friends for lunch.   We passed all those fields, forests, swamps, and farmsteads - ranging from bright new buildings to the old and dilapidated. The barn is usually the first to get modernized, the house comes later,  and some farms  never do, falling into ruin.  I marvel anew to myself at the work pioneers went to to clear this landscape and build their homes.

We drive by a small farm home and barn on a tiny patch of cleared land by the road, but I spot a farm lane disappearing back into the swamp. Later checking the air photos on Google Maps I see two  large fields hidden from the road beyond that swamp that enabled the farmer to make a living.

Just out of Meaford we cross the Bighead River, and driving through Priceville we've moved into the Saugeen watershed.  (You would not believe what the voice recognition did to that sentence!)   But along the way there are numerous small streams and patches of wetlands. There's Minniehill Creek south of town, Wodehouse Creek just before it drains into the karst system, the Boyne River as we go through Flesherton and a few others I don't know as we get closer to Varney.   The whole landscape is drained by a dense network of streams and creeks.

Here at home I look out on the same grey/green landscape.   The light green of the backyard and the golf course stretch into the distance marked by a small patch of bright green, the green for hole number seven on the golf course. Two dark spruce trees mark the boundaries of my view. and a line of planted Scots Pines extends into the distance on the right hand side. Two isolated Scots Pines stand like sentinels partway down the golf course. Sugar Maple and White Ash stand in the fencerow at the back of our property, in the middle of the golf course and in the distance beyond.  Scattered fallen leaves mark the beginning of the golf course and a tiny white skiff of snow lies across the deck and a few of those fallen leaves.   Three little creeks cross the landscape all down in their small valleys and out of sight to me.

 I know many think November is the worst month of the year, but I find it fascinating.

Christmas Lights

Two years ago this day we stopped at my sister's place in Goderich, breaking up a medical appointment in London into a shorter drive.  Their house backs on to a local park where Christmas lights go up every year.  Locals drive the loop road through the park and enjoy the lights.  We were able to just look out the window or step out through the back gate.

It's a beautiful late fall day here, warm enough that I headed off by myself around a few blocks to the hospital for blood work.  I was bundled up mind you, but it was a wonderful ride in the fresh air, possibly the last I'll get this year.  Then they couldn't find any paperwork, so now I'm in another round of calls to one of my several doctors to see what's to be done.  This business of having a constant round of medical tests and consultations is frustrating, but the ride this morning was a pleasure.

For those of you with a long memory, yes this is where the Goderich tornado struck in 2011.  The park was devastated, so the trees you are looking at are all the young trees planted after the big old maples were removed leaving some very interesting chainsaw carvings.  My sister lost part of the roof, all their back windows, and a huge old chestnut tree.

And playing with lightpainting.

The lights have gone up in Owen Sound, so we'll have to go there sometime soon to check them out.

Supermoon

Three years ago today, I posted a picture of the 'supermoon' that month.  I've had lots of difficulty getting a good shot of the moon that provides a fairly close view and is actually in focus.  This is about the best I've ever done.  It helped that we lived out in the country with no other lights in sight.

It's a partly sunny day here and a balmy 6°C.  It's supposed to stay this warm for the next three days, though we're supposed to get some rain too.

A huge amount of volunteer charitable work going on in town these days.  Today was a day for donations to the local Foodbank, an entirely volunteer organization.  They also provide Christmas hampers to 200 families, as well as toys and gifts for 200 youngsters.  Mrs. F.G. has been shopping and sewing this week to provide our offering.

November 2016

Since I can't access my current photos, I'm taking you back almost exactly three years to our old home in the valley.  Here's a selection of pictures in our garden from my post of Nov. 21st, 2016.  In the meantime it's actually sunny here and there's no snow in sight, though it's still cold.  Great day for late November exploring, but not in a wheelchair!

Living out in the country at that time, real winter was usually marked by the first time the snow plow went by - though he's not throwing up much snow in this pass.  Just a gentle snowfall.

A busy day today here.  Physio in Owen Sound yesterday, and here at home this morning, so I'm just a little sore.  I think it'll be a Christmas card afternoon.  Yes, I'm one of the dinosaurs who still sends cards to family at Christmas, though we receive fewer and fewer.  It's wonderful to have internet access back on this computer, even if I can't upload my current pictures. 

I had fun this morning looking back through old posts and deciding to post photos from the past.  In fact I've looked back over a lot of my photos from the last 5 years recently, looking for pictures to accompany an article on geology that I'm writing.  I have a lot of great photos, and I've had a lot of great local adventures, so I'm inclined to repeat some of those rather than miss posting.  My days have felt strangely incomplete and empty the past 3 weeks!  I think my photography was much better back then too, so I think I'll just continue this and hope you enjoy it. 

Do you realize that there's only 4 weeks left as the days get shorter and shorter?  Yes, 4 weeks today the days will start getting longer again!  Hurrah!

My computer works again!

Hello again out there.  Yes, my computer works again.  My local repair guy (the third store I tried, but at this one I got a real live voice) showed up this morning, just 48 hours after I called.  Windows flashed across the screen as his fingers danced across the screen and I had not the foggiest idea what he was doing.  But after 20 minutes it was back to normal and it seems to be working fine now.

Apparently my computer thought it had two screens attached, and it was sending some programs (the ones I thought I had lost) to the second screen, which actually didn't exist.  He also advised me on upgrading my security software and will order a replacement hard drive for me, this time a solid state one which should be much faster.  They will take the computer away one day next week to get that set up, and at the same time set it up with a microphone and voice recognition software so I can dictate rather than type.  Maybe I can get some serious writing done then!

HOWEVER, Lightroom will no longer import photos from my iphone, so I can't access any of my recent photos to post them!@#%$XX!  I don't know whether this is an iphone problem or another new computer problem.  Now I have to try some other tricks to see if I can overcome this problem.