Interesting Sunrise

We had a very interesting sunrise on the second sunny day of the last month, about a week ago.  It started out with a large grey bank of clouds in the east that I would describe as snow clouds, and I thought we'd see no real sunrise.  But then bands of faint pink appeared on a higher level of clouds above the grey cloudbank.

As I watched it became obvious that the grey clouds were disappearing in the east, but higher level clouds were coming the opposite direction, towards me.  The pink clouds turned white, and others in the background started turning orange.

These clouds were moving fast to the northwest; this and the picture below were just a few seconds apart.

But then the sun rose and it became to bright to get a good picture.

And a closer look shows even more interesting colour as the sun nears the horizon.

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Those Fences With-the-very-close-Posts

I shared some of our unusual fences with posts only a couple of feet apart last week, and asked if anyone else had seen these.  I've since consulted with a couple of my friends who are long-time farmers in the area and got the real story behind these.  Several of you suggested they were snow fences, and you're partly right.

My friends first pointed out that you only see these fences along roads, not dividing the internal fields of a farm.  The fact is that these fences get totally buried in snow thrown by the snowplow, which shatters the light structure of new-fallen snow and leaves the snowbank at least twice as dense as the snow elsewhere, and of course pile the snow much deeper.

You then have to think about how these deep roadside snowbanks behave in winter.  As we get milder periods, the snow collapses further on itself, becoming ever more dense, and if the temperature is high enough before freezing again, forming a layer of ice.  Over the winter season, these snowbanks will become densely-packed with icy layers in between fresh snowfalls.

We're in the snowbelt here, as you can see in these two pictures, so the snow might be 10 or even 15 feet deep over these fences by late winter.  And when all that collapses in the spring thaw, it takes the fence wires down with it.

This is the same roadside pictured above, from last February.  The snowbanks got about 5 feet deeper at their highest point.

So farmers stick extra short posts in between the 'real' posts, often simply sitting on the ground, and staple the wires to each of these intervening posts.  This is enough to keep these fences from collapsing after being buried in winter snow and ice as the intervening shorter posts keep the wires from sagging.  Interesting local adaptation to our sometimes crazy snowbelt winters!  So these fences are about accumulating snow, but not exactly snowfences.

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Getting the Ski Hill Ready

Another sign of the seasons around here is all the work done to get the downhill ski slopes ready over at the Beaver Valley Ski Club.  As soon as the temperature dips below freezing, they think about making snow.  It was one of those bright sunny days when I got these shots.

This shot from below the slopes shows about half the runs at the ski club, not a big hill compared to the mountains, but popular locally.  It will be busy on the weekends all winter.

I stopped at the top, and they had quite a few of the snow guns going down the slope.

This is one of the big new snow-making guns, one that uses much less water.

Further down in the Avalanche bowl, three other guns were blowing snow onto another slope that is far to steep for me to ever consider!

Meantime, the evergreens at the top get plastered of course.  Ten days ago when I shot these, it looked like they were well on their way to skiing over Christmas, always a hoped for bonus for the season.

But then our recent thaw arrived.  The temperature has been at or above freezing for 4 days now, providing a nice foggy atmosphere, but melting the snow too.

We only have a little snow left here now, though I haven't checked the ski hill.  As soon as it dips colder again you can bet they'll be out there trying to make more snow to be ready for the ski season.  That's the way the early winter season goes around here.

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A Few More Barns

I'm getting quite captivated by all the different barns around the landscape here in the valley, now that I've started collecting photos of them.  And there are enough to keep me going for quite awhile.  They're such a big part of the farming landscape here, and they tell us a lot about the farming that has gone on.

These first two are on the drive up the 7th Line to Meaford, taken on that bright sunny day when I photographed the ice along the shoreline.  I think this is my favourite, both in terms of composition, with the tree framing the barn, and because it's a gambrel or hip-roofed barn.  Until I started taking these pictures I didn't realize these were so unusual.

A nice red barn that I drive by frequently, until recently the home of a small herd of beef cattle.

These pictures are on a more typical grey December day, and are all just around the corner from us.  I must have driven by this barn dozens of times - and never noticed!  Take a close look at that silo!  I don't know why this farmer collects the big cranes.

More commonly the barns around here are simply weathered barn board, unpainted.  They seem to last just as long as the painted ones, but perhaps aren't as attractive.  These are two simple bank barns, joined at the corner to make an 'L'.

And here's a restored barn - notice the new barn boards on the east side, rapidly weathering to grey, and the low horizontal line of windows across the wall.  It's always nice to find rural residents maintaining these barns, and best of all, using them.

Hope you enjoyed more barns around the valley; to see more, check out The Barn Collective.

Icy Shoreline

I promised you some more pictures of the icy shoreline on Georgian Bay in Meaford, so here they are.  Taken on Friday when we had one of those rare sunny days.  The weather since has been hovering just above zero, the snow is turning to fog and drizzle!

It wasn't very rough on Friday, and it doesn't take much of a splash to throw water up over the rocks.

In a corner near the harbour you could easily watch how the water would splash on the boulders of the breakwater, leaving ice coating everything above.

In fact you had to be careful not to stand too close, both to avoid the splashes, and to avoid the ice-coated boulders.

Never-the-less, I thought it was very beautiful, a little ephemeral treasure thrown up for our enjoyment by nature - I wonder how many others noticed!

I liked these curly-cues, as well as the ice-covered shrubs.  I'm sure the scenery here changes a lot with the weather too - these are probably gone by now.

I think I have enough blue in these 

pictures to link to Blue Monday:

It was actually a very beautiful Friday!

Christmas Photo Challenge

I'm interrupting my scenic photos of the valley for Donna's 'Personal Photo Challenge'.  This month it's on Christmas, so I revisited my 'light painting' techniques of a year ago after we got the tree up (lights on, but not decorated) today.  I'm pleased with the results!

All of these photos were taken with the camera just on Aperture.  The camera was giving me about a one second exposure, but I hand-held the camera, and just moved it, either in a circle or back and forth, to get these effects.  The final photo is different in colour to illustrate the effect of adjusting the white balance for indoor lighting.  I actually like the lighting in all the others better, even if it was set for sunlight or cloudy.  Very easy and fun photos to take.

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Georgian Bay

In Meaford today for one of our regular breakfasts with the boys, and stopped by the shoreline to watch the waves roll in.  Water splashing over the rocks had left the scrubby plants along the shore covered in ice.  And it was a beautiful sunny day.

I always like this approach to Meaford on a sunny day.  You drive down over the hill, and there it is, Georgian Bay, deep blue, extending to the horizon.

I stopped at the municipal park that follows the shore just west of the harbour, and found ice-covered scrubby vegetation along the shore adding to the beauty, behind the stones that help prevent erosion.

The ice formations on some of these plants were really interesting.

The Niagara Escarpment in the distance marks the large army training base to the west of town.

Looking the other direction is the harbour, the two small lights marking the west and east ends of the breakwater here, along with more interesting ice formations, including an icy covering on the boulders themselves.

I was surprised to find three fishermen waiting patiently by the shore in the hopes of a bite, wrapped up warm against the cold.

First time I've seen 'tripod fishing' - mount your fishing rod on a tripod and sit back to wait!

Some more interesting ice formations tomorrow.  It was our second sunny day in a month; things are looking up!

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