rooftops

Every day this week 

it has been foggy

above is one of the four geese who have made 

family nests in the ravine

they like this rooftop

they also like to let the world know they are here 

and they talk to each other constantly

I'm not sure which is more annoying... the endless fog or the endless honking

signs of winter

This could be white sand under these beach umbrellas, but it's not.

With the warm weather we're having (- 2ºC this morning, but expected to go up to +4ºC by this afternoon) I thought I'd wander down to the waterfront.

a few of the hundred or so ducks out on the water

and a few of the dozen or so people out on the walkway

as you can see, there is an awful lot of snow on the promenade

enough to almost bury this warning sign.













as a comparison, here is a shot from today and one from the winter of 2009, below

I read that Lake Ontario is the only one of the Great Lakes to not be frozen over this winter, but that doesn't mean there aren't a few ice floes

see more signs, not necessarily of winter, here

winter and driving

We've been having blizzardly weather these last couple of days.

This is a slight variation on the stormy weather and frigid weather of late. All this blowing snow sure is pretty, though. Lots of swirls and cliffs and then suddenly - a bare patch with grass sticking up! Another deep freeze is on the way, I hear. But this is no Polar Vortex, it is an Alberta Clipper (apparently an important distinction, though various accounts seem to be making them interchangeable)

Whatever. 
By the time I finished work and got home, my jeans were frozen from the knees down and the ends of my laces had snowy white pompoms on them.

Now that I'm home, I'm not driving again. My car worked hard getting through the snow and slush last night.

I found this on a website that likes to unearth vintage photos and am wishing that The Toronto Star still had these lovely newspaper delivery vans and made them available to the carriers.

freezing

It's been a challenging couple of nights, what with deep freezes and polar vortexes and people expecting their morning newspaper to read all about it.

It was damn cold Monday night. And windy. Last night wasn't nearly so bad, but everywhere was still covered in sheer ice. Even the snow had a glazing of ice over it. Unfortunately, during the earlier part of the night before the deep freeze started, it was mild and raining. This meant there were deep puddles of slush everywhere. This meant there were deep indents of my footprints on all the driveways and paths I walked. They are still there. In some spots I tried to follow my footsteps, thinking it might be easier. It was not. There are now dozens of bits of evidence that I do not walk with a regular gait. (though, to be fair, some of that was due to trying to avoid the deeper puddles of slush). Had I known what a lasting impression I was making I might have taken more care to walk in a straighter line, both to-ing and fro-ing. It brought to mind a childhood memory of my friend Kay and I walking backwards down the middle of the road to school so that on the return trip home we could walk in our footprints of the freshly fallen snow. Sometimes, we would bob and weave and make patterns in the snow which looked like we'd been dancing (remember those lessons with the printed feet you were suppose to follow?). There obviously wasn't much traffic on the dead end street that we could do this and have our snowy footprints still visible hours later. No traffic or ploughs.

On another note, I felt a touch flu-ish over the weekend but had passed the 'chills' stage by yesterday. Still, you know you are at least a little sick if, on the coldest day in decades (-40 with windchill), you can lay in bed snuggled under a warm duvet with the window open and be thinking "what a nice refreshing breeze...". I'm all better now and am feeling every centigrade degree of the cold. So bring on the +10º for Saturday!

nothing is forever

Last week for Taphophile Tragics I told you about Alexander Muir and how a tree on his street had inspired him to write The Maple Leaf Forever, considered our unofficial national anthem. 

I didn't have a photo of the tree because, well, I'd never gotten around to taking one. 

Which is a crying shame because 

before the week was out that tree was knocked down in a vicious storm.

oh, the weather outside is frightful

It is frightfully cold outside.
-19C with a windchill of -29C or -2F with a windchill of -20F

Apparently it is -13 (9F) with a windchill of -16 (3F) in Edmonton which Oprah says is colder than Siberia. She wishes she had been warned that it might be cold in Alberta. In winter.
And doesn't she live in Chicago? Where it is ... 9F (at time of writing)
I was going to say something sarcastic, but having looked up the average mean temperatures in Siberia.... she is almost right. Edmonton though, actually has milder temperatures than, say, Winnipeg, which is quite a bit further south. Were she heading there next instead of Vancouver, she'd be facing a bitter
-27C/-8F with a windchill of -39C which, co-incidentally, is -38.2F

But it would still not beat this part of  Siberia

fall delight

It was an odd sort of day yesterday. It had started in a pale, soft misty slightly out of focus way, the views reminiscent of those pink-ish hued pictures from the 80s. Around 2pm I headed out to the market (so I could be first in line for the pie and soup stall) taking only my small point and shoot camera since I figured there would not be much to see in the overcast sky and fog. There is, between the green where the market is held and the church, a cemetery I wanted to explore and I thought the lack of sun would be beneficial. Then, magically, as I drove up the escarpment (or The Mountain as the locals call it) the sky turned a brilliant blue and the sun shone and it became 20 degrees warmer. Maybe a little less, but it was a significant change. The pavement and the grass was so damp however that I thought it must have rained there earlier, though I found out it hadn't. I wandered around the cemetery for a bit, until my feet were soaked and cold from the dew, then had a refreshing pint at a secluded patio with the sun beating down on my car with all those frozen pies in it. Then I headed home. Down the mountain, admiring the fall colours that we were warned may not be spectacular because of the long, dry, hot summer. (There really should be some safe spots to pull over for photographers, because the best views are often from the highway). Down into the distant fog. By the time I got to the lake it looked like this

there is a big bridge beyond these boats

The thick fog had stuck around parts of the city that were not Ancaster. Or, as the Spectator enthusiastically reported: "...fog slowly slithered into town Wednesday, throwing an increasingly thick and slick blanket of damp air across the city. While there may have been some irritated by the lack of sunlight or the amount of moisture in the suddenly thick air, for the visually inclined it was a delight." Apparently, this was a result of something called advection. I had to look it up, because the newspaper didn't bother to fully explain. It means:

(meteorology) the horizontal transfer of heat or other atmospheric properties

Advection fog Fog which forms in the lower part of a warm moist air mass moving over a colder surface (land or water).

There you are. Your word of the day.

it was hotter than texas*

This might be our new catch-phrase, to replace the more cumbersome "it is hotter than the last time it was this hot at Thanksgiving" (which was about 3 years ago). It was also more humid than any October weekend should be. A friend of mine described how she spent all day Saturday scooping the leaves out of the pool instead of draining it. She did this while in the pool. As we sat outside, watching the thermometer and waiting for that magic number that would break the records (it got up to 28C) and as we ate our turkey and stuffing and roasted vegetables, I thought, this must be almost what it is like at Christmas in Australia and New Zealand. If you squinted against the bright sunlight you could almost imagine that the bright yellow leaves of the maples were instead, big blossoms.

All in all, it was a perfect weekend for walking through the forest or
driving around the countryside looking for fall colours and taking in the studio tour seeking out interesting artisans. Or getting lost finding the poorly signed studios. Not lost, really, I was familiar with the area having lived there for a time, but the signs on these long country concession roads were a little confusing and I ended up a little disoriented. And looking at the brochure, I discovered that GPS co-ordinates were provided in place of addresses! At one point, I just gave up and had some ice cream.

Later, while the turkey was merrily roasting and before the rest of the clan arrived, I decided to go sailing. Last year Orillia had the guitars, this year the street art was sails. Sixty of them. They had been up all summer, but this was my first opportunity to get a chance to find them all, or most of them.

some of them had different designs on the other side

sail on over to my other blog here for more pics

* the news kept making a big deal out of the fact that some cities here were hotter than Dallas, like that was a benchmark of some sort.

things are as expected

An irregular update on the things I am obsessively keeping track of

building is coming along pretty much as expected

 with a hint of what is to come...

those 28 drops of rain we had the other night did nothing to quench the thirst of the grass

and on a sadder note (no photo, whew)

the baby skunk has met an untimely end after venturing out onto the much busier road with the much faster moving cars. 

I was rooting for the little fella, 
even if he was an olfactory hazard.

a few numbers

no wonder my Haagen Dazs melted on the way home!

yes, it is hot

Sure, it is hot out.

 An expected high of 38C or 100F

Dire warnings of a humidex reaching "almost 50C" or close to 120F

Those are numbers that belong to Saudi Arabia, not Southern Ontario.

To be fair, most people seem incredulous at the muggy heat rather than complaining about it.

Breakfast Television has been playing Christmas music all morning.

we're sorry for the inconvenience

Today is the day that management is sorry for the inconvenience but they are going to take away all our water between the hours of 9 am and 5 pm while they work on the neverending plumbing issues of a 50+ year old building. The notice that came around last night may not have been worded exactly like that, but close enough. 

Co-incidentally, today is the day the temperature climbs to somewhere around 36 celcius with a humidex hovering somewhere in the 40s (36 C is 96.8 F and 43 C is 109.4 F  I'm sorry but those F numbers sound more like radio stations than temperatures - this morning you are listening to the gentle hum of 96.8 on your FM dial and later this afternoon tune in to 109.4 for the sounds of leaves wilting...)

And what a light show we had overnight. The warnings of thunderstorms came through around 1:15 am and once the lightening got going it just kept on and on. It was pretty much continuous for almost an hour. No stopping to catch its breath, no pausing to confer with thunder to see if he was even bothering to keep up. Lightning did not care. Most of the time, I couldn't even see the lightning bolts, it was just intense and overlapping flashes of light that seemed to be an umbrella over the whole area. It was like when you see a television reflection flickering on the walls and ceiling in a dark room. It would have been a fast paced action movie. I do not believe I have ever seen anything quite like it before. And we even had a tornado warning, which thankfully did not actually materialize. We get tornado watches, but not often warnings.

At the moment, my place is still in shade and is cool with a nice breeze blowing. Now, I'm off to fill up the kettle and the water jugs and prepare for an afternoon in hades because I took all my blinds down yesterday in preparation for the new ones to be installed... on Thursday. By then the heat and humidity will have broken. Actually, maybe I won't bother filling the water jugs, I'll just leave for somewhere with other hydrating liquids and A/C.

I'll let you know what happens.

rain, rain go away

Spring seems a long time coming.

Last year, at this time, spring had been here for weeks,  

though it is hard to accept that that was EARLY. An anomaly.

And it is Tulip Festival time in Ottawa.  I went to see it last year and there were fears that the tulips would be over before the festival began.  The ones we saw were a little spent and blown out, or battered by the rain.  This year, a very different story.  There are fears that there won't be any tulips blooming in time for the festival (which begins on Friday).  Before leaving Ottawa on Monday, I noticed workers were setting up tents and pavilions and getting things ready.  But any tulips we saw were barely out of the ground.

And as, usual, it rained while I was there.  For the third year in a row.  We did have two warm, sunny, clear days, but it was on Monday with the incessant, pelting rain that I chose to visit the Parliament Buildings with the misty view from the Peace Tower.

(a view of the west block which is still undergoing extensive restoration work.)

It was raining so heavily and I was so soaked that even though the Parliament Hill area seemed deadly quiet and therefore pleasant for walking, I thought I'd head home early and stop off at any town where it wasn't raining to walk around.

Even the ducks came out of the river to paddle around the Eternal Flame (they had jumped out by the time I reached them, but were circling around, ready for the next plunge).

I decided to have dinner in Kingston, a city I'd stopped at very briefly on my last trip to Ottawa and wanted to see more of at a time of day when places were open. This was the first capital of the Province of Canada (in 1841) so they have a nice historic downtown, right on the lake and I remembered that their City Hall was rather magnificent looking and my previous pictures weren't all that great so I wanted to get better ones. 

yeah, the cute tourist information place inside the old train station was also completely covered in scaffolding and green netting while it gets a new roof.

On the upside, it was being used as a polling station, so I pretended I belonged and wandered inside. 

Of course, because it was a polling station, I couldn't take pictures.

When I got home Iooked it up on the internet and here is a virtual tour if you are interested. 

Then it started to rain again.

it's winter again

I have plans to go away for the weekend. A friend has a cottage that I have been invited to use and she suggested that I might want to go in the winter for something different. Yes, I would. I jumped at the chance to see Lake Huron at its worst wintry fury. To see lots of white snow along the trails of the Saugeen River. Scheduling and sickness made it difficult to get away earlier so I was resigned to seeing mostly a big, muddy mess. But, with lots of spring birds returning. Maybe a few flowers peeping out of the ground. I dug out my birding and wildflowers books to take with me.

Now it is snowing. A winter/spring storm coming in from Iowa.

Fifteen centimetres. (yeah, don't worry, you from the US, I have no real idea how much that is either)

I was happily resigned to that muddy mess. Really, I was.

lows

There is a massive storm on the way here. So the weather channel and the news people keep warning us, every minute of the day for the last two days. This one is coming at us from Texas. Extremely dangerous weather. A very powerful low. The worst storm in years. The grocery stores were packed with people yesterday, stocking up. The morning traffic guy is in an early panic - "it's already started to snow".

I guess that will keep me indoors trying to understand this new computer. So far, I'm not enjoying it. I want my old familiar PC back. Am I the only one? It is so very disappointing. This is a much steeper learning curve than Apple leads you to believe. But, I took the $99 one-to-one option so that the friendly blue shirted employees could teach me, and spread their love of all things Apple. It is incredible how excited the staff are for me. They are all so happy, "oh, you are going to love using it". You should have seen the look on the blue shirted one's face when we were booking the next tutorial and I whipped out my Moleskine appointment book and pen (and I was asked - pointlessly, surely - once again, "do you have an iphone?" No.)

I do love the lack of cables and wires. And the thinness of everything. The wireless mouse and keyboard is rather cool, even if the idea of wireless still messes up my head. But the keyboard is so small that I keep hitting the cAPS lock key. And I will sorely miss the numbers keypad when I go to do my accounting. And I haven't figured out how to upload photos properly yet. And where is the 'save' option?? And what happened to the 'right click'?? And, aND... Okay, it will all come together soon. I will learn to love my Mac. I will.

And the good news? I don't have to shovel any driveways.

the weather

It has been bitterly cold out these last couple of days. Not mid-west type of freezing cold, but still, uncomfortably cold. With windchill. And snow.

I was watching the weather channel this morning when I got home from work to see how the rest of the day would unfold (or at least, I had it on while I got caught up on some blogs) and the guy who was standing outside the studio and almost lost his scarf was going on about the high winds and cold temps and the traffic snarls and the more snow to come and how it was also messy as hell out there, so be careful. About 20 minutes later, he came back on, as they do, to repeat the same video and message, except this time it was "icy as hell out there". Finally, I guess he decided to tone down his language, because 20 minutes later he came back on, with the same scarf and same winds and same videos, but by now it was "icy as well out there".

Now, I think it is time for my nap.

winter is upon us

I have just come inside after a nice long walk in the bright sunshine and crisp, cold air. There is some snow on the ground and a lot of ice, but it is not unmanageable. It is actually quite pleasant. Especially if you are dressed in appropriate layers.

Yet, all around us there is chaos. The wrath and fury of winter and lake effect snows has taken hold and gripped areas of Southwestern Ontario. Highways are closed, hundreds of people are stranded, dozens of vehicles abandoned. People are still digging themselves out of their homes. Yesterday's drive home show on CBC featured listeners calling in to report the conditions wherever they were - some incredulous at the blue sky and crawling traffic for no apparent reason (tales of 45 minutes to drive 8 blocks) and other spots that were virtually problem free while a few miles away there were snow squalls and whiteouts.

I used to live in what is known as the "snow belt" - an area of Ontario that gets a lot of snow, predictably, without fail, every year, though there are bands where the snow can be more or less - it is dramatic and instant as you cross over from one area to the next. You learn very quickly to be prepared. I admit that I have become a bit lax about my emergency supplies, but I used to make sure I never travelled without at least a blanket, a cache of food, a flashlight, an extra sweatshirt and pair of socks, an icescraper, snowbrush and shovel, and a big bag of kitty litter (non clumping!) along with the usual jumper cables, extra wiper fluid and a first aid kit. And a full tank of gas. Driving in a snow squall is probably the scariest thing I have ever done. My route to work took me through some picturesque winding country roads into the ski hills. I once followed the taillights of a vehicle ahead of me into his driveway because I had lost all sense of direction of where exactly I was on the highway. It was a good thing he was able to tell me exactly where we were so I could try to get some bearings once back out on the road. But I did not feel safe. The stress near about did me in. I needed a massage when I finally got home!

It is good to hear the warm hearted stories of people coming to rescue those who were stranded. But as often happens, a day or so on and the complaints start.... why weren't we warned? (weather patterns is not an exact science, how often have we had dire predictions that never materialized), why were the roads not closed? (some were and still people drove onto them... and got stuck) why weren't we rescued sooner? (the police and army had to endured the same conditions as you), and my personal favourite: a guy travelling from Michigan who was angry that he was even allowed to cross the border when there was a storm!! I don't know how much detailed weather and traffic updates these border guards have access to, but I'm sure he should not be blamed for not knowing there would be a blinding snow squall that suddenly come out of nowhere.

Winter can be such a cruel season.

kites and geese

Thursday afternoon

Friday morning

Friday afternoon

Saturday morning

SundayStills - clouds

We have had lots of sunshine and a few puffy white clouds

and some of these clouds that indicate a change in the weather - and a resultant drop in temperature and decrease in humidity (at least for the weekend!)

and a soft, gentle sunset

but mostly we've had heat and haze... which is expected to return tomorrow, after the rain today. sigh.

see other clouds at SundayStills

having a bit of fun all by myself

I thought about heading over to the Sound of Music Festival, but it is such a popular event that the thought of the crowds kept me back.


In the end, there was quite the show going on that I could see from my balcony.

It has been hot and humid here all day
see how lovely it is over the waterfront.








But wait, what is this....


moving in from the northwest
fast moving clouds

with the strains of music wafting through the air from the various stages providing background accompaniment
the clouds soon got a little more threatening as they headed for the park

as they do for the Sound of Music weekend with its open air stages
for every year, with the screams of the crowd as accompaniment


it rains

then, as suddenly as it came, the clouds moved on
and a rainbow appeared

then the clouds came back and it rained some more

this went on for some time, well about an hour.
all in all we had at least three different outbursts of rain and as many rainbows.

and I got enough sky shots to fill up every SkyWatchFriday posting for the rest of the year.

Eventually, the sun was setting and it was time to go inside to watch Dr Who save humanity.
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