Snowstorm

Freda took the dogs out after work in a snowstorm, as you can see.

Relaxing dogs

Mine, all MINE!!


Taz in a funny position, with his head crammed into the corner

This photo shows that hair is regrowing over Taz's callouses that he had on his elbows.

Finally, resting peacefully together on the loveseat.

January photos

Text to come later

Jan 22
We had received a fresh snowfall, and both Tawny and Taz were loving it, including smelling up something very interesting. For this photo, Tawny went to the end of her leash, and they laid down in the snow (frog-dog style) and shove her nose deep into the snow. Taz did almost the same thing, but he wasn't as committed as Tawny.


However, one thing that Taz loves is chasing running water. Not sure exactly why it fascinates him so much. Because it had been quite mild, one of the springs that feeds the lake had melted the ice at the edge, and Taz enjoyed splashing about in it for a while.


Jan 24
We used to have a queen size bed in our gues room, but it really was too large for the room so we took it out, and set it up as a craft room. Freda realized that she likely wouldn't get much use out of that, so we decided to get a double bed instead. Before we could even put the sheets on the bed, Tawny jumped up on it to test it out...


Pano Jan 27
A gorgeous sunny but c-c-cold winter day.

Dog sitting Max

Panorama - January 17th, 2009

This pano was taken just before sunset on Saturday. We have been dog-sitting Max, a little schnauzer, for a week. It was quite cold so the dogs are running around and playing. This was good because they got enough exercise with their running without having to take them for a long walk in the bitter cold.
Tawny and Max were playing together doing what I call "neck wrestling". Taz was feeling sorry for himself because he felt left out.

Here Tawny and Max are playing at neck wrestling. This is where they lay on the ground, and play bite at each other's neck, sometimes growling and making snuffling noises... It is funny to watch.

Max is bold. Taz was chewing on his bone (rawhide roll) and Max tried to bite it too. Taz was growling at him to say "let go" but Max didn't want to. Tawny was sniffing around. Freda had just taken Max to get a hair cut and this is the first time we could actually see his eyes. His feet really accumulate little balls of snow in the all of his hairs on his paws. After the hair cut it now takes a lot less effort and time to get them off.

Window replacement

As you can see, the seal is broken in the window on the left. This actually was the 2nd replacement but was due for replacement because the window broke either in transport or during installation (there is a small crack in the bottom outside corner).

In order to for the window guys to be able to work without being bothered by the dogs, I put them in the kitchen and then put the towel rack in front of the door (because Taz knows how to open the doors). We have a towel rack by the back door to hold the towels we wipe the dogs feet with when they come in. Another reason to have these doors closed was that it was -27C that day, so it would keep the cold air from getting into the whole house.

Here are the guys trying to remove the clips that held the old window in place. Steve Lalonde, owner of New Look Windows, is kneeling, and his assistant (I think it was Jeff) is standing in the blue coat. Because this window was essentially a single pane, there was a lot of ice/frost on it. There was a lot of ice on all of the windows because Steve said our humidity was too high. (See photo below for example.) The new window was slightly bigger in both dimensions than the old one, so Steve had to take the shims out.

Replacing this window is the last item outstanding on the list from Tarion. Unfortunately, the window cracked when Steve was putting it in, so he will have to order another replacement. He said he had an order coming in 2-3 weeks, so we won't have to wait more than a year this time. That will be the fourth replacement for this window.

This photo shows what the ice buildup was like on the windows. The one getting replaced had more on it though. The white moulding adjacent to the window snaps into a little track on the window frame and holds the window in place. The bottom moulding was difficult to remove because the ice was holding the piece in place.

We had a lot of condensation and frost on the family room windows. Steve said we needed to turn down our humidifer. We had it set to 50% because the Torlys people said it needed between 30%-60%. Steve said that was way too high. I looked up on the web and found a recommendation by Jon Eakes that said maximum of 25% RH (relative humidity) when is is -18C to -24C, and a max of 20% RH down to -30C and 15% RH below that. So clearly it was too high. We have been getting some mould on the windows too, and Steve said that shows the RH is too high. I have sent an email to the Torlys people so will see what they have to say.

As it isn't normally below -20C here in Ottawa, I have set the humdifier to 40% RH - will see how that goes. Oh, and we have our ceiling fans on too, to move the air around and reduce condensation on the windows. Steve recommended that we remove the screens for the winter, so we have done that as well.

Fun winter day

This is a view of the Christmas lights we put up outside. I have several strings of red lights that run along the driveway, these help me know where the driveway is when I am doing the snowblower when it is dark and the snow is blowing. On the tree I had hung up several strings of red, green, purple, and pink. I have no idea why the purple ones look blue and the pink ones look purple. If you know, please leave a comment. These are all the LED lights, so the colours are nice and bright and pure.

We went for a walk on the lake. Tawny, Taz, and Max had a fun time running and sniffing.


We saw these bush wolf tracks when we were walking on the lake. We know they are bush wolf tracks because Freda saw the wolf crossing the lake this morning.

The wind made interesting sculptures in the snow. The weather had been very cold, so the particles of snow were quite fine and could blow around quite easily. In some places, the drifted snow was quite dense and could easily support Tawny and Taz without them breaking through.


Tawny and Max sniffing, because that's what dogs do best (besides eating, and besides looking cute, and besides sleeping, and besides playing, and besides... well, you get the idea).


Here we are walking home, and Max is jumping around Tawny, who is tired and doesn't appreciate his energy, she probably was thinking, "Youth is wasted on puppies." Taz had lots of energy to growl at Max, telling him to behave in dog talk.

Some Downy woodpeckers have been visiting our feeder. Although they have eaten at the bell shaped seed hanging in the orange mesh bag, they prefer the suet feeder. We have seen these woodpeckers banging away at some older trees in our "forest", and also on other peoples' property.


After a hard day's play, it's time for sleep.

A full moon

There was a full moon today. Freda took this photo around dusk with her camera, and you can see how bright the moon is. There is a reflection of the flash off the glass there because her camera automatically fired up the flash - whoops! It's a pain having to turn the flash on/off on these cameras. I wish there was a button that would just be on/off instead of auto/on/red-eye/off.

This was taken as we were going to visit friends for supper. The moon is very bright.

I stopped on the way and took this photo. The moon was so bright but it doesn't look that way in this photo. You can see a lot of sensor noise due to low light levels on. I had to do some post-processing on this one, including some noise reduction, but it is still marginal.

This is Lily, she is about 11 months old and she is a pretty young girl. When we rang the door bell, we got "hello" and then "I thought it was next Saturday that you were coming over?" Whoops! My bad! They invited us to stay for a cup of tea but my headache was too throbbing, especially considering the stupid mistake I made.

After 20 cm of snow

We were forecast to get 20-30 cm of snow, but we supposedly only received 20 cm of the white stuff. You can see that we did get some in this pano of the sunset, but not a whole lot.


After a strenuous play, both Tawny and Taz are enjoying their supper. This is actually a rare scene at our house because Taz has such a strange eating schedule. Tawny - not so much: put some food in front of her and she eats it.

Walking the dogs

I was walking Tawny and Taz in the morning (Jan 6th) and Taz noticed something in the trees and starting whimpering when he gets all excited. I couldn't see anything, but I could see some branches moving a bit. I figured it was a squirrel but wanted to check it out.


Here's a close-up of the trees with the squirrel. I circled it so you can see it for yourself. They really blend in but Taz has the amazing senses - eyes, ears, nose - to be able to pick them out from quite a distance.


January 6th was a beautiful but cold day, but that doesn't stop Tawny from wanting to play. We have to make sure that Taz has a "bone" (rawhide roll) or another toy to keep him occupied because otherwise he will steal the toy right from Tawny's mouth. She is a happy dog that is willing to share so she gives it up to him. Silly girl!

It had been cold for quite a time so we hadn't been down to see the horses. As it wasn't so cold this day, we walked down to see Cooper (horse on the right) and his stable mate (don't know his name) and brought them some nice juice carrots. We bought a bag of carrots for their Christmas present but hadn't been able to share it with them because of the cold.

We had snow forecast for tomorrow so I took this photo of Tawny and Taz to document how little snow we really have, which is really just a light dusting...