Snowing all year

Pano - January 5, 2010

This is a picture of a snowfall. And I should tell you that it has snowed all year, every day this year! Yes, it started snowing on New Year's Eve and hasn't stopped. Oh, it hasn't been a heavy snowfall but to make up for that Mother Nature made sure that it was very cold and windy, which made it most uncomfortable to be outside - and that includes running the snow blower of course!

The above panorama photo is composed of 4 images, stitched together via Microsoft's ICE program (a free download). The only problem is that sometimes I don't get enough coverage with the photos and I get a black section somewhere - essentially a space not covered by any image. The photo above was one of them. I had two programs that I had tried before but with disappointing results for both of them, so I didn't use them. I tried again with this photo, and ImageMender worked quite well for this photo with only a few artifacts, and the leftmost branch of the tree on the right side of the photo was repaired quite well too. The other program, InPaint, didn't work very well as it stuck pieces of branches in the middle of the sky at the top of the image. Not good.

Oh, the irony....

2003:

“The government will prorogue the House so that it will not be held accountable for its shameful record,” Mr. Harper thundered.

2008:

Mr Harper prorogues Parliament to avoid a non-confidence vote.

2009:

Mr Harper prorogues Parliament for the second time in as many years to avoid exposure about the treatment of Afghan detainees by the Canadian forces.

In addition to shutting down the exposure about the Afghan detainee situation, it also cancels the Bill C-487, aka the Nortel pension reform bill, and also gives him an opportunity to stack the Senate.

Oh the bitter irony! Read more in the Globe & Mail.

I wonder how many people will remember Harper's shameful actions at the next election. Somehow, I think there will not be many...

Still cold!! And still snowing!!!

Well, yesterday the forecast for today said -2C and it is -7C and high winds so it feels like almost -20C. And of course, the snow is continuing - it's a light snowfall, but still a snowfall.

The photos below are a bit blurry - sorry. The dogs were on the move and I was trying to take a photo of them before my fingers froze off.

Even though it's cold, Taz sometimes sticks his whole head under the snow to sniff something particularly wonderful.

Tawny was on the move with her Kong Wubba toy. Normally she will drop it so we can throw it and she can fetch it, but not today.

Snow snow snow...

It has been snowing since New Year's Eve. That wouldn't be so bad, except that it has been quite cold and very windy, which makes taking the dogs out for a walk somewhat on the unpleasant side. The wind made snowblowing the driveway not much fun, because it would blow the thrown snow in my face at times.... On the plus side: the snowblower made clearing the driveway much quicker than a shovel, and the cold temperature made the snowflakes much smaller, and somewhat fluffier (not heavy and wet) so the snowblower could blow them farther away.

I will have to get up at 5:20am tomorrow to clear out the driveway again so Freda can leave for work without getting stuck in the driveway. :(

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2010!

January 1st, 2010

A gentle snowfall started on New Year's Eve and continued during New Year's Day. It was a very nice temperature, about -2C, with no wind, so it was a very nice winter day. Freda's friend Susan visited, and I took this photo when she and Freda were walking back after spending some time out with Tawny. In this photo, Tawny is laying in the snow chewing a stick, having got worn out from chasing the Kong Wubba (a throw toy).

Still cold

It was really cold yesterday (Tuesday, Dec 29th) and the dogs did not want to stay out too long. I didn't either, so I didn't take the camera out. It was starting to get milder today, although it was still quite cold this morning. This is a close up of the brush that is still encased in the ice from the freezing rain. The ice decorations tinkled lightly in the breeze, like glass wind chimes, and as the dogs ran around, brushing by them.

This afternoon, Tawny sat by the fence watching for Freda to return. You can see the virtually all of the ice has falled off the sugar maple.

While Tawny was outside waiting for Freda, Taz was inside trying to nap on the couch. Taz feels the cold a lot more than Tawny so he doesn't stay out when it is chilly. I am fascinated by how he can curl his huge body up into such a small space.

This is just a photo of a pear. But what a pear - look how huge it is!

Mother Nature's Crystal Chandelier

This is the photo that inspired the title of this blog posting.

It was a beautiful mild morning - about -1C - with wonderful sunshine. That made it delightful to take the dogs out for a play.

The bright sunshine made all the ice on the trees glitter like crystal. Very pretty!

Here's a close up of some glittering branches. The photo doesn't really do it justice.

We are dog-sitting Max, the little black dog on the left of this photo. He loves playing with Tawny and Taz.

There is a house down the road under construction. There is a crane there today lifting the roof trusses into place.

The dogs all get along very well, here they are taking a quick breather before they start playing again.

The fence looks like it is a wall made of glittering ice.

The sunlight started to disappear in the late morning, shoved out of the way by the clouds. A short while later, some large fluffy snowflakes started to fall, gradually giving way to a heavier snowfall of smaller flakes. This photo was taken when the snowfall was transitioning from the large to the small snowflakes. It looks like the sun has left us for today.

Day after freezing rain

We had freezing rain yesterday, and it caused quite a burden on the younger trees and small branches. The small tree in this photo is the young sugar maple that we planted last year and is really suffering as a result. It was about 0C when I took this photo, and you could hear the ice falling off the larger trees as they moved slightly in the breeze. It was overcast so there was no sun to hasten the melting of the ice on the trees. We were going to go out to visit some friends, and it seemed to me that the weather would not be mild enough for the ice to melt off our little maple. So I went out with a bucket of tepid water and a soup ladle, and poured water over the ice on the tree, which unburdened the tree of the ice. This was the 'before' photo, of course.

The big elm out front looked very pretty with its cocoon of ice.

Freezing rain

Boxing Day dawned with freezing rain hitting the window. This was the view out the front where you can see glittering ice sheathing the tree branches (on the right side of photo).

The freezing rain was coming from the northwest, so the windows on the back of the house were coated in ice, as you can see from this photo.

There were a lot of little icicles on the eavestroughs.

Our poor little sugar maple is bent over with the burden of the ice. This reminded us of the ice storm back in 1998 that completely bent birch trees over, where the trees were bent double and the tops of the branches were touching the ground.

This photo was taken just after 9pm, when the freezing rain had turned to snow. It sounded like the freezing rain was still falling, but that was just the sound of the ice creaking on the trees as they moved in the wind.

Meaningful things

We went to Arnprior last week, and found these napkins in a little store. After we stopped laughing, we decided we would buy these for some friends who have four children. She enjoyed them too!

The best gifts are those that help others. This gift represents stocking a medical clinic. Very nice.

And this gift represents helping start a small business. Terrific.

In our usual Christmas tradition, we go over to some friends for the Christmas dinner. We had been so busy lately that we hadn't had any time to vaccuum, so we cleaned the floors before we went over. The dogs were kept in the solarium while we were doing that so they wouldn't track wet footprints all over the house... Poor doggies - NOT!

When we go to potlucks, some people have favourite things that they always ask us to make. Helen and Steve like our Golden Crumb Broccoli Bake.

We actually make this recipe with cauliflower as well as broccoli - it adds a touch of sweetness as well as some colour. We also use real cheese instead of 'American' cheese. I used Colby cheese this time.

The cooked broccoli and cauliflower is covered with a mixture of condensed mushroom soup, mayonnaise, grated cheese and lemon juice. After that, some crushed crackers and the rest of the grated cheese are sprinkled on top of the sauce. This is what the dish looked like when it was ready to go in the oven.

And this is what the dish looks like after it comes out of the oven. It smells very nice too!

We also needed to take a pumpkin pie - as Steve loves pumpkin pie.

When I was buying the ingredients for the pie filling, I wanted to buy pure pumpkin, as a lot of the pumpkin pie filling is s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d with squash. The only pure pumpkin pie filling was a large can, so we would have enough filling for two pies. This is not such a bad thing... :)) So, Freda made two pie crusts and we baked them. While they were baking, I mixed up the filling. This photo shows the pies after the filling was poured into them. It smelled very tempting!

One of the best side-benefits about baking is that it fills the house with delightful aromas. Pumpkin pie is certainly no slouch in that department. This is what the pie looked like after taking it out of the oven - hmmm, looks good enough to eat (haha!).

Of course, you need to have whipped cream to accompany pumpkin pie. The recipe called for 'spiced' whipped cream, which basically just means adding a bit of cinammon and ginger when you're whipping the cream.

And this is what the pie looked like later on -- yummy! The pumpkin pie recipe called for cinammon, ginger and allspice - no nutmeg, surprisingly. Although the pie was delicious, I think I would add nutmeg the next time.

I'll close off this very long post by wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and best wishes for a Happy New Year!!!