Crisp winter day

Yesterday was a nice bright sunny winter day, and was very nice to be outside. Freda took the dogs down to play on the lake, as the ice is completely safe by now. Today, however, was overcast and a stronger wind, so it wasn't so pleasant, as you can see from the position of the hood on Freda's coat. The dogs like running around outside anyway, Tawny more than Taz as she is more of a winter dog. In the above photo she is running and her ears are flopping around - that is very funny to see in action.

Taz likes running around outside carrying a 'bone' in his mouth - the 'bone' is really what we call the rawhide rolls that we give the dogs. Today, Taz was carrying two bones, just because he can, I guess :). If he doesn't have a bone then he will steal the throw toy away from Tawny, which makes it not so much fun for her.

I took this photo just after Freda and Taz had gone in. Taz feels the cold more than Tawny, he doesn't have the thick fur or the added 'insulation' that Tawny does, so he doesn't like to stay out for as long. Tawny was looking towards the house and watching Freda and Taz walk towards the door.

Snow.... and the Weather Network

Well, it's snowing. Big surprise! But this is a real surprise.

I looked at the Weather Network to see the forecast, and I saw that the two photos I uploaded to the Weather Network Gallery appeared on this page! The sunset on the left and the crystal fence photo. Cool! And that is a surprise.

Sea of Blue and Red

The funeral for Constable Eric Czapnik was held today. I include a few quotes from a CBC news article Slain Ottawa officer honoured at massive funeral:

An Ottawa police officer killed in the line of duty last week was honoured Thursday during a ceremonial procession and a funeral attended by thousands of police officers from across North America.
...
Police officers, civilian police members, firefighters and paramedics from Canada and the U.S., as well as local, federal and provincial politicians, city councillors and some senators packed the bleachers of the venue, which holds 8,000 people.
...
Czapnik was stabbed to death on Dec. 29 outside the civic campus of the Ottawa Hospital, where he had been sitting in his cruiser taking notes.

Czapnik, who had been with the Ottawa Police Service since 2007, is only the second Ottawa police officer to be killed while on duty in more than 25 years.

Kevin Gregson, a suspended RCMP officer from Saskatchewan, has been charged with first-degree murder.
...
Officers taking part include:

• 1,500 Ottawa police.
• 1,000 RCMP and military police.
• 50 U.S. and international police.
• 300 Quebec police.

Freda took all these photos with her cell phone, so they are not the same quality as our usual photos.

Constable Czapnik's platoon led the way.

Constable Czapnik's remains with honourary pallbearers.

Ottawa Police Service, led by the brass, and it looks like some RCMP red serge in there too.

Probably every Ottawa Police officer that wasn't working...

People from the community, his church, friends, etc.

The paramedics. One paramedic (a female) tackled the guy who assaulted Constable Czapnik, while others tried to save his life.

More police officers, this time - the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP). Or maybe these are the Quebec police, US police, and Military Police people that were reported in the CBC article - not sure about that.

And behind them, the officers of the RCMP start.

And the RCMP officers come in waves...

The Ottawa Fire Department had two ladder trucks, with a huge flag hung between them.

Beautiful sunset!!

Pano - January 7, 2010

We had a beautiful sunset tonight - absolutely stunningly clear and bright and accompanied, of course, by a bitterly cold wind. This panoramic photo is a composite of 12 photos. I had to manually adjust the exposure of the images before stitching them together, because of the brightness of the sun in some of them (made the rest of the image quite dark). I am very pleased with this image, maybe I'll submit this one to The Weather Network too (thanks for the suggestion, mum!).

Not snowing... yet!

Pano January 6, 2010

I took this photo out over the back yard because the sky was so very dark. It's not snowing at the moment, but snow is forecast. If we don't get any snow today then it will be the first day it hasn't snowed this year.

Update: it didn't snow after all, so the "it snowed all year" jokes have to stop now...

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).