Ice fishing fantasy

This morning when I was walking the dogs, we saw someone was ice fishing. This was fascinating to Tawny and Taz. Sometimes, when someone has been fishing and they are off-leash, Tawny and Taz run down to the ice and enjoy sniffing around the fishing holes and perhaps even the areas where fish had been caught and were laying on the ice.


Panorama, January 20th

You can see that the photo stitching software isn't perfect as it made Taz's head very skinny. That is understandable because his head as at the edge of the photo (see above) and was incomplete in that photo and he had moved by the time I took the adjacent photo.

As it took a minute or so to take all the photos for the panorama, Tawny decided to make herself comfortable and sit down while she was watching the fisherman... You can tell that I got their collars mixed up this morning, because Tawny is wearing Taz's collar here. Taz's collar is a solid moss green, and Tawny's collar has some decorations on it.


This is a NASA panorama photo, composited from many images from the Mars Spirit rover. Even NASA's photo stitching software isn't perfect - look at the top of the 'mast' (upper right corner of the image), and you can see it is partly cut off.

This photo is from the NASA web site, and was dated Dec 29, 2008. I think it is truly amazing to be able to see the surface of Mars like this, including the wheel tracks from the rover. This photo also is a good one to show the fine Martian dust that is covering the solar cells.

Bathroom privacy

When we moved into this house, we decided that we did not want to cover up the big windows and their beautiful view and trim. But we did want some privacy of course, so we applied some vinyl in an obscuring pattern over the bottom part of the window. This worked a treat for that. The only problem with it was that one window was too wide for the vinyl, so we had to put the vinyl sideways across the window. Unfortunately this left a narrow strip at the bottom that was clear, as shown in the window below.

The other problem is that the vinyl is shrinking slightly and coming unglued at the edges and is looking unsightly.

So we decided that we are going to remove the vinyl and put up some curtains. So we went out to get a curtain rod that would fit inside the window casing. We first went to Fabricland, and found a double rod that will suit very well. You can see it in the above photo - that's not where the rod will be located - we were just testing it out to see how it fit and what it looked like. We think it looks pretty good!

This is a closeup of the bracket. It matches the light fixures and taps very nicely.

Wolves!!!!

Yesterday, Freda and I took the dogs out for their walk after work. Taz had a long walk in the morning -- too long really -- so I took him in after he had his walk, and Freda was going to stay out with Tawny. Two minutes after I went in, Freda came in and said to look at the wolf across the lake. So I looked out the window and saw three wolves. At least, I thought I saw 3 wolves, but was only able to capture two of them in the photos below.

Needless to say, there was a lot of wolf howling last night, and they were close too...

A vole - a victim

This is a vole, also known as a field mouse, or a meadow mouse. According to Wikipedia, the average life span of a vole is 3-6 months. This one didn't get that old. How did this happen? Well, it was due to Taz the Hunter!

Freda was out with the dogs, and Taz came running up the hill, his mouth slightly open and his tail wagging furiously -- he was obviously very very pleased with himself. Freda saw this and recognized this as his behaviour when he had caught something. He dropped it out of his mouth and Freda saw that it was still alive at that moment. It didn't survive much longer, so who knows if it died of fright, or if it had some internal injuries when Taz picked it up.

Unfortunately, being prey is part of the lot in life for voles. They don't live long, have 5-10 young at a time, reach sexual maturity in a month, and can have 5-10 litters in a year.

So, Taz's catch and kill totals, that we know of, are:

• two baby foxes
• two baby skunks
• one baby vole

A life of quiet courage - Miep Gies

Miep Gies, the person who found and preserved Anne Frank's diary, died January 11th after complications from a fall from before Christmas - she would have been 101 in February. The following is an excerpt from a BBC news article (Anne Frank diary guardian Miep Gies dies aged 100):

Miep Gies, the last surviving member of the group who helped protect Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis, has died in the Netherlands aged 100.

She and other employees of Anne Frank's father Otto supplied food to the family as they hid in a secret annex above the business premises in Amsterdam.

Anne's diary of their life in hiding, which ended in betrayal, is one of the most famous records of the Holocaust.

It was rescued by Mrs Gies, who kept it safe until after the war.

Miep Gies would have turned 101 on February 15th, 2010.

Images from BBC web site:

Miep Gies, with a copy of the now famous Anne Frank's Diary - first published in 1947 and has sold over 30 million copies in 65 languages.



Mrs Gies, front row left, seated next to Otto Frank. I think this photo is likely from around the time Anne's diary was first published. There is no date on the caption on the BBC web site, and no names for the other people.

Update: I found this same photo on the annefrank.org website, with the description that these were the four helpers who brought food and supplies, etc, to the Frank and Van Pels families in the the Secret Annex, as it was known. The seven were later joined by Fritz Pfeffer. The Anne Frank web site photo had this caption that identified them:

From the left to the right: Miep Gies, Johannes Kleiman, Otto Frank, Victor Kugler and Bep Voskuijl.

What happened:

• Otto Frank -one of only 7,650 prisoners alive when Auschwitz was liberated by Russian soldiers on January 27, 1945, he weighed only 115 lbs .
• Edith Frank - dies at Auschwitz concentration camp Jan 6, 1945.
• Margot Frank - dies of typhus at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in late winter 1945.
• Anne Frank - dies of typhus at Bergen-Belsen, one day after her sister Margot.
• Hermann Van Pels - gassed at Auschwitz after becoming too exhausted to work, September 1944.
• Auguste Van Pels - dies somewhere in Germany or Czechoslovakia, probably between April 9 and May 8, 1945, after being shuttled around from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen to Raguhn (part of the concentration camp at Buchenwald) to Theresienstadt to -unknown-.
• Peter Van Pels - marched from Auschwitz to Mathausen concentration camp in Austria where he was forced to work in a stone quarry where he died May 5, 1945, sick and exhausted.
• Fritz Pfeffer - dies in sick bay at Neuengamme concentration camp, Dec 20, 1944.

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...