February 5th, 2007
cold weather & penguins
After an unseasonably mild winter, we’re finally into cold weather. This morning, the temperature was at -24C (about -11F). With the windchill factor, it was supposed to be about -37C (-35F). It was colder during the night. The snow has taken on that dry, granular quality that allows it to quickly sift in to fill footprints, and form sharply sculpted drifts. The wind is frigid and makes your eyes water if you face into it for too long.
Yesterday, Don and I spent about two hours back in the woods cutting a new trail into the farthest corner of the farm. It was always difficult to reach that corner as there was a lot of brush and broken trees. We finished the worst part of the trail just as a cold front began to move in. When a front moves in quickly, all of a sudden you notice that your fingers are starting to go numb and you feel as though there is a slab of ice pressed against your face. Breathing becomes more difficult as the air feels like it’s burning when it hits your lungs. We decided to call it quits and come indoors — a good decision as the air felt even colder by the time we reached the house about 20 minutes later.
Despite the cold, I’ll probably venture out for my daily walk in the woods with Sabrina. However, in this weather, indoor projects are distinctly appealing. On the weekend, I finally got around to buying a new flatbed scanner. I’ve been wanting one for some art projects, but also to archive some photos, slides and other documents. I gave it a test run by scanning a bunch of photos of a little amphibious vehicle that my dad and a couple of other fellows designed and built at a factory that they set up in the town of Carleton Place in the 1960s. It was called a Penguin. Back then, my dad envisioned it as a useful vehicle for people who had to work in the kinds of places where he used to have to travel when he serviced communications towers in the 1950s and 60s. I have photos of him in snowshoes pulling a big crankshaft out of a generator along on a toboggan as he transported it to a communication tower in northern Quebec. I’m sure he would have loved to have had a Penguin back then. Actually, now that I think of it, it might be pretty darned handy for doing stream surveys in some of the places I’ve been. Of course, now that there are ATVs all over the place, it doesn’t seem like such a hot idea — and he would probably have come to the same conclusion if he were still alive, as he was quite a conservation-minded person. Still, it’s fun to see the photos as they bring back memories of when we had a Penguin up at our cottage. The photos are all up in this gallery on Pbase for anyone who might be interested. My dad, Ed Kay, is the man on the right shaking hands in this photo. I’ve posted an interesting photo down below – kind of a blurry one and not the fault of the scanner. This is the Penguin that was presented to Queen Elizabeth II, by the Canadian government, during her visit to Canada in 1964 (that’s Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson to the left, and his wife, Maryon Pearson, between the Queen and Prince Philip). I’ve also found this photo on a Canadian government website that is captioned, “Queen Elizabeth II and The Duke of Edinburgh are intrigued by an amphibious “penguin” car presented to them at Prime Minister Pearson’s residence.” For some reason, I like that word intrigued.
Tags: Penguin amphibious car