Burning Silo

Last week, we paid another visit to the Trumpeter Swans (Cygnus buccinator) that often hang out in the reach of open water below the dam in the causeway at Narrows Locks near Westport, Ontario. We’ve been visiting them a few times each winter for the past 3 or 4 years. In fact, we may even stop by to see if they’re around this morning as we’ll be passing through the area on our way to Kingston today.

Anyhow, that day (March 16th), I shot a kind of fun movie clip of the swans doing just what they’re known for — trumpeting. I had just finished shooting a little movie clip of a single swan swimming across the open water. We thought there was just the one swan around, but then two more swans came around a point of land, flying low, and landed beside the lone swan. The lone swan raised its wings out of the water, perhaps in some gesture signifying excitement, a welcome, or maybe even hostility (I’m guessing it was the swan version of a welcome). Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to capture any of this as my camera was busy saving the previous movie clip of the single swan swimming (wouldn’t ya know it!!). However, after the swans landed, I did manage to shoot this clip. Be sure to turn up your sound as the swans do some honking, interrupted by the occasional “trumpet” for which they’re named. I also shot another clip of them feeding in the shallow water beside the dam — they swam over to where I was standing and dabbled around in the water under the ledge of snow along the shore. I’ve left the sound track on the clip — a lot of annoying wind sound — because it might give you some idea of how windy and cold it is at this spot (VERY!!). It’s almost unbearably cold — my hands and face start to feel quick-frozen after just a couple of minutes.

If we see anything of interest while out and about today, I’ll be sure to take a few photos and post them soon.

Tags: Trumpeter Swans, Cygnus buccinator

On March 8th, I wrote about the rapidly increasing snow around the farm. Over the past couple of days, the mild weather has knocked the snow back quite a bit. However, we’re still left with heaps of it everywhere we look. Yesterday, driving through the parking lot of a large shopping mall, it was as though I was driving through a field of icebergs. Snow was heaped so high that other vehicles weren’t visible until they popped out from behind a tall, snowy crag.

In the comments, I mentioned that I’d try to take a few photos of the snow accumulation for those who have expressed snow envy in the past. This is just an assortment of shots taken in the yard or through the windows of the house over the past week or so. They probably don’t need captions, but I’ve added a few words to identify the scenes.

For the past couple of weeks, the snow around the living room window was so high that it was like peering out of a snowy bunker (top and above photo - click on all photos for larger views).

This was the scene through the front window during the storm that heaped snow on us about 10 days ago. As you can see, the snow lies in fluffy drifts, most of which were about 5 feet high.

This was how the lane looked after the most recent snow. The snow was over knee deep and had drifted much higher in some places.

Here’s the studio building after the snow removal fellow had paid a visit. I’ve stopped trying to keep the path to the front door cleaned out as I’ve been hard-pressed just to keep things clear to the front porch of our house. I’ll let the sun clean things up.

This is the back yard as seen through our bedroom window. The snow has drifted and the surface nicely sculpted by the wind. The fire garden lies beneath the sea of snow, just to the left of the tall spruce tree. As you can see, the adirondack chairs (our measuring sticks) are completely submerged. With any luck, perhaps most of the snow will recede and they’ll reappear by the end of March (ha!!!).

At a couple of minutes before 9 p.m. tonight, March 17, 2008, it will be nine years since my dad died of kidney cancer. If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you’ll know that my dad had a lot of interesting careers, adventures and pastimes. One of these was racing stock cars back in the 1950s when most of the racing here in Canada took place on dirt tracks,.. the horse tracks at fairgrounds. My father (Ed Kay) was actually quite a well known racing driver in his time. We have newspaper clippings with accounts of his races, and photos of him holding checkered flags. When I was about 18 and working at my first real job, the topic of my dad’s racing career came up in conversation. One of the older male coworkers practically flipped out when he found out that Ed was my father and ran off to tell one of the other older men. They both raced back to talk to me about the old days when my dad was something of a racing legend, and that his souped up Dodge - # 23 - was next to unbeatable (click on above photo for a larger view)

Dad gave up racing cars around the time that he married my mom, built a new home, and began to raise a family. He left his racing days behind, but went on to pursue other interests, one of which was sailing. Many summer days were spent sailing for miles up and down the Ottawa River where our family cottage was located. A love of being out on the water runs through both sides of my family. My dad’s father’s family had fishing boats on the Isle of Man back around 1900 and my grandfather used to like to tell a story about how he and a friend (without permission) made off with one of the family’s small sloops and sailed around — I believe it was the island known as the Calf of Man. They were just kids at the time and, needless to say, were in big trouble when they arrived back home after their adventure.

As I write this post today, the weather is very much like it was the day that my dad died in 1999. The ground was yet covered with snow, it was cold, but with the sun shining brightly. I’d been caring for my dad for several weeks, and on this day, he’d asked if it was okay if he “went” that day. I replied, “Sure, if you like.” In the afternoon, he asked to have the windows opened even though it was still quite cold. However, the air was still and not uncomfortable, so I opened a window. We could hear birds singing outside — just like I’m hearing at this moment. My dad always wore a watch with a gold expansion bracelet. He asked me to take it off and put it on the bedside table. He said that he didn’t need it anymore, then went on to muse over how it is that we pay too much attention to time. Later that night, dad passed away, held in my arms, as I once was in his.

To my friend, mentor and father — Miss you.

Tags: Ed Kay

As of yesterday, the Environment Canada data website indicates that we’ve had 373.7 cm (147.12 inches, or, if you prefer, 12.26 feet) of snowfall in Ottawa this winter. As of yesterday, the site shows 56 cm. (22.04 inches) of snow on the ground. I don’t know where they’re measuring that, but it is *a lot* deeper around our farm at the moment.

We had some major snow loss between January 4 and 13th when the snow-on-the-ground level went from an official 66 cm (25.98 inches) down to 4 cm (1.57 inches) as temperatures soared to a searing 10 C (50 F) for about 3 days. Needless to say, any loss was rapidly replaced during February – just in time for the Winterlude carnival which takes place in the city over several weekends in February. Earlier this week, we had another couple of warm days which knocked the snow back again. However, it is quickly being replaced today.

I’ve watched the snow accumulation come and go here at the farm – measured by how high the snow level registers on the two green plastic adirondack chairs in the fire garden which can be seen out the window from our bed. In December and early January, we lost sight of the chairs for a bit, then in mid-January, the snow melted down to below seat level, but now they are completely covered over again. As illustrated by the account of the meltdown in early January, things could change drastically in the space of a few days once the temperature begins to rise, but for now, there’s more snow in the forecast for this weekend. In fact, I just came in from shoveling snow for about an hour.

Last night, I shot a little movie clip of Sabrina patrolling the garden. She’s walking on one of her network of trails in the garden, but if she steps off into the undisturbed snow to either side, she sinks down and has to struggle to crawl back to safety. Yesterday, I tried to walk around the side of the house to put suet in one of the bird feeders and had to turn back after plunging around in waist-deep snow. The only way to get around the yard is on snowshoes.

In other news, Don and I drove to Narrows Locks to check on the Trumpeter Swans twice over the past week, but failed to find even one. However, we did stop to watch llamas and donkeys munching on hay at a farm along the way. I expect they’re as anxious as us to see the snow melt away to reveal the green pastures lying in wait beneath.

Tags: snow

Yes, two posts in one day. Chalk it up to me finally getting my photo editing software working again (see previous post from this a.m.).

In the comments to my February 9th post, Wayne from Niches asked:

Snow! Take pictures of snow for your poor sweltering neighbors far to the south who only want a smidge of it, just enough to throw things into a well-deserved chaos for awhile.

In response to his request, I went out and shot some photos around the house, but couldn’t upload them onto my blog. Anyhow, here’s how things looked back on February 13th. We’ve had some melting and also some more snow since then, but I’d say the level is pretty much at about where it was two weeks ago. I think it was actually even higher in January, but we had a good thaw that really took the level down a lot. I’m not sure how it stands at the moment, but a couple of weeks back, the local news network weatherman said that we were close to breaking snowfall records. I haven’t been paying much attention to the news lately, but we may well have broken a record since then.

Anyhow, above is a photo of Sabrina on the front porch. I shoveled all of the snow that is tossed up on either side of the pathway and have the sore shoulders to prove it.

This photo is of the front of the house. Sabrina is still on the porch, probably peering at me from somewhere behind the railings.

Final photo is of the studio building. Some of the snow in the foreground was pushed up when the lane was plowed. However, most of what you see just fell. The building looks small but it isn’t. The walls are actually quite tall as that big door on the right was made tall enough to drive a 65-hp Neufeld tractor with a tall exhaust stack through.

And yup, the snow is pretty, but believe me when I say that, when you’ve been shoveling it for a few months, you’re very glad to see the end of it.