5C's Que Pasa

My rain chain is now an ice chain 🙂

I was surprised to see a small sunset this evening.

Yesterday morning I actually saw a sunrise, actually a sunrise reflection to the south.

The morning started off very cool but by 4PM the sun was out as were these two canoeists. They were bundled up and enjoying a beautiful afternoon @ 44F.

We were up around 7AM this morning and snow was falling. It was not yet sticking to the ground.

Then it began to stick. I was like a little kid running from window to window checking out every snowflake. Today we were supposed to be on day 4 of our 7 day Nile river cruise.

We had geese drop in yesterday and I guess they spent the night. The white on their backs is snow.

At first we were told to expect 4 inches of snow but a few hours later the forecast changed to possibly 6 inches of the white stuff.

It wasn’t long before the snow began to accumulate.

It was at this point that we decided to cancel our chiropractic appointments in Vernon for 11AM. Not a good idea to drive in these conditions not mention that so many still don’t have their snow tires on. Also with the first snow ( very early snow ) drivers can be erratic.

I was happy to just watch the snow fall. Eventually the flakes became larger and larger.

I felt like I was in a snow globe because of all of our windows with the flakes falling all around me. We saw a heron having a bit of difficulty flying during the heaviest snow fall and a female eagle circulating over and over looking for breakfast.

Temps remained around 0C/32F most of the day, although it did rise to 1C/34F mid afternoon.

I was surprised at how fast cars were driving down the road.

I never expected to see a snow plow. This is the parks version and it works.

We went out about 3PM to do a wee shovel and a two block walk.

I tried out my new coat which worked well, this one is good to -15C/5F. My twenty year old boots worked fine as did my ear muffs but I will need heavier pants and warmer gloves ( those I have ).

We are expecting to wake up to -9C/15.8F with the wind-chill  in the morning.

Today was like the perfect storm – for me to try out my winter gear.

Our garden just keeps growing. However on October 11th we knew that we needed to start pulling some things out.

We still had close to a hundred if not more of tomatoes to ripen.

The green beans were still growing.

Colin took out all the smaller cherry tomatoes and left the larger ones on the vine.  Here he is cleaning out the dead part of the bean vines in one of our two bean sections.

Squash that belongs to some friends further down in the garden.  See that huge read tomato.  They had quite a few hanging and going bad. I think they are hunters and were away at harvest time.

Some lovely fall colours in a garden.

The Mountain Ash trees are full of berries. We all know what that means. Brr.

Part of what we took home that weekend. One zucchini and nine cucumbers and beans.  The end of the cukes for this year.

The first row of Swiss chard or the right was been pulled.  I am leaving the second sowing of kale to grow a bit more in behind and to the left my second sowing of Swiss chard is ready to be picked very soon. I am going to leave the beets and carrots in the ground for a bit.  I also took some beet tops for steaming.

Today we got the bad news. An early snowfall starting tonight and with 5 – 10 cm / 2 -4 inches of snow on Friday and a low of -9C/16F. We are going to sink or swim.

These are my winter boots for now.  They are Encore Ice 4 by Merrell and come with a grip outer sole. I love the shearling lining and cushion heel. I wore them out yesterday for two appointments and some grocery shopping.  My bare feet are very warm and my toes survived. I do have a pair of old snow boots that I can wear when I really need to – as in more than 2 inches of snow.

We have a difficult road ahead of us.

Think about it. Time to get back into smaller bubbles for just a while until things slow down again.

It actually was ready Friday the 9th ( we only brought it in on October 1 st ). But we could not get there sooner.

Colin cleaned the batteries and then disconnected the negative posts. On Saturday, the 17th we put it to bed for the winter. Sniff!

How many heaters can you count? One electric and three oil burners. I will admit to having three oil burners on as well as the fireplace.  Not sure how I am going to survive.  My happy place is between 80 – 84 F.

Colin brought in a mat from the RV and we put that outside the door.  The darker charcoal mat inside the door is new from Home Depot for $25.00 to stand on to take boots off, etc, it has raised knobs so the moisture ( snow ) goes between them. You can barely see our boot tray under the entrance table.

Thank goodness for Canadian Tire, we got this tray for about $12.00. Perfect area to place wet shoes and boots. I really like how the table fits on the tray.  That way we can leave the table in place for the winter. I so love doing research and finding deals on stuff like this.

That night as a treat I made us a zucchini, spinach lasagna. New recipe that I found that incorporated our garden veggies. I used Swiss chard instead of spinach.  It was beyond yummy, definitely we will make it again.

Of course we added tomatoes, cukes and carrots from our garden. I can hardly wait to make it again.  I has three bites of leftovers for lunch today:)

This pair of Colin’s glasses have been lost for 4 -5 weeks now. We turned the house upside down over and over. Suddenly they were found – locked inside the hot water on demand box on the outside of the house. We are having an issue with hot water and he had gone to check & obviously left them there. So it wasn’t until a few days ago when we had another problem that he found them:)

We harvested our first row of Swiss chard last week, the second row is ready as well. That bucket was packed with chard.  Once cleaned I remove the stems I layer them on a cookie sheet and freeze the tray for 2 hours or so.  Then we put them in a food saver vacuum seal bag and pop it into the freezer.

Guess what is coming sooner that expected.

We have gone through all of our clothing bins and now have some empty ones. We only have the Christmas bins left to sort but that will have to wait a few weeks.

I still have both windows sills full of ripening tomatoes.

I saw these ducks the other day, they were just passing through. A female and male Hooded Merganser.  So very pretty.

Sunset reflection to the south, last Wednesday, the 14th. Beautiful.

A few minutes later to the west. Stunning.

Even a reflection into our windows.