5C's Que Pasa

Lots of fog last Monday the 4th.

Then it began to snow in the afternoon.

The flakes were thick and fat and then small and then large again.  We are like two little kids calling out to each other to look outside the window.

Yesterday morning, January 6th it was above freezing with a tiny sliver of blue sky. Finally the roads were clear enough to walk with no fear of ice. Then a neighbour decided to throw snow from the pile he had shovelled earlier in the week onto the street. He kept adding to it every few hours. I guess he wanted ‘his’ snow to disappear faster than how nature would have melted it.  All he did is make a mess as the snow froze overnight.

Meanwhile on the other side of the house we saw this. Well Colin did, as I slept in. I am having trouble sleeping at night and my best sleep is after 4AM to around 9AM.

We even had visitors.

…these were way way out on the lake, almost out of zoom range.

Yesterdays sunset. Even a little bit of colour in the sky makes me happy.

Today we took down Christmas. The red box is the outdoor tree and the white bag holds our outdoor white icicle style lights. The four blue bins hold all of our tree decorations, our indoor window lights and everything else I used to create various Christmas tableaus in different areas. The tall box holds our indoor tree.

Working on remaining positive despite the new Coronavirus variant strains. Not to mention our extended lockdown to February 5th.

Hmmm

Looks like curling rocks.

The temperature had risen, the roads were wet and slushy, there no longer was any snow over the lake ice nor on our lawn and the trees had lost their mantle of snow. There had been rain and a good deal of rain overnight.

We had eight Trumpeter swans almost directly in front of us. They were all tucked in facing the wind.

…and then there were nine! This cygnet flew in on its own, at least two hours after we spotted the original bevy.

Our group were mostly sleeping but would wake up, stretch their wings, walk a few steps and settle down again.

At one point this eagle flew low over them. Colin barely had time grab a camera, never mind focus it. It made a few passes before flying away. I read that both eagles and coyotes are predators. Perhaps they felt safe resting in an open area. Most raised their heads when a squadron of geese flew over but tucked their heads back down right away.

We decided that they were very tired. They stayed in that one spot from 8AM ( when we first noticed them ) until between 2PM and 3PM. We delayed our walk so we could see them fly off, but we did need to get out. Of course they were gone when we got back.

Colin spent most of his day watching and waiting.

Once again we were so fortunate to be a part of this.

We know that they will be back again and with luck we will be here.

Shortly after the walk yesterday, we were treated to a sunset. Those are not window reflections you see. The sun filtered that way through the clouds. I kept trying to correct the reflection but that was actually how the sun was shining.

I was sitting with a glass of wine on December 23rd and reading when the sky began to change.

This is the sunset that I had mentioned last week that would rival any sunset we had ever seen on the Isla.

So pretty.

Isn’t this a stunning painting? This was done by a good friend who we met on the Isla about ten or eleven years ago. Bella often makes her paintings into Christmas or greeting cards and also sells her work in Winnipeg. I  have shown her work here before. I feel so privileged to have received this photo for Christmas. So much detail. Such a unique idea for a painting. I really love this one.

This is from our walk December 31st. There are three quail high up in this tree. I had no idea they climbed this high.

From the same walk and higher up in the very same tree there are six winter robins. First time I have seen robins here in the winter. I always assumed that they migrated but it appears that not all do.

Our temperature has begun to warm up, much more than normal for this time of year. Yesterday on January 2nd the snow on the lake started to melt. It went up to 6C/43C . The ice is still there under the snow. In fact it was so wet and slushy on the roads yesterday that is was not safe to walk. With the day-time thawing and the night-time freezes there were many hidden ice patches. Overall it was too wet to wear my studded ice grippers so we stayed inside yesterday.

We woke to bit of snow December 31st.  Just enough that it needed to be shovelled.

The lake is showing more and more open areas of thin ice.

The ice had been around for a long time. By 4PM today ( January 1 ) the ice had melted. We got up to a high of 2C/36F.  Looks like we will be having a bit of a melt over the next few days.

So pretty.

We had a lovely walk through various paths in the park. I was pleasantly surprised that the park had actually shovelled a small path in so many corners of the park. We just had to watch for falling snow off the cedars.

A sign on someones back gate. Yes another type of paradise.

Ogopogo was hiding around a corner.

We wondered if some bird was wintering here.

Someone had fun building a pair of snowmen in the garden area.

Bigger circles and a wee sunset on the last day of 2020. We have noticed that is it staying lighter later. Not so dark so early. Looking forward to spring.

We certainly rolled in the New Year.

Please keep wearing your masks and practice social distancing and don’t forget your hand sanitizer.