Bald eagles at Wallace Harbour

Wallace Harbour is nearly all frozen right now. The only open water is under the harbour bridge where a variety of ducks can still be found. There are three bald eagles who sit on the ice on the look out for careless fish or ducks or the occasional treat from the local meat shop.

They are so beautiful.

You know it's cold when .....

• Environment Canada gives out wind chill warnings
• you go outside and your boogers start to freeze
• breathing through a scarf, frost still collects on your upper lip and starts to stick to the scarf
• you sinuses start to freeze up and you get an ice cream headache
• your hands stick to the metal parts of the bird feeders
• you feel your skin starting to harden (with today's -24C and a wind chill of -40C, this can start to happen within 5 minutes)
• wet hair freezes stiff as a board
• if you breathe hard, the dry cold makes you cough
• when you come back inside, it takes five minutes for the fog to clear off your glasses
  

• fuel in your vehicle won't vaporize enough to start (petroleum vaporizes at -40C)
• fuel lines freeze
• vehicle doors freeze closed
• low temp washer fluid freezes
• you drive for 15 minutes and the vehicle interior still is freezing cold
• the drive is really bumpy because the tires froze overnight and have a flat spot
• the electrics on the vehicle act strangely
  
• the municipal trucks start using sand on the roads because salt will not work effectively
  

• wild animals are less shy, particularly if feeding
• the chickadees that already will feed from your hand are even more persistent
  
• the birds avoid the bird feeders with metal perching posts
• the cat becomes a substitute hot water bottle

One of four chickadees that come to my hand. Video pending.

• it doesn't matter how high you set thermostat, it still isn't warm enough in the house
• your find out how many clothes you can fit under your warmest coat - inside the house
  
• frost in the walls make loud, rather alarming cracking noises
• even new windows have frost on the inside
• you leave taps dripping so the lines won't freeze
• in the attic, there is frost on the nails poking through the roofing
• your hand sticks to the door handle ... on the inside!

• if you're Canadian, your reaction to this list is ....... "So?"
  

Frost on the pantry window

I'm sure there's more that could be added to the above list, but this is all that currently comes to mind from my personal experience.

Sublime laundry

I'm not like some people, I'm not a laundry nut .... but mine is sublime this time of year.

I try to be "green". I only do a full load, in cold water and I stopped separating my colours from my whites years ago. I use phosphate free, colour free, perfume free environmentally friendly liquid detergent.

So do a lot of people. But what I do that I consider really green, is hang all of my laundry outside - all year. Yes, even on a day like today at -27C with a wind chill into the -30s.

I got rid of my dryer nearly a year ago. I hadn't used it in years and even then, maybe used it once or twice a year. The space it used to take up is now where I keep supplies for my bird feeders.




The benefits: much reduced power bill and carbon footprint. And then there's the smell. This time of year, in this part of the world, the house is as closed off to the outside world as you can get it. You do all you can to keep the outside out. But when you bring the laundry inside, the smell is just wonderful.

There are challenges.

You have to plan ahead a little and watch the weather forecast, but I view being in tune with my environment a good thing. I will admit, any significant delay in getting laundry done is easier to deal with for single me than I would expect it would be for apartment dwellers or families with children.

When the snow gets deep I have to hang my bath towels sideways and when it's really cold everything freezes as you hang them - sheets and towels are stiff as boards.

Concerned folk ask how on earth my laundry ever dries on such frozen days. That's where the sublime bit come in. When solids (ice) form a gas (water vapour), skipping the liquid state, it is called sublimation. In below freezing temperatures, when liquid water cannot exist, this is how fabrics dry outside. It may take a little longer, but my laundry does eventually dry, even on the coldest days.

Like I say, my laundry is (and smells) sublime.

Moon in Perigee

The moon is full and shining on the snow dazzlingly white tonight.

I just took a newspaper outside and I could read it. Well, the headlines.

At only 357,500km, the moon is as close to the earth as it will be for several months.

At around 7am today it was setting over a frozen Northumberland Strait, it's glow reflecting on the ice. It looked like a big orangey red ball sitting on an orange saucer. Quite stupendous.

Alternate Amherst Adventure Almost Aborted

OK, OK ... I'll stop with the alliterations.

However, if I had known what road conditions existed on Route 6 to Amherst before I left home yesterday, I might have opted to venture out on a different day. Beautiful sunshine disguised the fact that strong winds were blowing sizable drifts across the road. The road would be clear of all snow for a kilometre or so, leading one into a false sense of security, and then round a corner or crest a hill and whammo .... into thick, mushy drifts. Sometimes quite deep. I met three snow plows during the day and their results seemed to be quite ineffective. I was driving my cargo van which is quite heavy and has snow tires, so I never had to worry about keeping between the ditches.

The van easily accommodated the cabinet that wouldn't fit into the car the other day, and a 6' countertop.


It took an extra few minutes to get out of the industrial park because a long cargo/goods train was slowly dissecting the town. Trains have become almost a rarity in this part of North America, which is a shame, they are a much greener form of transportation than most other forms.

Being "Twonie Tuesday" I popped into KFC for lunch. Well, it used to be a good deal: two pieces of chicken and small fries for $2. Then it went to $2.22 and now it is $2.79. I joked with the staff that at this rate they'd have to change the name of the deal. I was told the "deal" always lost money and that it would likely be soon dropped.

Walking across the parking lot on this sunny but windy day with my jacket open and no gloves, it was a little chilly at -7C or so, but nothing a seasoned Canuck can't handle. As I headed towards the mall doorway, I saw a man with the same destination in mind walking towards me. He was middle aged, tall and excessively bundled up in arctic clothing. Through the furry outer edging of his hood I detected a slightly ruddied face. That, and a certain cut of his jib, brought me to the conclusion "that man's a Brit". As I held the door open for him he mumbled "Oh, thank you so very much. Very kind" (or somesuch). Hugh Grant couldn't have sounded more English!

It may have been the 12th day of Christmas or Epiphany or even Christmas Eve (if one were Eastern Orthodox) - depending on one's culture and traditions, but it seemed a teeny bit early to see the stores so well stocked up on Valentine's Day paraphernalia. Heart shaped chocolates, cards and decorations abounded. However, it did seem ridiculously premature for hot cross buns to be on sale already!! Easter isn't until April 12th!

I don't know what the answer is to reverse this alarming trend towards the debauched consumerism we are seeing. The origins and meanings of holidays and celebrations seem to have been consumed by big business, to be spat out onto greeting cards in cartoonish representations of their roots.

Truncated trunk truncates trip to town

A shopping trip to Amherst this afternoon was a pretty drive, not a cloud in the sky. A stiff breeze drifting snow back onto the road in places, keeping me extra alert.

My trip would have been more successful if I had not I forgotten my shopping list, water bottle and camera. The primary reason for the trip was to pick up a cabinet that turned out to be too big for the car.

I got my laundry detergent though, so that's all right.

January 2nd

Well, I lasted one whole day after completing a year's worth of daily photos on another blog (http://gulfshoredailypix.blogspot.com) and here I am starting up an new one!!

I must be a little addicted to blogging, I guess. Unlike the aforementioned blog, this one isn't likely to be an every day posting, taking the stress out what should be something fun. I'm staying with blogger.com because I'm used to it and because it has a pretty good spell checker, although I wish I could get it to learn "Pugwash"!

This will be a record of funny, silly or outrageous things that have happened that day (or at least recently) or events/people/things I have been reminded of from days of yore.

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I was compelled to stay home yesterday because our annual January 1st blizzard was coming in straight from the north with -12C + whatever wind chills.

I had parked the car across the road in anticipation of being snowed in after New Years Eve festivities at Jubilee Cottage in Wallace .

(Thanks summer residents Bob and Marina!) I don't know why, but their driveway hardly ever fills with snow, whereas mine plugs right up -



particularly in front of the barn. However, in my juggling of gloves, wine bag, purse and flashlight in a howling gale at 12:30am, my camera got left behind and I couldn't get to it until today. After a year of daily photos, I suffered serious photography withdrawal symptoms all yesterday.

Believe me, there were many photo ops yesterday during one doozy of a storm - real or imagined.

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Moving on from the missed photos (I must be addicted!!) .......... today the big job on hand was to fix the storm door handle I broke yesterday. Easier said than done! However, it had to be done - all I had to keep it from flying off it's hinges in the wind was a piece of string tried to the chain and the door jamb.

Cindy at HomeHardware wanted me to take the whole handle assembly, but all that was broken was the inside handle. The best decision I made to today was to listen to Cindy enough by getting both.

It was -11C and breezy and the storm door is aluminum and therefore very cold. No, I didn't try to lick it ... its a door, not a flagpole! (only northern North Americans will get that joke).

First I tried the inside handle only package. That would have worked out fine if the little metal post thingy from the outside part were a teeny bit longer. I have no idea how the assembly ever worked before. After several tries, it refused to grow any longer, so I had to abandon that idea.

So, still balking from using the whole new assembly (I'm so cheap!) off to the barn I go to reclaim one from a old door I had replaced one time and had kept, just in case. This time the little metal post thingy was too long (the recycled door was thicker). I could have cut it, but I would actually like to use that door sometime and a new handle for a thick door could be hard to find, or at least expensive (see what I mean about being cheap?).

So, I had to open the new package after all. Everything was going fairly well (between sessions back into the house to thaw out) but the cheap screws in the package took an eternity to get lined up with the outer part.

Meanwhile, I was being constantly bombarded by chickadees demanding sunflower seeds from my pocket.

A further interruption was stopping to satisfy my curiosity to discover the origin of an awful noise coming nearby from the east. What sounded like the cries of a lost seal being taunted by a herd of cattle turned out to be my neighbour calling a coyote he could see in the back fields. He's a hunter, so I didn't like to ask him what he would do if the coyote responded, I just went back to wrestling with the door.

At one point the whole shooting match sprung away from the house and into the snow. It took quite some time and a couple of bad words to find the metal post thing and spring.

After having replaced the entire assembly, catch and all, I am back in business - as far as storm doors go.

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Found out today that my little cat is absolutely in love with Eva Cassidy's singing. She had the speakers head butted right off the desk a couple of times today.

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The excesses of the season caught up with me this evening and (very unusually for me) had no appetite. I had bought some sole and tinned clams on sale (still with the cheapness) today, so I made a chowder this evening, just to get the fish cooked. I am also lazy, so I made it just using one saucepan, making this up as I went along. It turned out OK.

Fish and clam chowder

1oz butter
2 rasher bacon, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 peeled carrot, diced
2 (peeled optional) potato, diced
water to cover
White fish (eg sole)
Fresh ground pepper
1 small can (142g) clams (and broth)
1 cup milk
2 tsp cornstarch

• In a medium sized saucepan and medium heat, fry up the bacon in the butter.
• Add the onions and when they are nearly opaque, add the garlic, closely followed by the remaining vegetables.
• Add enough water to cover and simmer, covered, until the veggies are very nearly cooked.
• Add the fish, already cut up in bite size pieces.
• After a few minutes the fish should be cooked. Add the clams (and broth) and pepper.
  
• Add the cornstarch to a little of the milk, blend until there are no lumps. Add the rest of the milk and then that milk mixture to the chowder.
• Bring back to a simmer and keep stirring.
• When the chowder has thickened, it is ready to serve.