Saturday Snapshot - More Christmas Shots

Here are a few more photos from our Christmas getaway.

Open water on Christmas day.  Westhawk Lake is a meteor lake, which means it's very deep. We've been to this location a number of times during the winter over the years and have never ever seen open water. Usually there's a snowmobile trail (or several trails) crisscrossing the lake. Not this year. With the unseasonably warm weather we've had, the lake was mostly open water.   I'm actually surprised that we didn't see at least one boat on the lake.  It would have been suicidal to do so, but I was sure that some yahoo would loved to be able to say "I went boating on Christmas day".  

Closed trail sign.  If you can see the open water behind the sign, it's obvious the trail is closed, but I guess you can't be too careful when the conditions are so unusual.     

Pine Grosbeak - Male. There were lots of females around, but I didn't get a good shot. I love seeing these guys when we are here. We occasionally have grosbeaks in our area, but not this type. These guys prefer coniferous trees; we mostly have deciduous ones.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books. To participate – post a picture that you've taken (or one taken by a friend, or a family member) then add your link on Alyce’s site using Mr. Linky.

Saturday Snapshot - Oh Deer!

Over Christmas, my husband and I rented a cabin in the nearby Whiteshell Provincial Park. It was very quiet and very relaxing. We had a great time. We were greeted by the "welcoming committee" upon our arrival. Here s/he is Christmas morning at our cabin door:

There were about 15 of these white-tailed deer in the immediate area. Probably hundreds, if not thousands, in the whole park. They are wild animals and are not penned. They are free to come and go as they please. However, the owners of the cabins feed them deer chow, I believe - although not usually by hand.  Because of this, they stay close and have gotten used to having people around all the time. Most of them will eat right from your hand, as seen above.    We were giving them some bird seed we brought along to feed the birds.  It's sort of a nice added attraction for visitors from the city to see "wild" life up close.

Here's another photo:

When we were packing up to go, there were four of them waiting at the cabin door to see if they could get one last handout. I wish I had gotten a picture of that, but the camera was already packed away.

Disclaimer: I don't support feeding wild animals, especially deer. It's actually harmful for the animals and for humans. Once in awhile, though, I lose all reason.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books. To participate – post a picture that you've taken (or one taken by a friend, or a family member) then add your link on Alyce’s site using Mr. Linky.

Saturday Snapshot - Dog Sitting

Two weeks ago, we had the pleasure of dog-sitting for our neighbours. Here are a few photos of Dakota:

Isn't she gorgeous?  She's the best dog...ever. She's about 10 and loves to chase (and sometimes catch) squirrels, chipmunks and rabbits.  She's a mixed breed, but I can't remember which ones. She spent 3 days at our house and slept at home. We had a blast!!!

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books. To participate – post a picture that you've taken (or one taken by a friend, or a family member) then add your link on Alyce’s site using Mr. Linky.

Saturday Snapshot - More Snow

It's not unusual for us to have lots of snow at this time of year, so I shouldn't have been surprised to wake up to more of it, but I was. This wasn't the light fluffy stuff, either. It was the really heavy, exceptionally sticky snow. Despite the additional snow, the temperature was hovering just under 0C/32F.  It was really nice to be outside. If we could have more winter days like this, I wouldn't complain half as much. I'm sure there were lots of kids out this morning making snowmen. Come to think of it, that's what I should have been doing. Instead, I was manning the shovel, while my husband rode around on the lawn tractor with the snow blower attached to the front.

Every time we get lots of snow, my first priority is to clean off the bird feeders. Those little guys are up early and depend on that food to survive in the cold weather. I was a little late getting out there; I could see that they were already trying to dig out the food themselves. I'm such a bad Momma. Anyway, here are 6 of the 14 feeders we currently have up.   It's not too bad. They've been a lot more buried that this.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books. To participate – post a picture that you've taken (or one taken by a friend, or a family member) then add your link on Alyce’s site using Mr. Linky.

Saturday Snapshot - Blue

Last year we bought lots of LED Christmas lights on sale after the holidays. Yippee for sales! A few weeks ago, we decided it was time to put them up. Even though it felt a little early, we decided to take advantage of the beautiful end-of-October weather. Who wants to put up lights in the cold and snow? Anyway, here's a close up of the little guys:

We love them! We've been getting lots of comments from the neighbours on how nice they look. I'm glad they think so because they are the ones that have to look at them. If I can figure out how to properly photograph the lights in the dark, I'll post a photo of the whole house.

Remember last week when I said that winter was on its way? As it turns out I was right! [If you think about it how could I be wrong? I live in the Great White North, aka The Canadian Prairies, and it's November. Winter was bound to come any day...but that's besides the point. We'll just leave it at I was right!] This is what happened in the last two days:

And this...

Don't you just love how snow looks blue in the shadows? I'm mentioning this now because in a month or two, I'll be sick to death of winter and I won't have anything nice to say about it. ;)  

For those of you who followed the flood photos, see that wooden stick in the foreground? The one with the little orange thingy on the top? That's where the river was from May-ish to August-ish. See everything behind it? That's part of our yard (some of the neighbour's, too).   The river is now back within its banks and is about 600 metres straight back. 

These snowflakes (along with 3 trillion or so of their closet friends) will be with us until March or into April.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books. To participate – post a picture that you've taken (or one taken by a friend, or a family member) then add your link on Alyce’s site using Mr. Linky.

Saturday Snapshot - Icy

After last weekend's wintery weather, my homemade rain chain sported a coating of ice. Thankfully, it's melted now. However, I'm sure it's just a matter of time before it happens again.   After all, winter is on its way.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books. To participate – post a picture that you've taken (or one taken by a friend, or a family member) then add your link on Alyce’s site using Mr. Linky.

Saturday Snapshot - New Light Fixture

A couple of weeks ago I picked up the newest version of PhotoShop Elements (V9). I don't know how to use it and I really haven't had a chance to even try it out. I thought that I'd spend a few minutes this afternoon playing around with a photo I took today to see what I could come up with. I spent about 15 minutes adding some "special effects" and came up with a photo that wasn't great, but it wasn't bad for my first effort. I then went to save it and I realized that I didn't know how to save it in a format that would allow me to post it here. I tried a few things, but nothing worked. I'm going to have to find a book or a tutorial online before wasting any more time. Apparently, I have a lot to learn about the software.

Because I wanted to post something for Saturday Snapshot,  I used my old very limited software to edit a photo of a new light fixture we installed last week.  I tried to make the fixture look old, but removing the colour.  The fixture isn't exactly what we were looking for, but it's better than what we had, different enough to be interesting (to us anyway) and it was on sale!   The glass casts a very odd pattern on the walls due to the bubble glass.   I'm still trying to decide if I like the effect. 

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books. To participate – post a picture that you've taken (or one taken by a friend, or a family member) then add your link on Alyce’s site using Mr. Linky.

I realize that I've been posting more photos than book reviews lately. I hope to have some more reviews shortly.

Saturday Snapshot - Autumn Leaves

I'm back after a short break.   Well, I haven't posted a Saturday Snapshot since July, so I guess that's a long break.  Anyway, I thought I'd start back with a shot appropriate for the season.  It won't be long now before we have snow.   Most of our autumn leaves are a drab brown.  Nothing like other areas where the colours are so varied...almost like a rainbow.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books. To participate – post a picture that you've taken (or one taken by a friend, or a family member) then add your link on Alyce’s site using Mr. Linky.

Saturday Snapshot - Daylilies

My daylilies have been blooming like crazy. We moved four plants from our old house as we heard that deer don't bother them. So far, so good.

The one pictured below has just finished blooming. (I took this about two weeks ago). This morning, I did the final deadheading and cut back all of the stocks...75 in total. I think each one had somewhere between 4-8 flowers on it. That means there were between 300-600 blooms!!!  Furthermore, this type of daylily will bloom a second time, although so far, I haven't seen any new shoots.   The photo below shows finished blooms, open blooms, and buds waiting to open tomorrow or the next day. 

My other daylilies (here's one) aren't quite prolific, but they are also doing well.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books. To participate – post a picture that you've taken (or one taken by a friend, or a family member) then add your link on Alyce’s site using Mr. Linky.

Saturday Snapshot - Evergreen?

The flood has brought some new creatures into our backyard.  One of these happens to be a beaver.  We haven't seen this guy yet, but he did make his presence known.

One of our newly planted (last year) evergreens:

Close up of the damage:

He didn't have the decency to use it or take it with him after he chewed most of the way through it.  Little bugger.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books. To participate – post a picture that you've taken (or one taken by a friend, or a family member) then add your link on Alyce’s site using Mr. Linky.

Saturday Snapshot - Our New Neighbours

Meet our new neighbours! These guys showed up about 1 week ago and visit us every day. They have been dining on cracked corn and a variety of mixed bird seeds. In return, they are leaving us with lots of "fertilizer", which makes walking in the yard without boots a little hazardous. We don't mind one bit. We don't get to see this kind of thing every day.

Canada Geese with gosling....

...while the others remain on shore. This pair has 5 little ones. They get bigger every day.

Another pair of Canada Geese with 6 much older goslings.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books. To participate – post a picture that you've taken (or one taken by a friend, or a family member) then add your link on Alyce’s site using Mr. Linky.

[I hope everyone likes these photos better than the snake ones.  ;)]

Saturday Snapshot - Snake Ecdysis

When we first moved from the city to a more rural area, I was pretty skittish about the creepy, crawly, slimy-looking things I was finding in the yard. Bugs of all kinds, frogs and lots of garter snakes. While I still don't like to be surprised by these things, I'm getting used to a few of them...sort of.

Yesterday, while I was checking out the yard (the little that isn't flooded), I found the results of a snake ecdysis (shedding) in the grass. I think it's amazing! My husband was extremely surprised that I picked it up and moved it to an area more suitable for photographing it. I'm sort of surprised, too! I've come such a long way.

Anyway, here are two photographs of my find.  I've also included a photograph of a garter snake that I took awhile ago.  

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books. To participate – post a picture that you've taken (or one taken by a friend, or a family member) then add your link on Alyce’s site using Mr. Linky.

Saturday Snapshot - Sandbags and Flood

Yep, another flood related photo. Someday soon I should have other photos to share.

As far as the flood goes, there's good news and bad news. The bad news is that the river is still mostly surrounding us. The good news is that the water is slowly, very slowly, receding. They (the water management people) are at long last able to drop the levels on the river, so we are getting a little more of our yard back. We are still using the boat to traverse the driveway, though. The other piece of good news is that most of the sandbags in our yard are gone. Yippee!!  Because the water level is dropping, our sandbags were not needed, so they were carted off to help in the flood efforts elsewhere.

This photo shows a few of the remaining ones we kept for filling in some low spots.  By the way, this is not how you build a sandbag dike.  These ones are stacked like this just to get them out of the way. 

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books. To participate – post a picture that you've taken (or one taken by a friend, or a family member) then add your link on Alyce’s site using Mr. Linky.

Saturday Snapshot - Bunny - A little late for Easter

We've lived here for two years and this is one of the first rabbits we've seen in the area. Apparently all of the neighbours knew they were around, but not us. We saw two others earlier in the day. And you know when you see two rabbits in the same general area...well, let's just say it won't be long before we see many more. ;)

Anyway, this guy came really close to us when we were sitting and watching the river rise in our backyard. He's a cutie.
















Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books. To participate – post a picture that you've taken (or one taken by a friend, or a family member) then add your link on Alyce’s site using Mr. Linky.

Saturday Snapshot - Photos and a Story

I had posted this last Saturday, but Blogger was being a pain and removed all of the formatting. I didn't have time to fix it so I pulled it instead. I noticed a few people clicked on the post. I'm hoping they found nothing rather than the seriously mangled post. Anyway, I'm sorry about that.

My Saturday Snapshot this week is a little long. I hope it's ok. This collection of photos and story appeared on my other (now defunct) blog some time ago. It's such an unusual story that I wanted to repeat it here.

All of the melting snow in the last couple of weeks, reminds me of when we first moved in to this house. We got possession of the our house on March 1, 2009. There was still lots of snow on the ground, therefore, we didn't get a good look at all of the stuff that was left behind. As the snow started to melt and things were uncovered we realized that we had quite the job ahead of us. We started cleaning up as soon as we could, but it was still awhile before we found something interesting. Well, ok, at first it was downright scary. It wasn't until later that it became interesting and funny.

We saw something from the path that warranted further investigation. Here's sort of what we saw:

I say "sort of" because at that time it was covered in plastic and a large sheet of plywood. On top were several cinder blocks holding the whole thing down. As we got closer I said "That looks like a coffin". My husband wasn't so sure. While I stayed on the path, he went closer to get a better look. He lifted the plastic, looked underneath and said "That looks like a coffin". That was enough for that day. I ran back to the house.

The next day we approached the coffin again, this time with camera in hand (all of these pictures were taken that day). We uncovered "the box" and realized it was some kind of prop. At that point, we were even brave enough to lift the lid. But still, who would store this in their backyard and not take it with them when they moved? Or at least warn the new owners? Here are some more photos:

Inscription.

Another view.

Inside.

Close-up of contents.

By talking to some of the neighbours, we found out that the neighbourhood used to have a big Halloween celebration and this coffin and assorted signs were used in that celebration. We didn't know anything more than that, since many of the people who lived in the area at that time had moved on. Halloween isn't my favourite celebration so we were not about to keep it. Besides, it's much too heavy to store or move around. We couldn't even lift it. Since the previous owner left lots of other junk around as well as this item and didn't seem interested in retrieving any of it, we figured it was our to dispose of. I guess he could have been storing it for someone, but finding the owner, who more than likely moved away, was more trouble than we were willing to do at that time. We weren't too pleased to be saddled with all of the junk. Several trips to the dump later, the coffin was no more.

That was two years ago. So far, no one has come to the door looking for a coffin. If they had, I could have had another weird story to tell. ;)

How many people can say that they found a coffin in the backyard of their new house?

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books. To participate – post a picture that you've taken (or one taken by a friend, or a family member) then add your link on Alyce’s site using Mr. Linky. (My apologies to Alyce for omitting this earlier.)

Saturday Snapshot - Redpoll

This redpoll and her friends come down from the north during winter when food supplies become more scarce. I think she's a Common Redpoll, but we also had some hoary ones around. The hoary ones have more white, but I have a hard time telling them apart. Anyway, it's one of the more interesting additions to our feeders during the colder months. Most have them have headed back home now.

The bird in the background is an American Goldfinch. In the summer, their colours are quite vibrant (yellow), especially the males. In the winter, all of them turn a yellowy-gray. They usually don't spend the winter in this area, but every year we get at least a few staying behind. This year we had 5, last year (a milder, less snowy winter) we had about 40.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books. To participate – post a picture that you've taken (or one taken by a friend, or a family member) then add your link on Alyce’s site using Mr. Linky.

Saturday Snapshot - Shoes on Wellington Crescent

I took this photo a few years ago. The shoes hang near an underpass on a route we used to take quite often when we lived in the city. One Saturday afternoon, I snapped a bunch of photos. I don't know anything about them, other than they have been there for years. I love the baby runner (aka tennis shoe) at the top.

There was a recent article about the shoes in the city newspaper. Click here if you want to read it.

I haven't seen these shoes in quite awhile, but it's sort of neat to see that it's still there albeit deteriorating.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books. To participate – post a picture that you've taken (or one taken by a friend, or a family member) then add your link on Alyce’s site using Mr. Linky.

Saturday Snapshot - Bat House

This photo was taken last summer just after we put up our bat house. (It's been on my Flickr page since then. We hope the bats will show up soon, so I figured I'd post it here and write a little about it.)

Bats are notorious for eating mosquitos. Something like 1000 an hour or some crazy number like that. We were told not to expect them until spring (if ever), but we figured we should get the box out there for any scouts that show up. Even if they don't show up, it makes a great conversation piece. Anyway, the bats like water (we live near the river)and trees (we have lots of those). We also have a food source...lots and lots of mosquitos. Well, not now of course. They won't show up until the snow is gone.

Once the bats show up, another box is required. When the females have little ones, they kick the males out of the box, who then need somewhere else to go. We will probably build the next one rather than purchase it. The construction looks simple enough.

I'm not particularly fond of bats, but we were told that we most likely will never see them because they sleep during the day and hunt at night. I hope that's right.






















Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books. To participate – post a picture that you've taken (or one taken by a friend, or a family member) then add your link on Alyce’s site using Mr. Linky.

Saturday Snapshot - Dragonfly

I love taking pictures and always keep my camera close by. I already participate in Wordless Wednesday and will continue to do so, but I'd also like to take part in this more intimate meme.

When we lived in the city, I thought dragonflies were annoying and really didn't like having them around. Now that we live in a more rural area and aren't subjected to chemical spraying to keep mosquitoes at bay, we love these guys. I'm not sure how many mosquitoes they eat, but every little bit helps. On any given sunny summer afternoon, our front yard is home to a hundreds of these fascinating insects. Here's a close up of one:


















Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books. To participate – post a picture that you've taken (or one taken by a friend, or a family member) then add your link on Alyce’s site using Mr. Linky.