Winter, renovations, photos...Oh, My!

Now that winter has invaded Manitoba (+6C yesterday; -28C "feels like" today), I'm planning on having a case of winter blues very shortly. All I want to do is put on some winter weight (eat, eat, eat) and hibernate. It didn't take much because I was already feeling kind of blah after the holidays.

Our home renovations (gutting and redoing two bathrooms) are on a little bit of a hold while our contractor deals with some personal issues and catches up on some outstanding jobs. The little delay will give some of the back-ordered plumbing parts time to get here. However, I just want it done already. Last January we were planning these changes, only to get postponed because of the flood. How much longer can this go on?

On the blogging front, I've made the decision to move my photography stuff to another blog, Daisy's Photography. Well, not really move. It's more of a from-now-on kind of thing. That includes: Wordless Wednesday, Photo Friday, Snapshot Saturday as well as my 365 Project. It'll mean that I'll have fewer posts here, but at least they will all be book related. It's sort of spur of the moment and I'm not really sure about it, but there's enough of it now to warrant its own space. If it doesn't work out, I can always make some more changes.

As for book reviews on this blog, I haven't posted one in awhile. I've been reading a lot, but I haven't felt like writing lately. I'm slowly starting to get into the swing of things again and should have some reviews done by early next week. That's it.

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.

Wordless Wednesday - Poinsettia

More Wordless Wednesday.

New Year, New Project - Photography

Late last year, I read about a great project that I thought was right up my alley. It's photography related rather than book related. It's called the 365 Project. Basically, you pick a theme and then take one photo a day based on that theme. It sounds like a huge commitment, but fun at the same time. There's a more thorough explanation on the website.

My theme is "Life - Up Close". I had tossed around a number of other ideas before settling on this one as it popped into my head this morning. I really like taking macro or close-up photographs, so I wanted to base the project on that. The "life" part is pretty general and that's on purpose. I can basically take a close up of anything.

Don't worry, I won't be posting my photographs daily here. I think I'll do a weekly post with either the photographs themselves or a link to them. I'll see how it goes as time goes by.

As for other photography memes or projects: I had been doing Photo Friday off and on for a few years, something posting the photos here. I'm not sure if I'm going to stick with it. I might check out the theme and if I like it that week, I'll do it. Otherwise, I think I'll have my hands full with this one.    I'll probably stick with Wordless Wednesday and Saturday Snapshot hosted by Alyce at At Home with Books because I like participating in both of these and can use some older photos that I won't be using for my 365 Project.

Anyone else thinking of tackling a year long project? Have you done one in the past? Do you have any advice? What do you think of this one?

[I'm also thinking of doing a book related one. Stay tuned...]

Wish me luck!

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.

Wordless Wednesday - Happy Holidays

More Wordless Wednesday.

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.

Photo Friday - Depth Perception

For more "Depth Perception" photos, visit the Photo Friday website.

For more of my submissions, please see my PhotoFriday set on my Flickr page.

Photo Friday - Graceful

For more "Graceful" photos, visit the Photo Friday website.   70s glass piece.  Not quite sure why I removed the colour.  It just looked better. 

For more of my submissions, please see my PhotoFriday set on my Flickr page.

Wordless Wednesday - Bah Humbug

Almost Wordless: The I'm-so-frustrated-I-don't-want-to-decorate-the-tree Christmas Tree. It looks like a 5-year-old did it. Actually, my apologies to all 5-year-olds. I'm sure you could do better.  I can't wait until this is over...it's a long story.  More Wordless Wednesday.

Wordless Wednesday - Icy Shadows

More Wordless Wednesday.

Photo Friday - Rugged

For more "Rugged" photos, visit the Photo Friday website.

For more of my submissions, please see my PhotoFriday set on my Flickr page.

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.

Photo Friday - Noon

This was a hard one.  How do you convey time?  After I took this photo, I came up with a half-dozen other things I could have done.   This will have to do.   Sorry for the small size, but it's heavily cropped and needs to be squished to fit here.  Click to see a larger (and more fuzzy) photo. 

For more "Noon" photos, visit the Photo Friday website.
For more of my submissions, please see my PhotoFriday set on my Flickr page.

Wordless Wednesday - Water on Lady's Mantle

More Wordless Wednesday.

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.

Photo Friday - One

For more "One" photos, visit the Photo Friday website.

For more of my submissions, please see my PhotoFriday set on my Flickr page.

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.

Photo Friday - Public Space

The pavillion at Assiniboine Park, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

For more "Public Space" photos, visit the Photo Friday website.

For more of my submissions, please see my PhotoFriday set on my Flickr page.

Wordless Wednesday - Taking a Break

More Wordless Wednesday.