Dappled Air

Country singer Stompin Tom Connors died on March 6, 2013. Why would I want to write about this? Well, my first introduction to him was his song "Bud the Spud", when I got married in the mid seventies. I found his songs corny, but also folksy. To learn more about Stompin Tom listen to the tribute show that aired on CBC's Q program . Listening to the show, I learned how prolific a song writer Tom Connors was and how each song was a little story about life in Canada. What could be more Canadian that "Hockey Night" and Stompin Tom's "Hockey Song" captures it perfectly. After almost 40 years in Canada, I have become a Canadian and am proud of it.

Until I came to Canada I had no idea what a touque/toque was or had even heard the word. It seems it is a typical Canadian expression that came to English from French. Now what on earth is a touque? A touque is a knitted winter hat. My husband always uses this term instead of hat and it still sounds funny to me after 35 years. Well, hubby put on his touque today for our walk around the lake as it had gotten chilly and a strong North wind was blowing. So him using this strange word gave me the idea for this blog post. In case you are wondering, no I haven't dug out my touque yet. The Urban Dictionary has a couple of definitions for touque: A Canadian must have. Ok eh! Like it was so cold that we had to wear touques eh! Every time someone says toboggan, I remind them that a toboggan is what you ride down a hill on, a touque is what you wear. The WordWeb Online gives this defintion for touque: A kind of warm cap winter wear, usually made from a knit bag with closed tapered ends by p...

On our daily walk around the lake we came across some elementary school aged kids with one of them holding something in his hand. It turned out to be a 'Spotted Salamander'. They had found it by turning over a rock. Always having my camera with me allowed me to take a picture. The animal was scared and peeing, so they decided to put it back where they found it. Here is the info I found at Wikipedia about the Salamander: Latin name: Ambystoma maculatum "The spotted salamander is about 6-7 1/2 inches long. The spotted salamander's main color is black, but can sometimes be blue-black, dark gray, or even dark brown. There are two rows of yellow/orange spots that run from the top of the head (near the eyes) to the tip of the tail. These rows are uneven. An interesting fact is that the spotted salamander's spots near the top of the head are more orange and the rest of the spots are more yellow. The underside of the spotted salamander is slate gray." "The spott...

What a difference 5 days make. Saturdays snow did not stay around for a very long time. The last few days saw temperatures that were hovering around almost 10° C and the snow just faded away. I am not complaining, it is now easy to walk around the lake again as the snow turned to ice making walking dangerous. So I just had to take another picture of my backyard to record the difference.

Well, there is now no more doubt, winter has arrived. On Thursday we had about 2 inches of snow and everything just had a 'sugar coating' of snow. The storm came from the North and all the North sides of the trees had a line of snow on them. Then yesterday morning we woke up to a foot (25 cm) of snow. It didn't matter that is was Saturday morning, we had our work cut out. On top of it the city had plowed the street narrow, that meant we had an extra 6 feet to clear on the street that was 2 feet high. It took hubby and me an hour and a half to shovel out or drive way. All I can say that we got our daily work out and the opportunity to take some more pictures to share.

Lake Banook looking North -> The sun was out and it looked beautiful, but a strong North wind and temperatures around 4°C did not stop us from going for a long walk around Lake Banook checking out what the city was doing. The city is putting in a new sewer line and lowering the water level of the lake. We dressed warmly and had a great walk and I was able to take some lovely pictures. The city blocked off the connection between Lake Banook and MicMac Lake and were lowering the water levels in Lake Banook at the Western end with 4 powerful diesel pumps. They sure look impressive. I took some great pictures on our walk around the lake. View all the picture I took here .

How time flies, I just realized that tomorrow is already November. So I quickly looked through my photos I took during October to find one that would make a great wallpaper. I picked the one of the flog lifting off Oat Hill Lake. Wallpaper with Calendar 1024 x 768 pixels 1280 x 1024 pixels 1920 x 1200 pixels Wallpaper without Calendar 1024 x 768 pixels 1280 x 1024 pixels 1920 x 1200 pixels

Yesterday's Sunday outing took us the the York Redoubt. "York Redoubt was the heart of the defenses protecting the outer harbour approaches to Halifax. It is currently a national historic site of Canada." The last time we were there was when we first moved to Halifax and I did not have a digital camera yet. The fall colors were beautiful and the temperatures still quite nice. My favorite picture of the afternoon is the one above. It is a shot of the interior of the quaint little wooden church (1846). I took one picture, but it looks like I took a few and put them together in Photoshop, but I did not. left: Closeup of gears in the canon right: broken trees still show the damage from hurricane Juan in 2003 Check out the other pictures I took here .

I have been trying to get a picture of the lake with the fog just about disappearing and this morning I finally managed to get those pictures. When I started taking pictures the other side of the lake was barely visible, by the time I was done only 5 minutes later the fog had just about disappeared.

Yesterday morning on our walk, we saw these 3 birds having a great time. They were having a bath in a puddle left by last night's rain at the local shopping center parking lot. I was not sure I would get a good picture as I had to take it with full zoom. I did not want to scare the birds away by coming too close, which happened as soon as I took a step closer towards them, but luckily by then I had already taken the picture.

On Sunday morning hubby and I went for a lovely fall walk in a local park ( check out all the pictures ) and came across the old Lock #2 of the Shubenacadie Canal. I had heard about it and knew that it started at the Dartmouth harbour and went all the way to the Bay of Fundy , that was about it. So a quick search revealed quite a bit of info. --> Lock 2 Here is a quick summary combined from various sources in my words: "The Shubenacadie Canal is the most significant 19th century canal development project in the Maritimes. The Shubenacadie Canal was envisioned to facilitate transportation between Halifax, and the agricultural, timber and coal producing areas of northern Nova Scotia and the Annapolis Valley. Originally linking the area from Dartmouth to Maitland, the Shubenacadie Canal was an ancient Mi’kmaw travel route from the Bay of Fundy to the Halifax Harbour. When construction started in 1826 it was supposed to have 17 locks, but the first company went bankrupt in 1831...

Today I am celebrating my 34th anniversary of arriving in Canada. I had met my husband in a kibbutz while working there with a group of Swiss volunteers. Once I returned to Switzerland I had to find a way to get to Canada. The only option I had was as a mother's help in Toronto , Ontario , which was 1500 km away from where my future husband lived in Saint John, New Brunswick . The culture shock and the language difference where quite big. I spoke English, but not very well. Reading an English newspaper took ages and even then I didn't understand all the words and had to look them up. Now after 34 years, I am told I still have a slight accent, but I don't have any problems with English any more. The funny thing is, that often I use very antiquated English expressions, I have no idea where that comes from. I am also famous for combining two expressions into one. Example: Every so once in a while, which should be 'every so often' and 'once in a while'. I have ...