Dappled Air

On Friday's walk around Oat Hill Lake we came across the first ducklings of the season. That's why I always take my camera along on my walks. The ducklings must be very new as they still have yellow in their plumage from the egg.

Looking through my pictures I took during November, I realized that the one with the bicycle in the snow was perfect for December. Wallpaper with Calendar 1024 x 768 pixels 1280 x 1024 pixels 1900 x 1200 pixels Wallpaper without Calendar 1024 x 768 pixels 1280 x 1024 pixels 1900 x 1200 pixels

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.

I wonder how many mothers are doing what my youngest daughter and I do quite frequently, we go shopping together by phone. My daughter goes to universtity in Toronto and I live in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Since she has added my phone number to her 5 most called numbers, she does not incur long- distance charges any longer. So I keep on getting phone calls from whatever she happens to be doing at the moment. Her favorite time to call is when she is grocery shopping. She walks up and down the isles and tells me what she is looking for and asks me if she's getting a good deal or not. I enjoy our time together and feel much more invovled in her life than I would be without those phone calls. I really would like to know if other children do the same or if it is more unusual. I am looking forward to your comments.

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 .

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.

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...

It is time again to start cleaning out things that I am not using any longer. I have found that freecycle is the best way to find a new home for those items. What is freecycle ? Here is a quick summary from freecycle.org: "Welcome! The Freecycle Network™ is made up of 4,592 groups with 5,767,000 members across the globe. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It's all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer (them's good people). Membership is free. Have fun!" I have a page on my website where I place pictures of the items I have to offer as it is not always easy to explain exactly what you have to offer. I also like that people come to pick the item up and I don't have to go chase after them.

Our neighbourhood is usually quiet, especially as we live on a dead-end street, nothing much happens. But since the end of August we knew that something was up. Workers raised the manhole covers, then the scraped the pavement at the edge of the road. The road really needed work, I think the last time it was paved was a long time ago according to neighbours who have lived here since the houses were built. Now paving the road is a once in lifetime experience here, so last night as I was watching TV the house started to shake and I heard a rumble, a quick glance out the kitchen window explained all. So I grabbed the camera and went outside as did a few other neighbours. I got some cool pictures and the light after 6 pm was perfect. They paved one half of the road and left. Then this morning they were back. First came the guy that sprayed the liquid tar on the road from the back of a truck. Then came the paving machine with 6 guys on it. They setup the machine right next to last evening...

Last year I took advantage of the closing of the pedestrian bridge lane of the MacDonald Bridge to take pictures of the North side from the bicycle lane. I still wanted to take pictures from the South side, the pedestrian lane, but I could not take it on a sunny day as no matter which way I would take them I would have to shoot into the sun. So yesterday, Saturday July 19/08, the weather was great, slightly cloudy and warm. You don't want to walk across the bridge in cold weather as it is very cold and windy over the water. Even on the warm summer day the temperature on the bridge was noticeably cooler. The picture above was taken just past the tollbooths on the Dartmouth side I got some lovely pictures, but due to the fact the it was lightly cloudy I have a lot of blownout sky pictures and have to adjust it in Photoshop. So putting my album together is taking a little longer than I anticipated.