Winter Carries On

Winter keeps chugging on, as one expects in this part of the world.  Sometimes, we get a day of reprieve that reminds us that eventually, spring will come.  This past Saturday was one of those days.  The temperature reached 12 °C (54 °F for all you folks south of the border), which is very unusual for mid February.  The temperature rarely rises above freezing at this time of year, so it was a delight to be able to spend a part of Saturday outside.  Marc helped me clean out the chicken coop, which was very much needed.  It's hard to clean it out in winter when the chicken poop freezes solid!  We had a couple of days of just above freezing toward the end of the week, and coupled with the Saturday temperature, that was enough to allow for clean out.  Usually we do that job with the wheelbarrow, but you can't really do that when there's as much snow on the ground as there is now.  So, it was bucket brigade - four buckets pressed into service and I filled them while Marc took them to the compost heap across the yard.  The chickens are happy, as am I.  

I was also easily able to clean and refill the duck's "pond" because the hose was working.  

Often in winter I have to use buckets for that task, so on a day when I can use the hose, I take advantage!  The duck was likewise very happy.  I couldn't resist taking pictures of him doing his duck aerobics in the fresh pool.

He gets very energetic about it.

I see an orange foot!

The recent heavy snows had actually encased the edge of the pond until the warmer temperatures, so I couldn't dump the contents of it without damaging it.  The brief thaw allowed for a proper clean-out. 

Here's what they mean about 'water off a duck's back' - it just slides right off!

He was a very happy duck.

The robins were also continuing to visit the mountain ash (rowan) tree out front.  I was delighted to see them although I worry about their ability to survive this year, given the depth of the snow cover, which is over the top of many plants they might otherwise eat dried berries from.  They stayed busy with the tree for about a week or 10 days, and then just like that, they were gone.  I took some more pictures of them as well as a short video, because I was so entranced by their visit in such large numbers.  At one point I counted nearly 40.

Also on the warm day, I went looking for winter insects.  I know, that doesn't sound intuitive, but there are some species that will emerge on warmer days, so I wanted to see what I could find.  Of course, there were vast numbers of Hypogastrura species springtails (also known as snow fleas, but they are not fleas, and thus that's a horrible common name for them).  They can be mistaken for 'dirt' on snow, but they are actually very dark blue.  See the 'dirt' on the snow?

Here's a close up of the 'dirt' - tiny springtails!

I also found another species of springtail that was new to me - an Isotoma species (probably Isotoma viridis). This one is about 3 times the size of the ones in the picture above.

In addition, I found a winter crane fly (Trichocera spp.) and a wolf spider.

Of course, the next day, it was back to freezing, and today it was a chilly -12 °C (10 °F), but I managed to get out for a good ski - 7 km in total on my local trails.  It was a great day for it. The trails were freshly groomed.  The snow is very deep - we have a good 3+ foot base of snow under that trail.

Lovely to be out on a sunny day enjoying the exercise and fresh air in the woods.

This snow is ridiculous

I don't think I've seen this much snow in years.  We've had 4 major storms in a row, every Friday or Saturday for the past 4 weeks.  Each storm has been more than a foot of snow.  Friday's was 2 feet.  Here's the state of my world!

Marc's car after he made a pass around it with the snowblower, but before I began to clear it off.

Uncovering the car.

In an area without drifting, I measured the snow depth.  The driveway was clear-ish (ground level) before it began on Friday).  We had 25 inches, or 64 cm, from Friday morning through to Saturday morning.

Because we just keep getting storm after storm, it's difficult to find places to put the snow now.  Here's the front door area before I got around to shoveling it.

Here's my path to the bird feeders.  Some of the feeders were actually partly under the snow.  The heated bird bath stays clear, for obvious reasons!

Here's Marc after doing some of the snowblowing work!

And me, on the front step.  Look at that snow pile!  Crazy!

And here I am on the back deck.  Very little light is getting in to the dining room window on the left due to the height of the snow pile.

Unfortunately, Marc had a bit of an "oops" with the chicken wire on the rabbit enclosure (they're not in the outer area at this time of year of course).

And here I am in the backyard on the path to the compost pile behind the greenhouse. We add the litter from the rabbit cages to the pile throughout the winter months so Marc snowblows the path to the pile for easier access.  You can see how high the snow is - approaching shoulder height on me, and in my winter boots, I'm at least 5'10".

One unexpected sight was the enormous flock of robins in my mountain ash tree.  I do not normally see robins in the winter.  A few do stick around, but most migrate.  I have occasionally seen one or two in the winter, but usually don't see them until April sometime.  Well, today, there were about 20 in my tree, all eating the berries left on it from last fall.  I was stunned.  I've read that others are also seeing flocks of robins here this year. they do look really pretty against the snow, and with their feathers matching the orange berries.

I have had enough of the snow now.  There is plenty for me to ski on and plenty to replenish the ground moisture (not that we were lacking that after last summer, which was awfully wet).  I would really like a few weekends without snowstorms. At this rate, we'll still have snow in July!

Ski Improvements

Well, I'm progressing with my skiing adventures, and honestly, I'm managing reasonably well for being 51 and having creaky joints (the body kind, not the smoking kind).  I've now been out skiing half a dozen times I think, or thereabouts.  I started out with loops on a relatively flat trail, which gave me some confidence in getting myself where I needed to go, and in staying upright while doing so.  

After my initial disaster run, which was the subject of the last blog post, I learned that "waxless" skis do not actually mean "never-have-to-wax-them" skis. While you don't have to wax them as regularly as classic skis, they still benefit from waxing, especially when the weather is close to the 0°C (32 F) mark.  The light wax coating helps them glide, rather than get stuck in the clumpy snow, which is what happened to me on the first day.  So, I bought a product called Swix F4, which is a "universal glide wax." (Yes, there's a llama in the background of that picture.  It's a pet bed.)

So you might notice that, like all products sold in Canada, the label is in both French and English.  Thus, you might also grasp that the word "fart" is French for wax.  So now, my juvenile mind thinks of this product as ski farts.  (We're in the midst of a global pandemic...we have to find humour wherever we can these days!) Swix F4 is applied similarly to a deodorant.  The cap comes off to reveal a little sponge and you squeeze the container until a bit of liquid comes out, and then the sponge applies it on the bottom of the ski.  You wait 5 minutes and take the cap off the other end of the ski farts container, and you find a nice little felt polishing pad.  You just buff it up a bit, and you're ready to go.  

Naturally, the second time I went skiing, not that long after the first, I went equipped with ski farts, and let me tell you, it was FAST!  And I fell down again....a LOT!  And this was when I learned my second crucial piece of information.  When it's close to the freezing point, you need the ski farts.  When it is really cold, you DO NOT need ski farts.  So now, I am more judicious about the application of the ski farts and only use it when the weather is on the warm side (for winter, obviously).  

Here's a map of my local ski trails.  

For my first few outings, I went on the "Le Rond" trail, which is the purplish coloured loop slightly to the left.  I can do that loop a couple of times in an hour, plus the bit to the parking area, which is a good beginner run.  Today, I made the bold decision to go to new trails.  I started on Le Rond, took the Coombs road junction from the top of Le Rond, and then proceeded on Cy Pass to the birches, past the Sugar Brook Lodge, and around the corner to the Gastug trail, which has some steep uphill sections.  Then I went back along Cy Pass and finished off the last leg of Le Rond.  I only fell down once, and that was on an uphill section, and I think my legs were just really tired by that point.  But the scenery was glorious and it was a really lovely day to ski.

It wasn't too warm (not sticky) but we also had fresh snow last night, which makes it a little slower. I'm extremely lucky to live so close to such a great trail area.  I'm looking forward to exploring more of it over time.  

In addition, this skiing adventure business has given me a better mental viewpoint on winter.  I don't hate winter quite so much now, and I do try to appreciate the beauty of my local winter scenery. Plus, I get to wear my knitting (the headband, not the sweater....I don't have THAT much free time!)

To add record-keeping capacity to my newfound winter activities (skiing and snowshoeing), I recently charged up my Fitbit.  I actually bought it over 1.5 years ago, but never charged or used it before.  Probably this was because I was just a bit too intimidated to discover the actual extent of my sedentary-ness.  I have actually found it to be useful because my little snowshoeing and skiing adventures are adding up in "steps" and I feel quite positive about it.  Even though I may not get 10,000 steps every day, I'm not doing that badly.  I also feel good that I typically get somewhere between 7.5 and 8 hours of sleep every night. Today I had over 12,000 steps....yay me!  

That's all for now.  I hope all my readers are staying well and keeping healthy in these uncertain times.  

Cross Country Ski Adventure

Today, I made the exceedingly bad decision to go cross-country skiing for the first time since my teen years.  I had downhill skied in my 20s, and had enjoyed that, but hadn't been back on cross-country skis in probably 32 years or so.  The winter before last, I had purchased second-hand waxless cross-country skis.  I didn't try them last winter.  Having found local trails that seemed appropriate, I thought this would be the right time.  

I journeyed up to the trail with my skis and easily remembered how to do the bindings (yes, they're the very old 3-prong sort that require zero skill to use).  I stood on the skis and surveyed the trail ahead of me.  How delightful.  This would be great exercise and perhaps even a bit of fun as well. 

So off I went, full of vim and vigour, trying to get that easy stride motion back into my 51-year-old limbs.  I thought I was sort of getting the hang of it at one point, but things rapidly began to decline.  First of all, I was using waxless skis.  Now, when I was a youngster, my Dad would wax our family skis and he knew what colour wax to put on and did it all for us, so I never learned much about the waxing process.  When I learned (2 years ago) that waxless skis existed, I was pleased at the thought that I didn't have to go through that whole process of waxing and removing wax from skis.  All very convenient, I thought.  And I suppose it would be, if I went out in the right temperatures...which did not cover today's outing.  It said -2C on the weather station, and "feels like -4C," which I thought would be OK.  Wrong!

So, just a short period of time into my ski experience, I began to feel unsteady, and noticed that I was developing significant build-up of snow under the foot area on the ski.  This made it sort of like walking in high heels on snow, but high heels that had a v-shaped point on the bottom that aligned in the direction of one's foot, such that on each step, the tendency for the ankle to veer far to the left or right, was equally likely.  It got to a point that every 3-5 steps I took, my ankle would twist completely out to the side, sometimes on both legs at once.  I began to worry that I was going to break an ankle.  However, the folks who kindly groom the trails really frown on walking on the ski trails, so I carried on, trying to scrape the undersides of my skis off on trees every so often. Not very helpful for more than 3 or 4 glides.  Speaking of glide, there really wasn't any.  It was more just a matter of walking with skis on, after a while, but with the high-heels-ankle-twisting-outward-to-90-degree-angles-with-my-leg aspect.  This was really putting a dent in my enjoyment of the experience. Someone who had been before me (see the nice trails below) seemed to have no difficulty at all, but I was definitely not sharing their experience.

Then, there was the hill.  I came to a hill that was a wee bit steeper than I had expected, but given that I had no glide and given that my skis had so much build-up of snow on them, I figured I could just sort of walk down the hill.  I guess there's a point at which some principle of physics kicks in...might have been gravity...momentum...path-of-least-resistance.  One of those sorts of things.  Anyway, after a step or two, suddenly, I was no longer looking down the hill.  I was looking at the sky, shortly after having the wind knocked out of me when my back solidly hit the ground.  I had that "what just happened...?" feeling for a moment, and then had to sort of re-orient myself so that I could stand up again, having made it some way down the hill on my backside.  It took me some effort to actually get upright again, and I felt like a drunk ostrich, limbs all splayed around and a total lack of coordination.  I finally managed to orient both skis in the same direction, find a tree willing to assist with the uprighting process, and gather the contents of my spilled pockets (why, oh why did I not wear the jacket with the zipper pockets this time?).  I stood up and began to brush some of the snow from my backside and...suddenly, with a tremendous sense of deja vu, I was looking at the sky again.  Drat.  A few bad words may have slipped out.  I once again righted myself and slowly, sideways, eased down the rest of the slope.  

The longer I went on the trail, the more the build-up on the skis persisted, and the more I was twisting each ankle.  It was a wonder I made it to the end of the trail at all.  I'm sure it took me at least double the normal time to complete the trail, and it was definitely not a fun outing.  So today I have learned that I will not go skiing again when the temperature is too close to zero (Celsius) and I will not wear my jacket with the zipless pockets.  I may be sticking to walking for the next little while, until it gets quite a bit colder again. I'm at home for now with sore ankles and an offended back and shoulder.  This is not particularly helping with my quest to find ways to enjoy winter that are more active than snuggling under a blanket with my knitting and an audiobook.

Of note, since I was spending some considerable time flailing about on the ground, I did notice that the snow fleas were out in abundance.  If you're not familiar with snow fleas, which are not actually fleas, but rather springtails of the Hypogastrura genus, you can read more about them here.  They are very helpful little soil critters.  They only come out on warm winter days, another sign that it was too warm for good skiing.  They're actually dark blue, but they mostly look black against the snow.  Anyway, that was probably the highlight of my ski adventure.  

Winter Walks

 I'm not a fan of winter.  I love bright green growing things and warm breezes.  I like watching my chickens dig in the dirt instead of huddling in the coop.  I like to dig my own hands in the dirt, rather than stare morosely at my snow-covered raised beds.  Really, I just want to hibernate from about mid-December to about mid-April.  However, this year I'm trying to get outside more often and exercise, and try to find things to enjoy about the deep freeze.  Therefore, earlier this month, I bought snowshoes.  

I've been out on them a few times and it's good exercise.  I didn't realize how much different it would be to regular walking.  There is a park quite close to me that has some snowshoe trails.  In theory, they are quite pretty.  I prefer them when all is bright green and growing, but still, at least it gives me a place to go and wander.  As you can see in the photo below, there are also ski trails, and I will try to get out on my skis soon as well.

But when I sit down for a short rest and I'm faced with this...it's just not very appealing to me.  It all seems so bleak and grey and dreary.

The trails get used quite heavily, and after a few days, snowshoeing wasn't really as effective.  Using snowshoes on trails with packed snow is sort of like trying to snowshoe in your living room.  The snowshoes just get in the way.  However, I'm still going for walks.  A couple of days ago, it rained for several hours, which is quite unusual for this time of year here.  That made all the trails a slushy, icy mess, because it went back into deep freeze mode the next day.

Today I went for a walk with my yak-trax on my boots, to ensure that I didn't have any tumbles.  I've found two new-to-me trails not far from where I live that go through the woods and provide me with 2.5 km loop walks.  So I'm trying to do one or both of them at least 3 days a week.  A friend of mine has gone with me a few times and she took a picture of me looking at lichen on a tree the other day.  We have to maintain 2 metres of social distancing to be able to go on the trail together, but at least it's a good way to connect for a while.

I'm also finding lots of lichen to photograph and I've purchased a field guide to lichens to try to learn how to identify the species in my area.  In the meantime, I still take the odd photograph to record my snowy walks and try to appreciate the winter quiet.  

I like walking beside this creek, which is still running and not frozen over.  It makes a very soothing watery soundtrack for walking.

So I'm half hibernating, and half trying to get outside.  It's still something I have to force myself to do, but maybe eventually I'll start to appreciate some aspects of winter.

Spring? Erm....not yet.

I know that many places are experiencing "spring" amidst all the crazy stuff in the world at the moment.  Not here.  Yes, we've had a bit of melting, but overall, spring is still a bit of a distant dream for me.  There are some icicles on the roof edge, which does indicate some melting.

The front door view is still pretty dismal. 

Here's my path to the chicken coop.  It's so compacted now that my feet don't break through the snow anymore, but it's over my knees in height.  That yard waste bucket off to the right is 2 feet tall and the snow is just above its top.

The raised beds have a LONG way to go before planting.

The closer chicken feed bin is 4 feet tall and the rear one is 3 feet tall.  That shows you how much snow we still have. I'm really glad I had that modification made to the coop gate to give me the winter "upper door" that I am now using because the lower part is blocked solid.

The chickens are coming outside from time to time to enjoy the sunshine on a sunny day, and the egg count is going up.  Here are Maple, Amelia Henheart, and Marble (L to R) catching some rays.

Most of the birds are just staying inside the coop still, like beautiful Smidgen here.

The path to the hay shed...still pretty deep, except the area I shovelled for the hay delivery a couple of weeks ago.

This path is pretty compacted as well.

These two have been complete rascals lately. 

With all the freeze/thaw cycles and compacted snow, they figured out that they could climb OVER the fence in one area last week by pushing it down with their feet.  Spot the rascal who thinks she is hiding.

 BUSTED!  A bucket of grain was needed to bring them back into the fenced area.

Yours truly did a bit of fancy fence weaving with baling twine to keep the fence held up so they would stop climbing it and crushing it to the ground.

It'll be a really long time before I'm back out on the hammock.

And the driveway?  It's a skating rink.

Just pure ice.  I don't recommend walking on it.

So no, overall, I'd say spring hasn't sprung here.  But I remain hopeful that it's on the way.