Not So White Right Now

After doing a pretty big rearrangement of snow last week, it is completely gone again - excpet for little patches in the woods.

However, the sunrise this morning may mean that more snow is on the way. Those sailors sure knew how to read it "Red sky in the morning - sailors take warning." And my iphone weather app says snow for the next three days.

Hopefully that will mean a white Christmas here, which will look more like this.

The ice is still not in all the way, but that reflection of the sunrise was on a thin sheet of ice, not water, this morning. With all the fluctuations in the temperatures, the lake is freezing in quite beautiful patterns. Swirls and curls, especially around the warm springs. The ducks were still landing on the open water up until last week.

Gone are the days when we had an early freeze and could make a skating rink for the break between Christmas and New Years. And there certainly won't be any bonfires on the ice for New Year's Eve this year.

Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday season - white or green as it may be - and a happy and healthy 2013.

I will share more seasonal pics with you after we get some more white stuff.

Winter Wonderland

Well, it's here!! For a few days, we have been getting flurries that have stayed around.
This was a few days ago.

This was this morning. The Christmas lights on the railing were on, it was so dark. The sun is trying to poke through now. The trees look very beautiful.

The forecast is for 7 degrees on Sunday, so don't know how long this will stick around.

White Stuff This Morning

We awoke to white stuff this morning. The earliest we have personally witnessed in the nearly 20 years coming here. The next earliest was November 5th in about 1995.

It didn't last long. And it was predicted. But it was still a bit of a shock and a remind of what is to come.

And if those leaves weren't already a big mess yesterday, the sure are now!!!

Send in the Leaf Elves, Please.

There are only two months on Salmon Lake that are not beautiful. The first day of one of them is today. The other one falls between January and March and traditionally has just too much snow - we will see what happens this year.

It turns out that we didn't quite escape the wrath of Super Storm Sandy. The winds that came were strong enough to bring down the last of the leaves - as well as the power for nearly 24 hours. Wiring in the generator was definitely one of the smartest decision we have made.

The rain that followed Sandy has been with us ever since, which means that the leaves are all sitting there, too wet to move. And I swear there are more of them every year.....

Below is the view out the window that has repeated for days and days and days. Hopefully the sun that is forecast for the weekend will arrive and dry out things enough for us to get busy.

Leaving the rakes outside the front door at night just doesn't seem to be working. Those Elves must be busy somewhere else.

What a Colour Show.

The leaves this year are incredible!! I can't remember if they were this beautiful last year, but I don't think so. And each day they change - you can almost see the colours change daily.

Two recent road trips to Huntsville and to McKeller along the smaller roads were a neck wrenching experience. Absolutely stunning. And our road is not to shabby either.

Here are some pictures from the road on our walk today. Enjoy, especially if you aren't coming here for Thanksgiving to see them for yourself.

The Colours are Coming

After such a dry summer, it will be interesting to see what the colours are like this year. Certainly, we have been getting a few chilly nights and, although there isn't much going on around our bay, they are starting to show up along the road.

And you don't have to go too far on the highway to see leaves a lot further along. I took this shot from the car on Saturday to capture those golds and oranges against that ominous sky.  I was in and out of rain all day, as you can see from the droplets on the windshield.

A trip to Newmarket yesterday was very colourful: beautiful sumac and all the gorgeous reds and orange maples well under way. If you are driving up here this weekend, you will see great colour. Hopefully it will wait for those who are coming for a northern Thanksgiving.

Another Summer Mostly Done

And what a summer it was!! For those of you who spent time here, you know that the weather was incredible. Those endless hot days were wonderful for swimming, but not so great for the lake and the flora on the rocks. I hope all the trees that turned prematurely at the end of July come back again next year.

The lake level is the lowest that we remember in the 20 years that we have been here. Thank heavens for a few good rains in September, but we will need a lot more - plus a lot of snow this winter to get us back up to where we should be.

The September rhythm has begun with days that go up into the low 20's and then down to perfect sleeping temperatures in the night. The water temperature is still around 20, which is where it has been since the middle of August. The brave and hearty are still venturing in.

I have some incredible photos to share that were taken by one of the lake cottager's sons. He gave me permission to post them, so I am thrilled to be able to put them in my blog. I think he has a gift, which I wish I did. Thank you James for sharing.

Now that the fall is here, and you aren't, I will probably post more frequently. It seems redundant to do so when you are here seeing everything I do. And now that you have seen these shots, I will have to raise the bar on my photography, for sure.

Enjoy the fall. I'm sure before we know it, the foliage will be very colourful and definitely worth sharing.

August Eve

I'm not inclined to post when so many of you are here, which explains the gap since the last post. You already know what is going on. But I have a few things to share, especially on the heels of an email I received from George today.

For those of you who haven't been here, I can't remember it being this dry in the 20 years we have been here.  That's partly due to the fact that we haven't had any rain in over a month!!! And we didn't have as much snow as usual this past winter either. Trees are dying along the road at an alarming rate. The grass is brown and crunchy and the lake level is at a record low. There is a total fire ban in place and even with that, there have been a couple of big fires in the last week.

The other thing to note is that George and Eva have identified an invasive plant at a neighbour's cottage. It is called a Giant Hogweed and here is a picture of it - with Eva providing scale.

Here is a link that George sent with more information about it. http://www.tdc.ca/gianthogweed.htm
and here is a little description from the site

Giant hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum) is an invasive plant species that has gone viral in more ways than one. It looks like an overgrown Queen Anne's Lace, reaching up to 15 feet tall, but it can cause phytophotodermatitis, a chemical reaction on skin due to sun exposure.

If you have seen any, they need to be removed by professionals since they are quite dangerous. This is the information that George got from Bruce Gibbon about removal.

If it’s on township land a call to the  township will look after it. If it’s private then it’s the responsibility of the land owner. Commercial operators like Weed Man will remove it. There is also a local independent, Dick Gardner, 705 3750728 who can deal with it properly.

This will be one of the things we will be discussing at the AGM on Saturday, August 4th at noon at Tim and Linda Moore's, 285 Salmon Lake Road. Don't forget to bring your cup and your chair.

Can Plants Smile?

I don't really know the answer to that question, but after this rainy weekend, they all looked a lot happier to me.

It has been raining on and off since Friday, complete with high winds and a power outage Friday afternoon, but the rest of the weekend was just right for staying inside with reading, knitting or whatever else you do in the quiet times.

Sprinkle by sprinkle, everything got greener and more lush. If there was any doubt that we were in "full foliage",  it's gone now. Here are a few pics I took along the way.

Sorry for the less frequent postings, but I figure you will all be here soon anyway.

At last, green on the septic.

Rick in a green shirt with all the other green.

Blossoms on the berry bushes.

Very happy ferns.

The view down the road - nearly a canopy.

Thoughtful plantings along the roadside.

Raindrops on this ball of grass.

The woods have  completely filled in.

Devil's paintbrushes in red and yellow.

Thirsty no more.

Big moose tracks on the straightaway. Should have put my foot in for scale. 

 

 

Trilliums Trilliums Trilliums

Every day they have been popping up - literally. Now they look like giant pieces of popcorn in the woods. And they are everywhere!!

   This big stretch of them is on the Otter Lake side of the road, just past the portage

 and it seems to stretch on forever.

Yep, the Dog Tooth Violets are all done. The Trillium is definitely the feature flower of the week.

Up next - the Purple Violet and the Strawberry Blossom.

Deer Tracks, Daffodils and those Damn B-flies

The weather has been up and down since the last post, but things are continuing to grow. Although the leaves are a bit behind the city ones (we were there yesterday), I think they will catch up. And we did get some much-needed rain.

Here is what last Sunday looked like.

The rest of the week hasn't been that beautiful, but I took some pics on our walks. So many deer tracks that I knew I would see some on the road and sure enough on Wednesday night, two big doe(s) were on the road, right where the most tracks were. Since I was expecting them, I was going very slowly.

The dog tooth violets are probably at their peek right now and there are patches of them everywhere -  in the woods, on the road. It seems odd that I haven't seen so many of them before. They do bring back such fond childhood memories.

As to the Damn B-flies, there is no nice picture! Wednesday was the first day that they were gathering around my face. Ugh. But hopefully with all these ups and downs in temperature, they won't last long.

Spring is Sprouting Everywhere

On our walk this afternoon, there were so many signs of spring, I snapped a few to share.

 There is a definite green cast to the woods as you walk along, mostly due to all these buds, I think.

These freckled leaves are everywhere and I am pretty sure they are Dog Tooth Violets, which I used to pick in bunches for my mom when I was growing up in NB

First perfect dandelion - what would spring be without them!

 Sure enough - they ARE Dog Tooth Violets - finally found one!!

Even the Trilliums are coming up - by the middle of next week, I'm pretty sure the woods will be peppered (or should I say salted) with them.

It's so much fun to walk and see the changes each day.

Oh, and the loons are here - or at least one of them.