Kids, pumpkins, blue skies

 I know my long-term readers ca appreciate where the years have gone. Aster (gr. 11) had a PD day last week, and went to visit Jordan at Queen's University. They had a blast. Jordan is on the Dean's list for high marks in year two of Astrophysics. He's working and playing hard. 

Jordan took Aster to classes. Aster liked the Timbits!

"The Present and Future of High-energy Neutrino Astronomy."

A healthy food bowl for dinner! Aster took the bus there and back, and had a grand time.

I visited our local farm, and bought some gourds and pumpkins. This swan gourd is quite something!

I had to go into town, and on my way home...

Crumbly Acres didn't crumble!

What a deep freeze it has been. The skies have been interesting.

Sunset Dec. 6 from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Listen for the clacking of the ice on the trees, after which we had 6 cm of snow.

ice stuck to the trees from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

The skies were lovely as I worked on fixing the Crumbly Acres camera. The app told me that there wasn't a memory card. I knew it wasn't true, but that it was likely just frozen. The app is on my laptop, and I hauled that out in the rain. 

Trying to reboot it did not help. Our came the hex screw driver, the small screwdriver, and the step ladder. Up I went. 

Crumbly Acres camera repairs from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

 Well, that was a relief. We melted, and it was gentle. Lots of branches have bounced back. This was the first day. 

Doesn't that look better?! 

Then, the front yard! Dec. 9th, then Dec. 10th it was gone.

See him in the garden?! He after another bunch of candytuft plants. 

And the backyard. This branch worried us, but it lifted after the snow and ice melted.

Stormy, cloudy, and sunny skies!

July 12th – That was a most peculiar day, with rain on and off. Clouds would roll in, I'd retreat into the house and then head back out.

I am reminded of my favourite cloud photo, this was over Bracebridge quite a few years ago.

Rolf wrote in Twitter:

The YOW airport reported a wind gust of 141 km/h at 1:52pm today. That would be the fastest wind ever recorded at the airport. I'm not convinced that it's accurate; but there are power outages in the area so ...

 Ottawa had some power outages!

Kingston got it bad, lots of lightning strikes. We only had a few, but lots of rain.

I love a good storm!

clouds from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

storm from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Later, a plane went overhead. I wondered where it was headed and if it missed the storms.

It was a relief to get rain. It's been a bit spotty. I haven't had to water, though.

The skies are horrific in Ukraine. 

I've been watching the skies over Ukraine, and the Black Sea. The US, and NATO are patrolling overhead. This is comforting, although Ukrainians are suffering so much, I don't know what can be done. 

The kids, now in Athens, are doing the tourist thing! Their photos are amazing. I picked a couple from the family photo stream that fit my theme of skies.

After the storm...we went into town

Hubby needed some more supplements (calcium, etc.) in Carleton Place. When we left, it was a lovely, sunny part of the day. That soon changed.

We tootled on up to Almonte for bird seed and stuff for our lonely robin. Yes, it's quite common to have robins here in southern Ontario, but normally in groups. Our red-breasted buddy is on his lonesome.

Bob suggested a suet with meal worms and fruit in it. Also, dried mealworms. I'll keep you posted.

First, there have been lots of these wide loads along the way. They travel highway #7, stopping at Penny's overnight in Perth. Lots of motels, and large parking spaces, methinks.

Wednesday, Feb. 17th

The radar looked sinister, to me, but hubby is the driver and the wannabe weather forecaster...
You can see in the following photos what the radar begat! First hail, then more snow. It was rather pretty. I post these, not that they are spectacular, but I might sketch them later.