It's snowball snow!

When the world gives you lemons, make lemonade!

SnowJester and SnowQueen!

I love the changes in weather. I love the four seasons. After yet another 5 - 10 cm of snow, I figured out it was snowball snow! Today it is -15 C. and I hope they freeze well!

It was 4 C. Sunday afternoon, and it had been snowing all day. Out I went to shovel the front walk. We had snow forecasted to last until 9 p.m. but after doing the sidewalk the snow called to me.

The crazy thing was after I finished my snow pair, I realized the snow on the driveway was getting deep and I ended up doing the driveway with the snowblower. Great exercise.
My biceps are getting pretty tough, and I'm not doing any handweights these days!

I like making snow critters. After 25 years of yard duty, I really didn't learn much about them. I spent too much time trying to stop fights.

I loathed the arguments, though, how kids will build one during one recess, and then other kids rush out and try to take it over during the next.

Then there were the snowball fights. Every principal outlawed the dreaded snowball.  There were no end of kids who couldn't resist. In some middle school kids had to write a 500-word essay about the dangers of snowballs if caught doing the deed.

Snowman 2010

In another school, the custodian made the kids a target, up against the fence. It was brilliant. It channeled their need to throw, play, keep active, and meant no snow in someone's eyes. I remember kids going to the ER with a snowball that contained a stone. A shame kids have to me like that.

But back to my efforts. The kids know how to do it! They get buddies to help. I wish I'd taken photos of those days! I keep making the first one too big.

2011

Last year, I made a huge first ball, wrestling it along the yard. Then the second one, to be in the right proportion, is REALLY big and I cannot lift it up. I figured out that if I split the next one I could lift it up half a piece at a time!
She melted and I made a time-lapse movie from photos!

Death of a Snowman
The pros go out and film tornadoes, hurricanes, crespular clouds, sunsets, macrophotos of bugs... These are my PlantCam photos of my latest (2011) and best snowman. May s/he rest in peace. I am loathe to put copyrighted music to it, you may hum Mozart's Requiem, or other dirge, at will!

2009

2009 SnowAlien

This one was fun. It was 2009 when we lived beside the lake. I ended up putting solar-powered lights on it as ears on one. It looked great from up at the house in the dark.

When we lived by the lake, the ice proved to be another source of creative fun. One year I made sculptures of the ice!

Docktails after my hard work!

National Hockey League lockouts

I was secretly relieved when the NHL locked out the players. I know many enjoy it. But I am not one of them. Stephen Lewis says 'It's always easier being a critic, and to denounce.' Yet, I've seen more harm done in schools in the name of team spirit than anything else. A I wrote previously, Let's go back to a time when pick-up, shinny rinks made the sport affordable and fun. This is what Hockey Day is all about!

I do not like hockey. I don't watch hockey, except in the case of an Olympic game, which holds to a higher standard than the NHL. I loathe the Enforcers. The Summer 2011 deaths of enforcers, from head trauma, has led to journalists like Roy MacGregor to write of them. His summary of the latest game was telling. Unacceptable.

I loathe the Canadian juniors who played in the way of the NHL, with more penalties than goals.
"Canada's junior hockey team has to avoid penalty box: Coach"
Some blamed anything but too many penalties and fighting, with our player suspended for 4 games:
Canada's travel to the tournament was the most arduous since Moscow hosted the event in 2001. Hockey Canada had a comprehensive plan to deal with jet lag and travel fatigue.

We live in a country where diet, nutrition, high level training, and a high standard of living ensures that our athletes are well-taken care of. In fact, some report sitting in a waiting room for an MRI booked months ago, only to see someone like an NHL player waltz past them.
Having lived in Muskoka, we heard many tales of out of control NHL cottage owners, in their $2 - 3 million summer homes. What a world where the Ontario government attacks its teachers, yet hockey players, who flip a puck into a net, are worshipped and followed.

Russia, however, is improving in their treatment of its citizens. Their players, who live and play in North America, are learning how to play. But they lower themselves to the lowest common denominator, rather than a good, clean game.

Yes, I was secretly glad they were locked out. I had hoped that we would hear, see, read, news reports of other sports. Sports so little covered in Canada, with amateur women who continue to play their favourite games while holding down full-time jobs. No more than small headlines as women continue to race to fantastic positions on podiums.

Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport ...

On yard duty!

the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport is in business to encourage girls and women to get out of the bleachers, off the sidelines

Some things have changed. While teaching, my girls began to be much more active. It was a gradual change over 25 years teaching gym and doing yard duty.
We are finding Canadian women sports heroes:

• Soccer's Christine Sinclair named CP female athlete of the year

Little about Christine Sinclair's brilliant performance at the London Olympics came as a surprise to her teammates. - December 28, 2012 ....More

Buster and Daisy - a peaceful Yin Yang nap

It was peaceful until I woke Daisy up!
Buster with his paw around her.

Yin and Yang

Then Dorah arrived and began to alternately lick and bite her big brother.

Then Buster returned the favour: first you bite, then you groom. Daisy went back to sleep.
Then Dorah jumped on the peacefully sleeping Diasy.

Buster is going to be 2 years old at the end of March. Daisy and Dorah were born sometime in August, the vet doesn't know exactly when or where. Buster is the best foster brother ever. Big sister, Sady, also a rescue cat, isn't really happy with her siblings.

CC #248

Sady dreams of spring
when everyone else goes out to play

She glares at them from the window!

Wolves escape Haliburton wildlife reserve through vandalism

What a horrible thing to do. You'd like to think that it is ignorance, rather than something stupid like pure vandalism, but I wonder. Stupidity is the active pursuit of ignorance. What are people thinking? There are reasons why the wolves are there, they cannot exist in the wild.

The Wolf Reserve owner writes about this Criminal Wolf Pack release. Criminal, indeed. It is a well-orchestrated event, with vandals opening both the inside and the outside enclosures, cutting holes for the wolves to escape in a place where staff couldn't observe the actions.

Two Arctic Wolves – sisters – needed to be to be
taken in by Aspen Valley from another centre
facing bankruptcy
- or they would be euthanized. 

The reserve’s owner, Peter Schleifenbaum, believes the vandals are animal rights activists or “individuals with a similar zeal to ‘liberate’ captive animals.”

It could well be true. But such stupidity. I visited Aspen Valley Wildlife Reserve last year. I learned a lot. All of the animals were born in captivity, and needed to live in captivity. Some were abused, others couldn't be cared for or released into the wild.

Zoe Coyote at Aspen Valley

These wolves at the Haliburton Reserve (see their photos), for example, are fed dead carcasses. It takes skill to track, hunt, and take down a 150 lb. deer. They don't have these skills. We have a neighbourhood wolf that dragged off roadkill into the forest. I imagine if it were easier to take down a deer, it wouldn't have chosen a three-day-old carcass.

A hunter, who had been using Mama bear
 to train dogs how to attack bears,
had her front claws and eyeteeth removed
so she was unable to defend herself.

These things almost always end badly. One of Haliburton Forest's staff noticed a bloody dragmark down the hill, about 200 meters north of the Wolf Centre. They found a cartridge and hair, and they believe that sometime that day Haida, the alpha male of the pack, was shot, killed, and taken away by a motorist. How shameful. Schliefenbaum, and his staff, is trying desperately to get the animals back into the enclosure. It's not easy.
The history of this wolf pack is interesting. Almost always there is a story. No one want to keep these wild animals if they have any understanding or concern for them. They are wild animals. Aspen Valley's critters all have horribly sad stories, and they reintroduce them to the wild, when possible. These licenced facilities exist on donations. They don't do this for fun, but out of a love of animals.

Another sanctuary: Bear With Us Sanctuary and Rehabilitation Centre for Bears

See www.bearwithus.org

Awareness and Understanding can save the life of a bear. This page is for educational use. Allowing people the opportunity to "Understand Bears." https://www.facebook.com/Understanding.Bears .

Eurasian Lynx, Banshee, used in a movie,
no longer needed, her new owner couldn't care for her,
they were going to put her down.
Aspen Valley took her in.

This isn't the only time people have done this. I wrote in November, 2008, about Fallow Deer Reserve, near Kingston. They had someone vandalize their fence and shoo their 13 rescued deer outside of the pen. A damn shame during hunting season, especially. Their stories are told here:

• In memory of Ty
• Dandy, born 2000 - died November 23, 2008
• EGee eases back!
• Moki's love story
• Ty, born 2002? - died Nov. 10, 2008
• Gulliver is back home!
• George returns home! This one's for Tasha & Kelly

SAINTS is an end-of-life B.C. sanctuary for senior and special needs animals that have nowhere else to go.

SAINTS 2012 720

www.youtube.com

www.saintsrescue.ca MISSION STATEMENT We are an end-of-life sanctuary for senior and special needs animals that have nowhere else 

I took a wetland walk with snowshoes

I sank up to my knees
-even wearing snowshoes!

The snow is deep. The bog isn't frozen, but the snowshoes keep me up high. There are tracks all over crisscrossing as the deer, wolf, coyotes all make their way. Thank goodness for my snowshoes!

The precious wetland, protected with snow!
Underneath, plants, reptiles, amphibians, fish sleep!

In summer, bog plants thrive,
floating water lilies

And for a comparison!

Here is the meadow now, and in summer!   

Nothing better than grandchildren!

Up the sidewalk they come!

We dressed up as robots!

We celebrated Christmas on New Year's Eve!Don't peek, Gramma!
 The kittens are so tired!
Out for some winter fun and a play in the tree house!
 

Buster chases the turkeys...again!

Wild turkeys fly from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.
Buster Brown chased the turkeys away today, New Year's Eve. One flew up over the house! What a character! He is about 10 lbs., they have to be triple that, with 4" wide sharp claws, but it's all in your attitude! We walk in the forest together in the snow. He's been teaching his siblings to catch mice, climb trees, climb on furniture. He is their playmate and pillow!