March 26, 2008

We're finally getting a whiff of Spring here.

I took this photo of the construction site early in the morning when the light was low and golden. It was still minus 12C that morning but the sun was strong.

This is a slightly different view of the site, showing the progress that is being made. I'm still surprised that they are using 2x4 construction in the walls, but then, I don't know what they are using for floors.

All winter, they've been plowing some of the paths off to one side. Now we have to walk through mud.

This also shows me that when people pave where people have worn a path, they often make a more "artistic" path and don't go where people (and plows) naturally tend go. Of course, they may have just wanted to make the path cross the street at right angles to make it safer.

This photo shows how much the snow has melted under its own steam, so-to-speak. Plows and shovels don't go into this centre island and so any snow that fell on it, stays on it. At one point, you couldn't see the top of the stylized "N" that holds the Nepean bell but now you can see quite a lot of it.

This is the snow bank near the Centrepointe Theatre, which faces roughly west. It hadn't started to melt yesterday morning when I took this picture but it is dripping today!

March 17, 2008

Not much green on St. Patrick's Day, except for what people were wearing. Nice sunshine though, even if it was unseasonably cold at minus 14C this morning. Ouch.

On the weekend, you could really see that things were melting nicely but you only see bare pavement if it had been scraped earlier. The city is still working at removing snow banks and probably will be until summer.

We passed this dog and his owner out for a walk. He is not even a year old - a great big puppy. I think his name was Meiko. He was lovely.

The construction is proceeding. More foundations are going in and the Stone Slinger was there, slinging stones. This one building now has some structure above the foundations. I see they are using what looks like proper safety barriers at the edge of the top level. I learned about them during the "Fall Prevention Course" that I took at Safety Training Inc..

Speaking of falling, someone has dug out the storm drain at the base of the snow mountain where everyone walks every day, to get into and out of the 'hood. There was a huge puddle there and so it's good that it is draining now. But that first step is a whopper! It is actually about 4 feet off the ground, if you are standing on the storm drain, trying to get over into our neighbourhood.

Thankfully, some intrepid souls have stomped out some new foot prints in the snow bank to the side and so I can take a short detour and still use this path. Not for long however, as once it starts to melt in earnest, everything will crumble. I just don't want to be standing four feet off the ground when it decides to give way.

March 14, 2008

The Equinox is almost here! And this morning I heard the Cardinal singing again.

I snapped a photo out the back, upstairs window with full (albeit limited) telephoto on. Then I cropped it to make him as big as I could. (If you hear a Cardinal, and they are the loudest birds around here, look up because they like to sit in the very tops of trees.)

He's all pixilated but he still looks lovely to me.

On the way to work this morning, I saw that the snow banks had started to crumble in onto the sidewalks. I suppose I cannot complain because there are places that don't have clean sidewalks at all.

I also noticed yesterday that the fire hydrant that would service the houses in my area has not been uncovered. I knew approximately where it was but couldn't remember exactly.

Here is what the island with the two trees on it looks like. The hydrant is somewhere in the middle, or so I thought.

So I looked through some old photos and here is the puppy we raised for Guide Dogs, not interested in the hydrant but showing where it is. If you compare the two pix, you will see where one would have to dig to find it. I think there must be at least 3 feet of snow on top of it but because it is at the back of the island and near the car that isn't coming out until Spring, it will be difficult to dig out. I was going to go at it with a shovel but it really has to be attacked from the road side (because the car is on the way) and that means using a small snow blower to get near it.

March 11, 2008

We're still digging out. Apparently, we had 52 cm (20 inches) of snow and with the 10 feet or so we had before this dump, there's no where to put it. And it's not melting much yet. Crews are clearing for vehicles first but there are a few spots cleared for pedestrians.

At the big intersection at Woodroffe and Navaho, where many people coming from the bus station cross to get to Algonquin College and to the College Square shopping plaza, they have done a good job clearing the way.

They haven't cleared in all directions so you may have to walk out and then over but at least you can manouever.

At the shopping centre, there are still huge piles of snow, waiting to be taken away. Where, I am not sure.

They haven't bothered to plow the bike path behind the bus station - it's not a priority. The wind was strong during the snow storm and after and the snow has drifted into pretty shapes.

Along this section of the path, I saw some nice wind-sculpted shapes yesterday. Today, they are being broken up a little by people walking along and touching them. You don't even have to bend over to touch these drifts! What you can also see is how the sun is melting whatever is left on the pavement. If you could navigate some of the snow banks, you could be riding your bike in some places.

Compare this photo to the one I took on December 17, 2007. The Nepean bell is almost completely buried now.


This is where I usually cross Centrepointe. In the past, I have complained about how they don't plow a path through the snow banks at the crosswalk. This time, there's a nice clear path but nowhere to go!

Once you cross and head south on Centrepointe, the cleared sidewalk ends abruptly and you have to walk in the road. I guess I can't have everything.

Finally, I wonder if the path between Plunkett and Castlebrook will be cleared any more this Winter. After the second last snow fall, they didn't clear it and now it looks like a lost cause. Apparently, it's not in our snow clearing contract so they have been doing it just because it's there.

However, now, we are walking about 2 feet off the ground. The main problems are negotiating the mountains at either end of the path, and going off the narrow packed path and up to your hip in snow. And hope you don't meet anyone walking the other way on the path. It's just like the good old days!

March 9, later in the morning

Even though I was pretty sure not many people would be at my class, I decided to act as if I was going anyway. I got up and had breakfast and organized myself and then spent about 20 minutes shovelling a path to the street, which itself was not yet plowed.

Nice neat path! The wind was from the East all night and our side of the quad drifted in more than the other side. That snow was about 2 feet deep and packed in. Before I took these pix, I had seen and talked with another neighbour who was out taking pictures. Right after I finished shovelling, I got the phone call that my class had been cancelled so I decided to take a few extremely local pix of my own. I didn't even get out of the quad, although I could now that they've started plowing.

I saw Robert across the way shovelling out.

I got a little closer and noticed that he didn't have Logan out with him as usual. Can you spot the dog?

There he is!

They have all the machinery out today.

John is saying, "Where are we going to put it all?!"

When John first shouted "hello!" from near the garage door, I could barely see his head above the snowbanks.

But. We still have not broken the record from 1970-71.

February 5, 2008

Someone had cleared the path at least as of this morning. I got a photo on the way home, when it was drizzling hard enough that I had my umbrella up. The freezing rain warning was finished by this morning and when I looked out and saw another 4 inches of snow, I figured it had missed us. So I shovelled the driveway and by the time I got home, it was all slippery from the drizzle. You can't win.

Over at the construction site yesterday, I noticed they were removing foundation forms and there seemed to be more foundations. I always wonder how good that concrete is going to be in the long run, when they pour it under winter conditions. But I suppose that's why they are engineers and I'm not.

February 3, 2008

We got another foot of snow on Friday, just in time for the opening weekend of Winterlude. It wasn't that cold and the fall was slow and steady so we weren't paralyzed by it or anything.

I'm glad we had that huge melt after the first storm because there really wouldn't be any place to put this fresh snow. In this parking lot, all the snow is pushed to one end and I pity the person who has the end spot.

The small mountain of snow was created anew in the College Square parking lot. They haul that snow away after a while. I note that it is mild enough that the snow on the pavement has completely melted after having been scraped clear.

When I got up close to the pile of snow, I noticed a plastic Santa on top and wondered how it got there.

This year was the first in a while where the snow clearing crew actually plowed the path between our subdivision and the next. Unfortunately, nothing has been done since Friday except to push the mound of snow up against the edge of the path.

Coming home from the store, I asked Peter to go ahead so I could get some scale.

I took this last one teetering myself on the top of the path that some intrepid humans had made over the snow pile. I wouldn't want to try to shovel it by hand now (too densely packed) but I am hoping someone may come along with a small snow blower and clear it out before too long.

December 18, 2007

The paper today said we set a new record for the most snow on one day in December, 37 cm (14 inches). We also have a record amount of snow on the ground, 75 cm (29 inches). But I haven't seen any signs of snow blowers removing snow yet. So far, the snow has just been pushed around.

At least today there is a way off the shopping mall premises and onto the street, even if you do have to walk around a little to get back on the crosswalk.

People will make a path if they always walk somewhere and this is no exception. Apparently, I rejoiced too early that they had shoveled the path between our subdivision and the next one. Now it has been blocked at our end by a wall of snow. But people have still managed to trample a narrow path and have got around the wall of snow by snaking in at the mail box where the snow has been shoveled away.

Here's how it looks from the other end.

Here is the street sign, holding its own against the pile of snow.

Thank goodness we engineer our roofs for snow load.

And here is that car! I thought it was a goner until Spring but I saw today that someone had shoveled it out.

December 17, 2007

I don't remember seeing that much snow all at once since the 70s.

This one was taken from the upstairs window (note the snow building up on the sill) in the early afternoon of the 16th. Note the car nearest the tree. They haven't driven it since the snow came, so it has a head start being buried.

This is the same car, about 6 hours later. All you can see now is the side mirror.

We went for a walk around 7pm and took several hand-held photos. The plow had been around once, to clear the streets, but nothing had been done about driveways or anything else. The bump sign warns of a speed bump but it's buried under the ton of snow.

That's your normal height street sign.

Sorry this is blurry but that's what happens with no flash. But it looks nicer than the flash. When you have a dog, you have to get out!

I am reminded of the old saying about snow on the roof.

The next day, there were no sidewalks, except where private plows had been at work. I had to walk on the street to get to the point where I could cross to a cleared sidewalk.

I've taken several photos of this tree in front of the old Nepean City Hall. The snow around it has not been piled there - that is just buildup from falling snow.

The big problem is where to put all that snow. You really have to chew it up with a snow blower, spit it into a truck and take it away to the snow dump. Here, it has been piled at one end of a very large parking lot.

This is the northeast corner of Woodroffe and Navaho and it is owned (up to the public road allowance) by the shopping centre. The centre's plows have been out and done a good job of clearing snow - up to the point where the land turns public. You can get almost all the way up to the road and then there is a three foot snowbank blocking your way. There was a "path" formed by a few foot prints in the bank so if you put your feet in the holes left by the intrepid first person, you could cross the street. But you couldn't push the walk signal buttons on the east side of Woodroffe and if you don't push them, you don't get the walk signal. So you have to take your life in your hands and run across when cars are making the left turn. Good grief.