April 2, 2008

Okay, I wasn't going to complain about garbage but really...

You know you threw that particular box away, after you bought the Shark vacuum cleaner (as well as that Delissio pizza and those eggs). Just because the garbage guys didn't pick them up for whatever reason, doesn't mean you can look the other way every time you pass by them, lying by the side of the road. It was your garbage the first time and until it's gone for good, I think it's still your garbage. So please pick it up and try to throw it away again. Thank you.

Also, now that they've banned smoking on OC Transpo premises, we get this yuk factor. Butt buckets anyone?

Okay, back to the no complaining, especially as it was ultra beautiful yesterday. We've gone back into the deep freeze today, especially with the wind chill, but yesterday it was plus 13C and sunny and a joy to be out. Oddly, the construction site was empty, devoid of human life.

This sidewalk is covered in the kind of sticky mud that clings to your shoes and then builds, mud upon mud. Best to use the one on the other side of the road for now.

There's not even a pretense that people want to keep skating. Winter is over and we want spring!

I wonder if the bark on this bush has been stripped by hungry rabbits? I'd have to examine it more closely to be sure. But why only this one and not the ones beside it, I wonder?

It had rained all morning but when the sun came out later, it was a nice contrast to the lingering dark clouds. They were being pushed out of the way in a hurry by the stiff winds.

I noticed the usual lake of melt water in the middle of this part of the bike path. I think I'll have to avoid walking there for a while.

And they shoved so much snow out of the way, so many times, that they broke this fence at the transit station. One of the many casualties of winter.

February 11, 2008

It's always about the weather, these days. Today started out with a windchill of minus 29C so I dressed for it. Strategic layers, leg warmers, warmest mitts, a headband under the hat. I didn't carry my camera thinking, what's the use, the batteries would get too cold to work. As I turned onto the bike path and into the wind, I shielded my face from its sting with my hand. My eyes teared up and I closed them to narrow slits. Then I noticed a small brown puff of fuzz beside the path. I thought it must be a pompon fallen off something and took a step past it. Then I stopped and turned back, because I had seen the fur move in the wind, without the object itself being moved.

It was right in the junction of the vertical wall of snow and the path, as sheltered as it could be from the wind, without being really sheltered. I stooped to look more closely at it and realized it was a vole. I couldn't see the tail or evidence of the nose but that's what it was. I thought it must have frozen to death in the cold and felt a pang of sympathy for the poor, wee thing. I reached down to pick it up and it came to life! The creature tried to escape away from the snow bank and toward my feet, burrowing under the arch of one boot. I steered him back to the bank and he tried burrowing in there, little bare pink feet scrabbling. Bare feet!

I could see he wasn't going to make much headway, so I took my foot and stepped a hole in the snow about a foot off the path. The snow was about a foot deep there and I wiggled my foot at the bottom to try to get near the grass. Then I scooped the vole up against the snow bank wall and steered him toward the hole I had formed. He plopped down into the hole and began digging down at the bottom of it. I have hopes that he made himself a better shelter and can chew on some stems of grass until it warms up a little.