The Wiccan’s Backyard

Post Cards from Durham, Part ii

Today we are looking at McGowan Falls.

“McGowan Falls. First dam and mill established 1847. Royal Can. Legion Br. 308 Durham dedicate lighting of McGowan Falls to the memory of Arthur McGowan 1st president of Durham Br. R.C.L.” In case you don’t have Legions in your country, those are places where veterans and their well-wishers get together to swap old stories and toast special occasions: wedding anniversaries; retirements; new grandchildren; Tuesday.

Pretty dam. Chilly! (I hope you’re not reading this aloud to anyone. ) You can walk right over the dam in good weather; there are gates at either end that shut for the winter.

And here is McGowan Falls itself. The far top right of this picture continues from the far middle left of the previous one. Hmm, ice cold, a nice head of foam on the yellow-tinted liquid. That sight would have me thinking about the Legion, that’s for sure.

Post Cards from Durham, Part i

Durham, Ontario, is a community of about 2500 people in Grey County, 25 miles south of Owen Sound. E.g. and I were up there for a day in mid-December. Here are three photos, with three more to come in tomorrow’s posting.

1. This is a mural on the main street. The banner reads, “Remembering Saugeen Country Our Heritage” . The many-branched Saugeen River runs throughout Grey County; E.g. and I took a two-day canoe trip on part of it a few years ago. The legend beneath the cameo identifies the sideburned gentleman as “Archibald Hunter, the Founder of Durham.” What I really like about this mural is its trompe-l’oeil effect; even the crooked parking sign seems to blend in with the split-rail fence.

2. There is a malicious rumour, started by some anonymous turtle, that there has been no eavestrougher in the region for about five years now. If you’re skilled in the trade and between jobs, now is your chance.

No such luck if you repair televisions for a living, however; when the reception gets bad, people around here just call the Saugeen Conservation Authority.

Wiarton Willie — or Won’t He?

Groundhog Day today. If the groundhog sees his shadow, we get six more weeks of winter. If he doesn’t, Spring is just around the corner.

Well, Wiarton Willie saw his shadow. Sigh. I’m going back to bed; see you on March 15.

Beach Babies

The yellow-sailed windsurfer to the right of the ball gives a sense of scale.

It was all the way up to plus four (39°F) today, so E.g. and I took the dogs to Cherry Beach.

We hadn’t been there since the Autumn. I had been afraid that Cai would plunge right into the frigid water and get sick. We needn’t have worried, however; the lake was solid ice between Cherry Beach and the Leslie Street Spit.

There were, in fact, three young men out there parasurfing. We’ve watched people do this before, skipping along the waves harnessed to a banana-peel-shaped parachute, but we’d never considered that this could be a winter sport. The adventurers were criss-crossing the ice at a tremendous pace.

Not only was there that entertainment, but the sun was actually shining! It took us a moment to remember the name of it. “What’s that thing in the sky? It’s too early for the street lights to be on.”

We walked around the snow-covered beach three times, about 15 minutes per round. Cai and Fergus rushed here and there, meeting other dogs of various sorts, including a Vizsla named Dexter. E.g. asked me about the lyrics to an old camp song, “Kumula, kumula, kumula vizsla”. I said I didn’t know.

On the final round, we made the mistake of telling the boys that we were now heading for the car. That’s when Fergus, chaser of all things moving, finally noticed the parasurfers. Off he went like a dart.

Cai wasn’t too sure what to do. He’s been repeatedly told off for intercepting Fergus’s fun, and besides, the pup was already fifteen lengths ahead of him. He looked at us, he looked at Fergus’s retreating tail, he whined a little.

Then the solution came to us. We called each of our furchildren by name, in the nicest, loudest sing-song voice possible, once. Then we ran in the opposite direction, as hard as we could go, with Cai at our heels.

Fergus never made it onto the ice. He screeched to a halt in front of me, his whole body quivering with pride at having caught me so quickly.

Four Photos for Four Friends

This is the fourth in a series of six entries presenting photos dedicated to blogfriends. Tomorrow, Saturday, will be devoted to six road signs and why those signs remind me of various bloggers; the final post, on Sunday, will contain one photo for one blogfriend. If, by the end of Sunday, you haven’t been represented and you’re on my blogroll, you’d better speak up!

Today’s pix are all moody or metaphorical or symbolic or something. And each one is dedicated to a dogperson.

We begin with this one:

This photo is for that blue-eyed beauty of a Cardigan Corgi, Checkers. I chose it for two reasons: First, Checkers has been working on getting his driver’s license. This picture shows a transport truck. If you work up to your A-Z license, Checkers, you could make money as a long-distance truck driver, with plenty of room for ham sandwiches in the back. Second, Checkers’s Personal Assistant’s wife is francophone. Here are two nice big Quebec flags, the proud symbol of “Ici on parle français” (French spoken here) . If you squint a bit, you might notice that even the sign on the gas station says ”libre service” instead of “self-serve”.

Next is a snapshot for James Viscosi, writer of spooky novels and blogger of Dennis the Vizsla.

This one’s moody, mysterious, tingling with hidden dangers. What’s buried under that lump of snow? Is there another sign after the visible one, or is it a bull moose emerging just in time to total the car? And did we forget to turn left at Albaquerque?

Third up is a picture for Eyegillian, she of the Unwound Road:

Look, Eyegillian! Regarde, ma copine! The sun is finally emerging. There is a bend in the road. It’s curving and sloping gently into a valley, just out of view. Let’s  keep driving; who knows what wonder we might see there?

And the answer is… here in Shelley’s photo…

I don’t know how good your French is, Shelley, but you might want to memorize this sign for next time you take the Cardis to a Quebec dog show: “Cheese factory and shop, 10 miles.” Let’s go, woo-hoo! On y va, youppi!

Dogs love cheese. We love dogs. It all makes sense somehow.

One for Gina, One for Pennycat, and One for Seabrooke

We continue our series of snapshots dedicated to blogfriends. But we begin at the beginning of the photos, all of which were shot on the same day. Today’s selection shows what we saw out the window when we woke up on the final morning of our three-day car trip to Saint John.

We had stayed at the Comfort Inn, our favourite motel (reasonable rates, consistent quality, usually accepts pets, lower floor has sliding glass door for quick potties ) . It had just begun to snow in Rivière-du-Loup when we had pulled up at 4 pm. The BIG SNOW. We had watched the weather channel that evening, in awe that we had driven just ahead of the closure of a long strip of the main (main? the only! ) highway.

When we had brought our luggage in through the sliding glass door before supper, the sidewalk was clear. We woke up to this:

This picture’s for you, Gina. I must tell you that the snow was light and fluffy, quite easy to brush off the car. It was, however, almost up to my knees, so I’m thinking of the view Mandy and Tuffy would have had (and Patrick and Jackson, if their mum is reading this) :

“Oh, Mama, you can’t be serious!”

But never fear, little puppies, rescue is at hand. Looking slightly to the right, we could see this scene:

Let’s zoom in a little, shall we? This one’s for Pennycat, who lo-oves tractors.

You can ignore the tarped-over cabin cruisers across the road if you’d like, Pennycat. Although the town of Rivière-du-Loup means “Wolf River” (romantic name!) , it is situated on a much larger river: the Saint Lawrence. Hence the boat store.

Okay, that’s straight ahead, to the right — what did we see on the left? Our room was at the far end of the building, so we were lucky to have a view of a shrubbery:

Not much of a photo or scene, with its flash on the window and pile of dirty snow. But this is Seabrooke’s picture, and here’s why:

The wind was howling, the snow was swirling, and here she was, this little House Sparrow, riding the rocking branch and (I suppose) breakfasting on dried berries.

One for Livingisdetail

As stated in yesterday’s entry, E.g. and I drove to her parents’ place for Christmas this year. Technically, that’s false: a few years after obtaining my license in a small village, I became an impecunious city dweller. I let my license lapse, and have never gained the confidence to re-do the driver’s test in an urban setting. In truth, then, E.g. drove to her parents’ place while I played with the camera in the passenger seat.

This explains in part why the drive from Toronto, Ontario to Saint John, New Brunswick took three days.

Today’s photo is for Livingisdetail, because she likes going on road trips. From her home in Melbourne, she’ll head out to little towns and villages in the countryside, examining evidence of Australia’s pioneer past. I’ve chosen this photo to show her what to expect on a road trip in Canada the morning after a 20-centimetre snowfall.

This is a snow plough, a nice, heavy-duty one with two blades. Having rediscovered the macadam, it is now clearing the shoulder. Out the back, it spews sand and salt.

The driver has been working since 5 a.m., but its lights are still on mid-morning — as are everyone else’s — because of the reduced visibility caused by the blowing snow. The car is hoping to pass it. We’re in the car’s way. Five vehicles on a ten-mile stretch, and four of them are meeting here. You might also have noticed the yellow diamond-shaped sign on the right, which is warning drivers, “Caution: deer crossing.”

Northern New Brunswick: it’s a happenin’ place.

One for Huckleberry

E.g. and I drove to Saint John, New Brunswick and back over the winter holidays. We had a very nice visit with her parents. Over the next few days, I’m going to share a few photos, and dedicate them to blogfriends. Just for fun.

Today’s photo is of a bird. It was moving fairly quickly when I took this shot. I wasn’t actually concentrating on the bird; I just thought it would add a bit of interest to the highway picture.

 

When I zoomed in on the photo tonight, I wondered. Could this be a Bald Eagle? We didn’t even know there were any Bald Eagles down east until we saw one on our drive home. Whatever it is, it’s definitely a raptor. Or maybe a raven. Or possibly a crow. Or a blue jay with attitude. What do you make of it, Huckleberry?

Fat Flakes

We’re having a bit of a snowstorm. It started as minuscule rod-shaped flakes, as though the gods were in a lousy mood and had dissected all the six-pointed beauties.

That began before breakfast. Now, in early afternoon, the snow has changed to teeny-tiny balls. I grabbed the camera to show you the spherical ones lying on the more nondescript snow.

The first photo has been brightened, and the second one darkened. I find that if I tip my laptop’s screen, certain angles bring out the roundness of the fat flakes.

The Inuit would have a better word for it, but I’ve always called this round style “laundry detergent snow” .

You can easily see the big ball-shaped flakes on the top of the finer snow.

A close-up. Not the greatest photo, but you get the idea.