A Winter's Walk

I took my big camera on that silly hat walk yesterday. I don't always port the big beast in winter when I am wearing cumbersome mitts and coat. But Danica had borrowed the compact camera, and I didn't fancy using the phone on that day.

I must say in passing, however, that as much as I shrug-off my phone photos, my previous phone photo (below) is receiving much attention on Flickr at the moment. It made it into Explore, and once photos are shown there, they may receive much notice. As I compose this post, it has over 3000 views and 100 faves. That is pretty satisfying for a phone photo. Here it is, one more time. A guy has to brag when he can, after all.

Although I hadn't intended it, I converted each of these new photos to b&w when I edited them. It just seemed right in each case, and, let's face it, winter can be pretty darn monochromatic, so converting to b&w often seems appropriate. 

This is the trail where we walked; I call it the Bridge Trail for short although it has a longer name. The town does plow it. I don't know why they won't plow the main paths through parks, but they don't, so this trail is a good winter option.

There was not much activity, but two people did walk walk by.
They gave me a bit of a focal point in the distance.

On just the previous night, I had been musing to myself that I could make it a project to take 48 new photos of townhall – 2 per month – this year. Forty-eight photos might sound like a lot, but 2/month should be feasible.

I wasn't looking for such a photo yesterday, but as we got to the other end of the bridge (behind where we were standing in the photo above) I decided to shoot town hall through the branches. If I do proceed with a 48 photo project, I will want some different photos, and this is one that I have never seen or taken before. I edited in almost a vintage style. I am not sure that I like it, but it is a possible beginning to the project. The photos do not have to be spectacular or print-worthy for this project. I'm not visualizing a coffee-table book after all, just a theme to explore. 

Before the walk ended, I did take one more photo, this one ↓ looking back toward the dilapidating Baines building which we had already walked past. It's a view that I couldn't capture in other seasons due to foliage, and it is a very different edit than the town hall photo. Different photos lead me in different directions.

So those my very ordinary photos from a very ordinary winter walk. Maybe if I had been able to see through my lowered cap as in yesterday's post, I would have done better. Nah.

Things That Keep Happening

We turned onto Bridge Street, which is our main street. The phone started ringing. We were only a minute from our destination, Freska for breakfast with Bob and Barb, so I ignored the phone, but we soon discovered it had been Bob calling.

As soon as we parked, Barb was banging on the window, telling us that the restaurant was closed. The last time this happened was on a Monday and that led to my post, Town Realities. In that piece I explained that this sort of thing could occur in towns — Monday closings, I mean.

Well it happened again but this time on a Friday. They were taking an extended seasonal holiday and would re-open tomorrow. We did find another restaurant: a different place than last time. That was the first thing that reoccurred. 

After a nice long chat, we headed home and got our bearings for awhile before heading out for a walk on a sunny winter day. That led to a few forgettable photos that I will likely post tomorrow, but it also led to another ridiculous hat episode: Thing 2.

It was last February that I posted Fool of a Toque when my toque rode up in a nonsensical manner. It was so ridiculous that Sue took a picture on the way home. I haven't seen the toque since then. Thanks goodness.

 

It sort of happened again, this time with a cap, but it wasn't the hat's fault on this occasion.

I was wearing a coat that leaves a little gap at the neck. The day was cold enough that I thought to cover my neck, so I grabbed a cowl-like thing, pulled it over my head and down to cover my neck. The problem soon revealed itself. The cowl was too long and so it bunched up and basically knocked my hat askew, at least it did on a day when I needed to use the ear flaps.

Sue took these pics when we got back to the car after our walk. I swear I was not hamming it up for the camera. You can see how the neck-thing knocked my earflaps up which in turn knocked the peak down. I saw a lot of ground on that walk I tell you.

Needless to say, this neck thing is going to follow the toque thing to wherever these things go after fulfilling their purpose of making me look ridiculous. As if I require any assistance in that endeavour. 

The Sticking Snow

Twenty years ago, we lived in Southwestern Ontario where we had been located for more than three decades. Sarnia was right on the Ontario-Michigan border, next to Port Huron and about one hour north of Detroit. That's how close we were.

Less than a year later we had relocated to Eastern Ontario, near Ottawa.

That winter, it snowed in time for the Santa Claus  Parade in November. Surprisingly, the snow stayed and stayed and stayed, probably until late March. In some years it has remained until April.

In Sarnia, the snow would come and the snow would go and come and go again. I never marked the coming and going because I don't think it was ever completely permanent for the whole winter. At least that it my best recollection. So winter here in Eastern Ontario was a bit of a change: a change that I have not minded, for I'd just as soon see white snow than brown grass.

The two places are only ~650km/400mi apart, but we are in different climate zones: not hugely different, but different never the less. Ottawa is also about 250km/160mi farther north in latitude, and that makes a difference. While Summer temperatures are fairly similar the January averages are quite different. At -10C/14F in January, Ottawa averages about 6C or 10F colder in January, and that is a fairly big heat difference over a whole month.

That, folks, is my long-winded (can writing have wind?) way of, eventually,  getting to a couple of photos. But first I need to beat around the bush some more by talking about sticking snow.

There is a date that changes year by year. Let's call it the sticking date. In our first year here, the snow came before the end of November and stuck until March-April. Some years, it comes and goes a little bit before it finally sticks, but there is always a day of no return, a day when has stuck for the rest of the winter. Occasionally, we have even had a green Christmas, but it has soon snowed and then stuck for almost three months shortly thereafter.

This year, the sticking day was December 01. Once the sticking day comes, the snow never quite leaves, no matter how warm or rainy it might get for a few days. 

After several days of temperatures above freezing and quite a bit of rain earlier this week, you'd think that we would have been down to grass, but this is what it still looked like from my den window. As you can see, it is still fairly thick on the lawn, despite the warmth and rain.

Of course, that is because, the blowers come around and shift snow from the driveways and pile it deep over the yards. Out back, the field on the other side of the road, where there was no snowblower accumulation, was pretty well bare. I will say that is is unusual to see it this clear after the sticking date, but it did happen this year.

Two days later, New Years Day, the field was covered again. I will be surprised if it loses its cover again for the next two months, but you never know with this climate change thing going on.

I must say that it was pretty nice to get a fresh covering of white for New Year Day. We went for a walk to the corner park where the snow had already been sticking, but it was now pretty and new. I got out my phone to snap this photo. It's fairly pretty scene, don't you think?

Confusing English: Granary

I recently mentioned purchasing chocolate at a shop called The Granary. It's a great store and name, but how the heck do you say that word?

Well, I say it with a long a sound as in the word, grain. It makes sense to me, as it has to do with a place to store grains.. Many others and probably most whom I meet locally pronounce the a as in grandmother.

Aside from the root surely having to do with grain, it makes sense in English, to expect the a to be long as there is only a single consonant between the two a's. Think of how we would pronounce pining vs pinning. It's the double n consonant that turns it to a short i in pinning.

So, to me granary makes sense to pronounce as grainary.

But no one else whom I meet seems to feel this way. The guy who served us at The Granary used the granny pronunciation. That doesn't follow the rules of the language as I understand them, but English words can have a long historical context and doesn't always follow the general rules.

What I found is that many sites, particularly the British ones favour grann-uh-ree, and some even leave out the uh, so it becomes simply grann-ree.

Then, I found three YouTube videos that all used my favoured pronunciation, grainary. Webster supplies both pronunciations, below, but leads with the grain version.

So nobody is wrong in this strange language of ours, but I believe that, in North American terms anyway, I am more righter. lol

In case you are wondering, however, there is no doubt about bagel. It most emphatically is not baggel, although I fail to convince my grandkids.

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