Another snow day

Spirit (black) and Bliss (blonde) help me feed the birds on another snow day. We went outside about 7 which accounts for the darkness - it's still not completely daylight at that time. Both dogs watch for the Dread Red - the family of little red squirrels that have taken up residence underneath my house and torment the dogs daily by getting into the trees from the feeder faster than the dogs can reach them. I watched one day while a baby ran back and forth under the eaves for about five minutes until it finally lept into a tree, down the trunk and into a hole it knew about but the dogs didn't. Always something going on outside around here it seems.

As you can see it snowed last night. This image of the drive shed (where the original pioneers used to "park" their horses and buggies when they went to church - actually it's only half the size it was in 1870 when it was built) shows how the northeast wind has blown the snow around and up sealing it against the wooden wall.
Snow now covers the clematis vines  hanging onto some netting I'd nailed in place, as well as one of the bird feeders, all the shrubs and dead flower stalks with seeds still on them... and it continues to blow. This was taken from inside my "studio" around 7:30 this morning. Currently there is a mourning dove nestled out of the wind  inside the big feeder on the deck which my cat Eleia uses as her house and hiding place when the weather is better. Other tiny birds try to get seeds, digging them out from the deck where I've put some or where they've fallen from another feeder.

7 a.m. - Outside filling the feeders, and Bliss continues to look for the Dread Red, that naughty little red squirrel has the entrance to its home under my front entry about five feet from where Bliss is standing.

The snow has covered bushes and shrubs that I had cleaned off a couple of days ago to keep them from breaking. This won't be so easy because the snow started as rain and freezing rain yesterday. Tree branches and bushes are bending low under the weight of snow.

Two feeders - suet and seed - on the west side of the church which is my home, hanging in a Scotch pine. It's branches  touch the ground. The snow has blown up about two feet around the trunk and the Blue Spruce tree's lower branches are once again covered. I'll have to go out at least twice today to fill the feeders since the birds are having a hard time finding seed on the ground, it keeps getting blown in.
Many roads and schools are closed and no school buses are running anywhere in three or four counties. It's supposed to continue for another two days.... A typical Georgian Bay three day blow!
I'm staying inside today as much as possible. It's cold out there! but not as cold as my friend's home in Igloolik where her neighbour's home had its wall and most of its front door removed by a bear yesterday afternoon. Now that's winter scary.

Early morning crystal lights

As the sun rose this morning, it revealed a world glittering with crystals - everywhere. A heavy frost this time - and so pretty. These two old teak benches show how the grass looks like snow in front of them as does the pine in the background... but underneath, where the grass is protected it's green and glossy, not lit with crystal fires of  early sun's rays.

Everywhere I looked the ground was frosted and the dogs tracks as they wandered around checking for last night's visitors, showed up green against the iced grasses.

Unfortunately the pond plants - the tropical ones - really bit the dust and will have to be hauled out and the pond cleansed. But I learned from a fish expert today that I don't need to remove the fishes from their cold little home. They'll be fine with my bubbler in place and all the gunk removed... who knew?

This expert also gave me some tips for watching the pump for the bubbler and offered to show me how to clean the filter come spring as well. Such a nice fellow...

And on the way home I took some back roads, which I like to do - so no frost this afternoon, but some neat pictures which I'll post in the next few days and tell some little stories about them...

Do wish I'd caught one of the two hunters (it's deer season in Ontario right now) who passed by me on this tiny back road, suddenly stopping beside a farm gate then retrieving a garbage bag from the back of their truck. Then they squatted in the middle of the road. It took me a minute - but then I realized that the orange garbed dudes were scooping up corn that had spilled out of the farmer's hopper and were going to use it to bait  the deer.... they didn't know what I did - the conservation officers were just ahead of them on the road, watching for just such illegal activity. I drove on.