Spring break up

About ten years ago, when I first moved back to this community, I could park at the top of this hill and see nothing but white across this arm of Georgian Bay - from the edge of the bush all the way east to Wasaga Beach - the world's longest fresh water beach. Yesterday, on a drive into town to get groceries and stock up in preparation for the coming storm today, I noticed that the water was open - the dark blue in the lower left hand quadrant of the photograph.

Then if you follow the road all the way to the lake - you'll see a lighter blue - thin ice! This part of the bay never really froze completely this year - global warming! What's interesting is seeing the long stretches of white - big pans of ice that has cracked and been pushed up by the various storms into thick pans that are blown and move back and forth from shore to shore. An every changing waterscape.

At right is Mill Creek which flows about a mile from my home - it's shallow, a great fast running river where salmon and trout breed. It's already starting to break up with all the snow melting from higher up the valley and filling all the little tributaries.

Whatever we think, whatever we want - we are in that transition period of March - as mentioned by fellow blogger Bill in his wildramblings.com - which inspired me to look for signs of break up yesterday. Unfortunately I took these photos at 1 in the afternoon and the deep blue sky was washed out by the height and light of the brilliant sunshine...one of March's beautiful days. Beautiful nonetheless.

Here's to transitions!