Plunged into winter

We seem to be well and truly into winter now, and despite the fact that the temperatures are forecast to moderate to possibly a couple of degrees above freezing later in the week, there's enough snow on the ground already that I think it's here to stay. It's been darn cold, too, for the time of year. Temperatures in the low teens C / -1F with nasty winds taking the windchill effect into the low 20s C/-28 F, and colder at night. All kind of sudden and a bit of a shock. I've got the horse well dressed for the season with his blankets, but have yet to root out my own seasonally adequate head and hand gear. 

Mid-week I went to the car to head out to the barn, to discover that the insides had been "tossed". There was a great pile of oddments from all the various compartments sitting on the passenger's seat. This certainly wasn't how I left it the night before, and when I asked Jim if he had been piling through it for some reason, he denied all knowledge. This all seemed strangely familiar, and I believe was the work of the "considerate thief". My car occupies the driveway in winter, and Jim's newer model gets the garage. There have only been about two occasions in the five years that I have owned this car when I have forgotten to lock it up overnight. Both times the thief has struck. This leads me to contemplate the mathematical odds of this being random chance, or, alternately, to think that this person tries the doors of my car every night and has gotten lucky twice in five years. Either way, it's a tad strange. I am grateful, however, that they only want cash. Last time they didn't even get that as they somehow overlooked the coin cup that had the pittance of parking money in it. This time they got both the cup and the cash, but luckily for me, although they moved the GPS unit from its hiding place and added it to the pile on the passenger seat, they didn't make off with it or anything else, although come to think of it my car's collection of filthy and broken horse halters wasn't likely all that appealing. All in all, if you have to have a thief in the area, you could do worse than be victimized by this one. 

Shot one was taken in the midst of the most recent fall of snow. Rather dark for photography, although it wasn't yet four in the afternoon. This shows one of the Ebon school horses waiting for the supper feed to be delivered, back to the wind.

Shot two shows what I encountered on the way home the next day. This is somewhat notable in that the city seems to be taking street clearing seriously for a change, and also shows the amount of snow already accumulated.

Yesterday I was huddled in my studio trying to avoid going out for the groceries I had to get, when Jim and grandson Mark came in from an outing to announce the presence of two ravens feeding on the ground a couple of blocks east of us. That got me out the door very fast, and I got several entertaining shots. They were quite a motley pair, fluffed up against the cold and generally a bit untidy looking. I got the strong impression that they were a pair of teens from this year's hatch. One took off for the safety of a tree soon after I stopped the car, but this one was fairly unconcerned and marched up and down, working on the little stash of peanuts he had secured. Eventually he left too, and I carried on to the grocery shopping. I'm trying to work out what I can put out on the platform feeder to try and lure this pair into my yard. Peanuts won't work as the bluejays will make off with them, but I think some kibbled cat or dog food might be appealing to the ravens and not to our other bird species.

Later the same day I spotted this grand coyote as I was heading out to the barn. He was quite a bit closer to the road when I first caught sight of him, but by the time I got the car stopped and the camera ready, he was moving off. I think he is the same one we saw when we did our field walk north of Ebon a few weeks back. He's very large with a beautiful full and healthy-looking coat.

I'm in show/sale mode for the next couple of weekends. Starting Friday I'll be downtown at TCU place with a booth at Artisan.  Anyone in Saskatoon and area that would like to attend the show, email me
at judywood@sasktel.net and I'll send you an email invitation that you can print out for $1 off the show entry price. Artisan is a high-quality showcase of Saskatchewan arts and crafts, and offers a calm and peaceful shopping environment at a hectic time of year.

By the way, I've added a few images over the last while to my "just the art" blog, so head on over there to check it out if you haven't visited in a while. http://judywoodartphotographyjusttheart.blogspot.com