how now brownpau
The difference a day can make over the weekend of the Spring Equinox: snow and sledding on Saturday followed by a nice warm thaw on Sunday.
Warm enough for the cat to hang out on the deck, even. (She’s spent all winter meowing at the door to go out and then running away from the cold when we open it. Not today.)
I dare say Lubalin’s 15,000 pound horse is the best dramatic setting of an Internet text since how is babby formed:
(You know, on a second watch of “15000 pound horse” my sympathies have kinda switched from Abby to the unnamed horse owner, because she did break her toes, came to Abby for commiseration, and got a cold fact-check instead. Not that she was right about the horse’s mass or for blowing up at Abby, but I can see why she got angry.)
Unreasonably proud of self for successfully changing the brake lamp bulb on my FIAT 500 (with some help from Peter and Paul):
Turns out the whole rear light assembly comes right off after loosening two screws in the trunk area, then four more screws pop out the bulb mount, and the running/brake light is a double-filament bulb, C$6.49 for a 2-pack at Canadian Tire. (Good thing it was a 2-pack because the first bulb’s running light filament burned out instantly on activation and I had to pull the whole assembly back out and install the second bulb, which worked fine.)
Some shots from around Shubie Park on a relatively nice warm day (a few degrees above freezing) in Dartmouth, NS.
It’s a fairly extensive park and the only real reminder you have that you’re in an urban area is the drone of cars on the nearby highway — and the big IKEA sign in Dartmouth Crossing occasionally visible through the trees. We really only saw parts of the trail system along the way to the campground play area; next time we might explore other parts of the park a bit more.
Some shots from the Halifax Waterfront Submarine Playground; bit snowy that weekend, but Ezra found it no less fun in the cold — though maybe a bit more icy and slippery.
Bit of a change from how it looked in warmer days, and an even bigger change from the previous playground before 2011, when it was a wood boat frame called “Halcyon.”
This is for the Mars 2020 mission, an update from previous rover Curiosity 8 years ago.
About 15cm of snow on Friday meant nice conditions for snow tubing over the weekend, much to Ezra’s delight.
Been cold enough since to keep most of the snow on the ground, too, which makes for some picturesque winter views all day from the deck.
Caught the last full moon of 2020 as it rose, big and orange, over the hills of Nova Scotia a couple days before the New Year. (I’m cheating a bit here, this was actually a waning gibbous moon the day after the last full moon.)
Then I was up early after New Year to catch the first sunrise of the year, shining red through the bare winter trees and glinting off the water of the Atlantic Ocean on the horizon.
It’s now 2021, the year of Johnny Mnemonic.
Snowy days mean building snowpersons in the backyard and tubing down a snowy hill.
In Cole Harbour Heritage Park, a stream fed by a hundred different culverts winds through fir trees and mossy rocks to drain out to the harbour.
Back on the Old Lawrencetown Road Trail, the marsh is lit gold and amber by a fading winter sun.
On the sandy paths through the snow-dusted dunes of Rainbow Haven Beach Ezra picks a blade of dry grass to be his magic wand. He zaps me. He zaps the moon.
Along the Salt Marsh Trail a freezing wind cuts across the harbour, and a sunset pierces the clouds with crepuscular beams as a muddy tide rushes under the bridges.
Thus ends 2020. Maybe in 2021 we’ll get to the ends of some of these trails, too.
