4 posts tagged “snow”

Just like the rest of Canada we had a white Christmas. It snowed overnight but Christmas Day was sunny and warm. It almost got up to zero Celcius.

 

 

 

I grabbed a $19.95 snow shovel at Canadian Tire after our first snow storm about 10 days ago. On Monday morning after three back-to-back snow storms and almost daily digging The Big Guy decided he needed a better one. My car wasn't going anywhere so if he wanted a better shovel he had to go get it himself.

He decided to bull his way out of our driveway to the road without first digging out the fresh snow that had accumulated overnight. This plan might have worked if the CVRD had not made a fast pass up and down the road with a plow the day before leaving a bank of packed snow across our driveway.

 

 

 

 

I snapped the photos through a window so there are reflections on some of them. Amateurish, I know...but it was cold! And besides, The Big Guy's performances are always better when he doesn't know he's being photographed.

Oh, yeah, he did finally make it out and bought a bigger, stronger shovel. Yesterday we had Snow Storm #4. Now we can both shovel at the same time.

We got more snow than expected yesterday. Not as much as Nanaimo which got 40 cm, maybe 18 to 20 cm (7 or 8 inches for you Imperials). By the time the snow stopped, the depth surpassed the height of my rain gauge.

After the cloudy, rainy gloom of the last few weeks, the snow makes it seem as bright as summertime. But much colder.

I watch the post-snowfall action out my home office window. Neighbours driving by fast in big trucks. Other neighbours crawling along slow in a small car with balding summer tires. A couple kissing. ATVs outfitted with plows pulling sleds ridden by the kids. Dog walkers. A small flock of Juncos looking for food in the tall grass at the side of the ditch. Our next door neighbours venturing out with the baby wrapped in blankets.

 

 

Later on I took a few more pictures. By 3:10 in the afternoon the sun is very low in the west. This creates great lighting conditions for photography.

We had a quite a lot of snow fall over the last three days and when the weather's like this I'm always tempted to take pictures.

I find snow scenes difficult. The lack of colour often results in dull monochromatic photographs. Even though the fresh white snow makes everything seem quite bright to my eye the snow-laden overcast sky actually reduces the amount of light considerably and I end up with underexposed images. The snow has a blue-ish cast which throws off my camera's white balance although I have to say my new Canon Rebel handles this better than my point-and-shoot Sony. Plus I'm still learning my new camera so I'm not as adept at manipulating its settings as I was with the old camera.

These shots are of one of my favourite subjects, the beech tree in our front yard. For an interesting contrast, I've also included some images from last fall taken while this tree's leaves were changing colour. I've been thinking about doing a year-round or four-seasons study of this tree but it's unlikely that I'll make much progress on that project since we're planning to move away as soon as we can find a suitable house and property. Maybe there will be some good trees to photograph in our new neighbourhood.

Our first on-site house prospecting trip is planned for next week. This house hunt is taking much longer than we want but now that we've finally found a real estate agent (the third one we've tried out) who's actually actively doing something for us we're ready to make the trip over to the Island to look at a few places.

Thinking about moving is almost as potent a trigger for my map obsession as thinking about travelling. This morning, thinking about travelling somewhere to look at places to move to had me desperate to get my hands on some new maps. I've played with Google Earth a lot lately but today I had to have something more. I searched the web for online topographic maps of southern Vancouver Island, didn't find anything, and was considering driving through the snow and slippery slush to the Around The World Maps store in New Westminster when I came across Backroad Map Books. I bought a new map book and can hardly wait for it to be delivered. Oh happy day!