I'm still here! I was away from the farm for a while, and when I got back I needed a few days to get a collection of photos to share, so here we go! Sunset on February 19: Sunrise on the 21st: Another sunrise on the 22nd: These woodpeckers don't usually hang around our house a lot, but for some reason, a couple of northern flickers have been making frequent stops to our bird feeders this year. Here's one of them on the 24th. (You can see the melting snow on the driveway in the background.) And then the snow came back. It started falling in the evening of the 25th, and by the following morning, we had quite a lot of it already. So here's the mountain ash tree clothed in its new blanket on the 26th, and then another shot of the flicker, who arrived for more food on the same day. And five pictures from the 27th. Three are just different angles of shots of the spruce trees, and one is just a visual of how much snow we got, most of it over one night. This fifth picture was an accident. The chickadee had better timing than I do. He decided to fly up from his position on the ground just as I snapped a picture, and I happened to catch him in mid-air, along with his buddy and, of course, the flicker. (Notice the difference of background between this picture and the first one of the flicker.) And finally, this morning's sunrise. Enjoy your weekend!
4 Comments
Sometimes it seems to me that sunsets and sunrises are more pretty in the winter than at any other time of the year. And as I just mentioned to a friend the other day, just when you think that you've seen every colour and design possible in the sky, God shows you a beautiful new creation. Here are two sunset pictures I got from the 18th: Two sunrise pictures from the 19th: And on that same day, a chickadee. I think that chickadees are my favourite birds, and I especially love them in the winter when it's more common to see them flitting around looking for food, or just sitting on a branch all fluffed up like a little ball of tiny feathers. This is the ice on our pond on the 24th. It's not the greatest picture, but you can kind of see the frozen bubbles at different layers in the ice. I've always found that neat. Two more sunset pictures from the 25th (and I love it when the sun rays change colour like that):
playing this season for weeks now. But our local public rink has extremely few public skate hours this year, so I figured I'd just skate on our own pond again this year, which works just fine. There were just a few problems. Earlier, I think around the end of November/beginning of December 2023, there was a whole bunch of dust on the surface of the ice. I didn't want to skate on the dust because I knew that would dull my skate blades. Finally, I think at the beginning of January, my brother came and told me that all the dust had blown off the ice. And then it got extremely cold, and nobody wants to skate outdoors when it's -40°C outside. So there went another week. When it finally warmed up again, it had started snowing, and it kept snowing for several days. (Don't get me wrong, I'm really glad it finally snowed!) By the time it stopped snowing there was a foot or more of snow on the pond. It was starting to feel like there wouldn't be any chances at hockey this season. But then on this past Tuesday morning (the 23rd), my brother stuck his head into my little office cubicle and said, "The dugout's cleared off and it's only -5°C. Want to go skating?" Of course I wanted to go skating! After getting our skates out of the shed and leaving them in the porch to warm up a bit, we pulled out the hockey nets and hauled them out to the pond. Then back to the house for the skates. Lace 'em up, grab the sticks, toss a puck onto the ice, and let's play! That's another part of winter that I absolutely love - it's hockey season! I'm pretty convinced that hockey is the best sport ever invented. On Wednesday afternoon, we were out there again. I'd gone out by myself, but when I came back, I opened the porch door and there was my brother, jacket and mitts on, on his way out. So I went back out with him and we played for a while. I would have gone out on Thursday as well, but it got too warm that day. And then I headed to the ice again yesterday. I'd gone out with my brother, and we skated for a while before heading back. But as we pulled up by the house on the quad, my sisters came out of the house with their skates. So I went back out and played some hockey with them for a bit before it warmed up to the point where my skates were actually breaking through the ice in one or two places. But anyway, that's my hockey story for this week. Now for the pictures. On Wednesday, when I'd gone back to the house and run into my brother on his way out, I'm not sure how coffee came into the conversation, but he asked if I wanted some coffee. I said yes, but I still had my skates on (my fingers and toes get cold really fast, and often when I put on my skates outside, so I've been putting my skates on in the house and then taking the quad out to the pond), so he said he would get the coffee for me. I asked for a double-double, and he made one for me and brought the mug out the porch. He also brought my camera, as I'd wanted to take pictures of that neat bubble ice. Back at the pond while waiting for him, I got an idea. Coffee. Skates. Hockey stick. Puck. Skate blade-torn ice. Perfect. Still waiting for my brother, I set all these things on the ice and took a few pictures. Here's one with the skates, and one without. Either way, I think these are perfectly Canadian pictures! because I was trying not to slide forward any farther because I didn't want to knock my coffee over. News flash: I knocked it over anyway. But at least I got my picture (and I think I'd already drank half of it, so it wasn't a total loss) XD)
What's your favourite part of winter? Well, it took until January 5/6, but we finally got some snow! Now it looks more like winter, and I'm very much enjoying it. First, I have three pictures from January 4th, before it snowed. Four from the 5th. The first three I took in the morning while the sun was coming up, and then the last one I took in the afternoon when the sun was shining directly on that pine tree. And then on the 7th, a picture of the snow we finally got! On the 8th, we had a female Pileated woodpecker on the bird feeder. Snow-covered spruce trees on the 10th: Sunset on the 11th: Sunrise on the 13th, and then in the evening, the sun shining on the snow-capped fence railings. Sunrise on the 14th. A crazy little woodpecker . . . she should have stayed home that day (We had quite a cold snap last week; temperatures in the -30s, and there were two or three days where for a time, we were down to -42 and -43°C). And that night, the crescent moon. And finally, the sunrise from this morning, beautiful as always!
...I've got fourteen pictures. First three: Sunrise and sunset on Christmas day! Sunrise on the 30th: Rex being lazy on the 31st: Sunset on January 1st, 2024: Sunset on the 2nd: And the hoarfrost this morning! It seemed to be snowing a slight bit this morning, but it was very fine, very wet stuff, so it might have just been hoarfrost blowing off of the trees.
Instead of posting a "photo of the month" for December, I went through my photos and came up with some of the best (or more interesting) ones from each month - some that I haven't necessarily posted on here, so you'll see some new ones. I've captioned each one with the date they were taken; the caption are at the bottom of each photo.
And though this is a couple of days late, happy new year! Okay! Basically no snow on December 15th: On the 16th, I made this pull-apart cake for a church potluck. I would never have thought to do something like this on my own, so thank you to whoever first came up with this candy-cane pull-apart cake idea! Then also on the 16th, a couple of sunset pictures. And some clouds to the south of us that looked like waves. On the 18th, some clouds looking like they were rolling over us like waves. Sunset on the 19th, with three jet contrails going through it. The sun looked neat peeking out from between the clouds on the morning of the 20th. Later that day, I got a picture of a woodpecker on the bird feeder, and then later another batch of sugar cookies that I made. This time I decorated them right off. Sunrise on the morning of the 21st, and then later I grouped three cookies with my favourite designs together. Sunrise yesterday morning... and one shot of an ornament hanging in the foreground with the sunrise in the background. Also yesterday, I shut off the light in my small office space and lit a candle instead. First I held it up by one of my hanging Christmas decorations, and then I set it down on my desk so it was lighting up my journal. There's something about the sight of an empty page waiting to be filled, with a pencil lying on top, and the area bathed in candlelight that I really like. And finally, just this afternoon, the backyard. Still no snow... and it's been above zero almost every day this past week or two, so it's felt like it's either October or April - anything but December. It feels weird to think that it's the middle of December right now, and yet it still looks like we should be doing farm work outside. Well, this was my last post before Christmas, so merry Christmas to everyone!
My favourite Christmas carol is Silent Night. Often when I pull out a Christmas CD to listen to (especially if it's a new CD I haven't heard before), I'll scan the list of songs to see if Silent Night is included. I love listening to all the different arrangements. The lyrics of the song were written by Joseph Mohr in 1816 Austria, and the music was composed two years later by Franz Xaver Gruber. By the 1840s, the song had been heard and performed over quite a distance, its first performance in the United States being in 1839. I find this following story amazing. It's said that on Christmas Eve 1914, five months after World War 1 began, a German soldier began singing Silent Night, first in German and then again in English. Being also familiar with this song, the Allied soldiers sang back. And then both sides put down their guns and met in the middle of No Man's Land, singing carol after carol and exchanging stories and gifts with each other. Although the war would continue to rage for another four years, for now the artillery was silent as a truce was called throughout the Christmas holidays. Silent Night is my favourite Christmas carol, but I also enjoy a number of other Christmas carols - listening to them, singing them, playing them on my cello and the piano. Some of the other ones I like are: Joy to the World; Angels We Have Heard on High; O Come All Ye Faithful; O Holy Night; Hark the Herald Angels Sing; What Child is This; O Sing a Song of Bethlehem; and I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. I think that part of the wonder of the season is all of beautiful songs written about the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Music is an amazingly powerful thing. What's your favourite Christmas carol? I think I decided to post today because... okay, I'm not sure why. Maybe because I thought I was going to forget or something. But anyway, it's been ten days since the last time I posted, so I figured it was about time to get some more pictures up. I guess it's not a surprise anymore, but the snow melted again. This morning it sounded like we might get snow this evening, but the whole system of snow floated by just south of us. You'd hardly know this was Alberta with how little snow we have. Anyway, here's some pictures I've taken over the last week and a half. On December 4th, I opened an egg carton (all the eggs were from our own hens) and thought it looked neat with all the different-coloured eggs. On the 5th, I looked out the front window, happened to glance down at the stones lining the perimeter of my mom's flowerbed, and thought it looked kind of funny how the cats had walked carefully down the center of the perimeter. The snow melted again on the 6th. Then it snowed on the 7th. Left to right: Snowy backyard; Christmas ornaments hanging in front of the window, framing the snow-covered mountain ash tree; chickadee having lunch; snow piling up on the tree branches. Asparagus fields on the 8th: Sunset on the 13th: Snow-less backyard today: And I just finished making sugar cookies. My sister pulled a bag of Christmas sprinkles out of the pantry, so I used those in some of the cookies. Even though it doesn't look like it, we are only eleven days away from Christmas! Have a good weekend!
It started snowing last night and by this morning it had stopped, but not before it laid a decent amount of snow on the ground. I didn't actually go out and measure it, but I'd say we got an inch or so?
Although it sounds like it might all melt again . . . it was above zero today and I'm told it's supposed to be above zero tomorrow too, so we might lose it all. This is a very interesting experience - I don't think I can remember a single year in the past where we were into December and still having fall weather. It's crazy! Anyway, here are a couple shots I took of the snow this morning. It should be Photos of the Month... I have three again :D
The first one is a sunrise on November 10th. The second one is the trees and the grass surrounded by the remainder of an old fence, waiting for snow to fall (November 17th). The third one was the sunset last night, with an old jet contrail stretching across the upwards-pointing ray of sunlight. |
AuthorHi, I'm Leah! I'm a college student, and I'm the Shop Supervisor here at Cornerstone Acres. I love to read, write, play hockey, and spend time out in God's creation. I'm looking forward to sharing our farm experiences with you through this blog! "For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him." ~Colossians 1:16, KJV
Archives
May 2024
Categories |