Icicles

We have loads of icicles hanging from the roof of our house. With the slope of our house having changed from a very steep 45 degree angle, to a less steep angle of about 25 degrees, we now have the problem of snow taking its own slow time to making its way to the ground and while that has some drawbacks it also has some interesting positives. One of the drawbacks is of course the added weight of the snow to the roof of the house. I think that the roof is still steep enough that the snow will not hang up too long, but I do watch the load. The interesting thing is the really cool formations of snow as the snow slides down the tin roof and hangs over the edge of the roof sometimes as much as two feet before it finally lets go with a huge "thunk" and drops to the roof below or to the ground. I've been watching the process for a couple of days now because temperatures outside have decided to warm, and while we had a quite warm day yesterday, after dark everything cooled down and froze up. The slow progress of the snow sliding off the roof came to a complete standstill and huge hanging drapes of snow stopped sliding and remained suspended in an effort to reach the ground. As it cooled, the snow that melted, from this drape of snow began to form icicles and we have had some really interesting ones. On the North side of the house as the snow slid down the roof it began to curl under and as it did so the icicles that had formed decided to point in a horizontal manner rather than a vertical manner. It has all been quite fascinating to watch. Here are a few pictures for you to look at....

Looking out the upstairs North side window.

Ice formation with flash

Same ice formation without flash.

Temperature Inversion

I live in a river valley. It is quite a large river that runs through my valley and there are steep banks on each side of the river. So it is a deep river valley. This valley has an odd phenomena that occurs. Sometimes we wake up and this valley is filled with smoke. It is not smoke from natural sources that fills this valley but smoke from the wood stoves of thousands of houses and dwellings in the valley. Because this valley is so deep sometimes we get a temperature inversion which is to say that the smoke stays close to the ground because there's no up down movement of the air. On days when there is a temperature inversion it is really hard to breath when you step outside your door. On those days smoke is everywhere in the air.

Today is a day with a temp. inversion and it is really hard to breath out there. Basically it is smog... air pollution that causes asthmatics to stay indoors. I am not an asthmatic but I do find breathing on a day like this really hard. More and more I am thinking that geo-thermal technology and solar heating is the way of the future. Hubby and I live with a forced air furnace that runs on propane. We accepted that because that is what our house came with. It was the system that was in place when we bought this house but lately we have been looking at alternative energy sources. Primarily, we are looking at solar power but friends of ours have recently put in a geo-thermal heating system. Both come with a high price tag and while we cannot afford either type of alternative energy our hope is that eventually we will be on a system that uses both. That is not to say that we will stop using hydro power but that we may be able to cut out our propane use altogether and lower our hydro use as well.

We are middle aged and we are still establishing ourselves financially. It will not be easy to make the switch. But our long term goal is to do just that. What bothers me and frustrates me is that the government of Canada and B.C. don't make it more accessible to everyone. There should be huge rebates for those who are willing to put out the money for expensive technology to use cheaper and more world friendly energy. I won't lecture here about the dismal policies Canada has for energy. You can go to any number of green blogs to get that. But keep it in mind that this little family in this remote region of the world takes issue with thoughtless usage of this world's energy. See that picture of the beautiful blue planet in the post from yesterday? Well I for one want to continue to live on a planet that is blue.... and not red or brown like the planets that have nothing growing on them and not grey like the lifeless moon.

I Live On Earth

WOW! I think we should be glad to live somewhere so beautiful. Now if we could just take care of it !

Technology Is Like A Sloth

I volunteer. Quite a bit. I volunteer at the local church as a lay reader. I volunteer as the chair person for the Junior Canadian Rangers here in our town. I volunteer a the local spinning and weaving guild as the the president. I volunteer at the spinning and weaving guild in a nearby city as the secretary and I volunteer with the regional guild as the newsletter editor. Beside keeping two of my own blogs I keep a blog for the NPSW and soon I will be keeping a blog/newsletter for the PCSW. I'm helping my two children to sporadically keep their own blogs and I'm starting a blog for the youth group at the church. I do quite a bit of writing all in all. I spend a lot of time on the computer. People are starting to get upset that they can never reach me by phone because I'm still on dial up and what should take minutes sometimes takes hours.... I want high speed internet and I'm starting to get p---- off that high speed is really really expensive in my neck of the woods.

I mean internet has been around for quite a while now and you would think that after all theses years the techy companies that provide internet service would get it together enough to make a killing in the backwoods. NOOOOOO that is not the way. When I moved to this wonderful little town not quite 13 years ago they still had party lines..... like if that is not the dark ages I don't know what is. I only had to dial the last four digits in any number and I could call anyone in this town. Then about eight years ago out went the party lines and in came the regular lines then about seven years ago they made it mandatory to dial all seven digits and then about two years ago they made it mandatory to dial all ten digits. Meanwhile we linger in this lovely part of the country with antiquated technology. I mean you can get cell service in and around this little town but go 15 miles to the east or west and poof!!! no cell service. So Hubby and I are debating.... do we drop our land line and stick with cell and then get satelite service for the computer? Or do we tough it out with the tried and true dial up...... hmmmm!

What would you do?

Sunrise

This morning I woke late. It was almost 8:30 a.m. when I finally opened my eyes. It is still dark where I live at 8:30 a.m. in the morning. But it is just starting to get light. I got up and came downstairs and looked out my window and had a cup of tea. While I was checking out the daily news online, I watched the approach of the sun as it lightened the sky and eventually came over the horizon. What a beautiful scene that lay before me. I had the presence of thought to jump up and grab the camera.



This is one of the reasons why I love to live in the North country. There is a different light here. In summer, when daylight lasts almost 24 hours, the light is rich with colour. It is like things are more brilliant.... like colour is trying to embed itself in our memories and it only has so much time. But as summer fades into fall and fall fades into winter, the colours are more subtle. Shades of grey are enhanced by soft pastel hues. The further south I go, the more intense colour is in the fall and winter and the less brilliant those colours are in the summer. I think it is addictive. The longer I live in the North, the more I want to live in the North. The longer that I've been away from the south the less I want to live in the south.

I believe that it was in Pride and Prejudice that Jane Austen coined the words "wildness and artifice are captured in the North country". I believe this to be true. My first experience of the North was a trip to the Yukon with Hubby before the Daughters were born some 15 yrs ago. We drove the Deace/Casier highway. I had never experienced such a wild unpopulated region of the earth in my life. If only there could be a part of the planet that has not known man. If only you could look up at the skies and not see the vapour trail of an airplane. If only you could walk the face of this planet and see no signs of people.

If I could choose anywhere on the earth to take a trip I would not choose the warmer climated regions of this planet I would pick the unconventional North. Further up and further in, as C. S. Lewis said. That to me is the place to be. Away where no one can see me and better still where I can see no one. Where I have unlimited time and opportunity to see raw nature. What a breath of fresh air.

But for the time being the pastel sky from my deck on a pleasant Sunday morning will have to do.

Evening

The sun has just set and the crescent moon is beautiful. I thought I should take a picture of what I can see from my window. It is a beautiful sky this evening and I would have to say that if I could capture this moment with the sky yellow on the horizon fading out to a greenish blue and then blue and then dark blue with that beautiful yellow crescent dangling above the edge of the horizon and put it in a bottle, I wouldn't mind being a genie. The snow is a royal blue too with all the dark trees standing quietly with their branches laden with blue snow. It looks like I am looking through a blue wine bottle and all the world has become Picasso's blue period. Lovely and sad and cold all at the same time.

There is beauty to be found almost everywhere you go. Even the most desolate places on earth will portray a certain sense of beauty... you just have to be open to looking at things with an clear eye. I look out my window every day as I sit here writing, and I can always find at least one beautiful thing. I am lucky to live in a world where beauty is so abundant that it is often taken for granted. I walk in the forest to the west of my house and am pleased to find mushroom of such astounding beauty that it could make you cry at the thought of such delicacy. At lichens that are so fragile that one bootstep can destroy it for 100 years. There are so many exquisite things to look at in this life that there is hardly time to enjoy it all.

The sky always has something of interest to look at. Next time you have the opportunity to look at a raging tempest sky, or a peaceful puffy cloud sky, or an blue winter crescent moon sky, do so, I guarantee that you won't be sorry. All you have to do is look up and you can see the glorious beauty of a boundless sky displayed in its awesome splendor. What's even nicer is that you can even see the beauty of the sky in a city.

For those of us who have the privilege of living in the country, it is not only the sky that grants us the wonderful pleasure of a glorious display, but the feather formations of frost, the golden hues of leaves and grasses in the fall, the chartreuse green of the early spring buds, the velvety softness of a caterpillar crawling along the ground. I can go on and on because luckily there is no end to the beauty that I find daily just living right where I do. How lucky I am....

The sun has set and still that crescent moon shines down from the now dark sky. I wonder if you see it where you are.

Random

So I need to whine a little more. I'm allergic to my puffer. My tongue hurts. I'm wheezing in the chest. I have a bad back. And I broke my mouse.

I thought mice were quiet and non-troublesome creaatures. Seems not these days at Nicholsville West Farm. My mouse is broken... well sort of. My mouse fell on the floor yesterday when I was moving furniture and a large piece of wood fell on it and so now it only works when I hold it up in the air a squeeze it. I can get the curser to move on the screen normally but it won't click on anything without me having to squeeze it. (Ha I bet you thought I was talking about a real mouse.) So here I sit move and lift and squeeze every time I want to do anything. And let me tell you it is not easy to click and drag something from one place to another. I want a new mooouuussseee!

My tongue hurts because I am having a reaction to my puffer.... at least I think that is the problem.... Hubby says my tongue is hurting because I talk too much! I think he is just miffed because he wants to hunt and I want my house fixed up before the dreaded event (that would be Christmas)! Meanwhile my tongue is severely limited in what it can do (like taste anything)! Get your mind out of the gutter people!!!

I went upstairs a little while ago to lie down for my get over H1N1 nap and while I was lying there I kept hearing an odd wheezing sound.... I thought it might be the cat that has taken to sleeping in my closet. (It gives new meaning to 'coming out of the closet") So I went to investigate however, the wheezing stopped. So then I went to lie down again and the wheezing started up again. It was me wheezing!!! Oh no! I can't go on medication again. My tongue is too sore. So I will take over the counter cough syrop to combat this cough which I thought I was almost over... but nooooo.... its going to linger a little longer. Try coughing with a sore tongue and a bad back... no picnic I assure you.

OK I'm done whining now.