Wednesday, January 23, 2013

winter 2013

Another sunny by times, but nippy, day! Lots of fine snow being blasted about. Looks like smoke most of the time.
The birds come to the feeders then hunker down in the trees again struggling to keep warm, I suppose.

We had to take a trip into town for some bug control and a few other items and mercy!! It was cold!!. The temperature at the garden centre doorway said -10 F. Then there was that wind. We don't see much weather around here like this in the past number of years. We've (well, I have, at any rate) gotten very spoiled. Reminds me of days when I lived in PEI and worked outside with a survey crew. I used to keep hot baked potatoes in my boots and in my pockets. One of the surveyors, Caper, could warm our lunches, somehow, on the truck engine, something he learned while working in James Bay. I still managed to loose my finger and toe nails to frost bite! When I moved to Edmonton, it was easier to deal with because it was "dry" cold! Ha!

Am still wandering around in cyberworld trying to fix up my website and get things organized so I don't have to start from scratch each time I want to put up some new piece of work. My problem now is to find how to deal with the existing pages from my last version. It seems to be quite confusing to me and support seems to be quite slow but apparently the hosts are under attack once again? Maybe I should just put up posters and try that way again.  To quote and old friend, now long gone, "... and everything is going to hell in a hand basket!" Wonder how things will ever sort out.

The sun is setting now, or at least dropping lower quite quickly. All the tree branches I can see from here are frosted with ruffles of snow and gilding has been applied to their outlines. The sky is a moody gray with a lovely soft pale blue showing through. Automatically as I look at things I struggle to apply my palate to build the images.

Back to work. Oye! Just found spellchecker...that could be a help or hindrance?

Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2013

We have the most amazing climate here on the south shore of Nova Scotia. Sunday, Steve and I walked the beach at Summerville, enjoying the warmth of the sun and trying to keep the wind from poking its nippy fingers inside our jackets. Monday was a beautiful sunny day but the tremperatures began to drop. There is a cold front pushing to the south of us and today we have cooler temperstures, a bit of wind and have about 4 inches of snow at the moment.

 It is getting dark as I write this. There are birds tucked in amongst the branches and brush on the property. I expected a bigger turn out on the feeders but we have a couple American Tree Sparrows, a number of White-Throats as well as Song Sparrows. A treat was a brief visit from a Catbird!. I don't usually see them at this time of the year although they do put in a presence during the other seasons.  I managed to get a photo so if it turns out resonably well, I will post it here.

This past week or so I have been rebuilding the MargMillard.ca website with a drag and drop site builder. Once you get the hang of it it isn't that difficult. When I started this it was so easy. I used Netscape Composer back then and it was fun. I have to say I would much rather be painting.... and as soon as I am reasonably far along, I will be.