Category: Dog days

Ice-Out on Lake Windermere

Only a thin layer of ice remains on the south end of Lake Windermere. Looking close you can see the ice breaking up. The ice is about midway in the lakes 12 mile length.

Incredibly mild weather for December. +6°c, rain and a stiff south wind. The ice on about half of Lake Windermere has gone out. In the sixty, some odd, years I have been observing the lake I cannot remember it doing so in December.

The ice was late forming this winter with only a thin skim by the end of November. I am usually skating on the lake by the end of November. This year I went for a swim instead.

Standing at the north end of the Lake near dark. The ice in the foreground has been blown to the shore.

In the early 2000’s, when I was with the newspaper, I can remember writing an editorial mid December to be careful on the lake ice as it could be unsafe. It had been mild that year. The point of the article was to warn tourists and second home owners to be mindful as they may have been used to driving on it in December. The way it looks this year the tourists and vacation home owners could be putting their jet boats back in for the Christmas holidays.

The lake in winter has always been a special place for me. Skating, skiing, driving and fishing. There is nothing like being out there in the cold and quiet. Whenever I have had to endure pain I’ve always thought of the lake and the silent white surroundings while standing in the middle to get me through. It is what I imagine heaven to look like. It truly is a remarkable place.

We are expecting more warm weather. If so I can only guess the rest of the ice will break up and flow down the Columbia.

If my old friend Ray was still alive, he passed a few years ago at 103, I’d ask him if he’d ever seen this before. I would bet he would say no and be equally surprised. As I’m sure my Dad would have been. Christ, I’m an old-timer now and I’ve never seen Lake Windermere open in December.

A Cold Warm

Winter tree.

Rain in the valley bottom. I was sure the lake was going to go back out. It hung in there but the ice is thin.

Lisa and I headed into the mountains yesterday. when we started heading up the rain turned to snow and covered the trees and turned it into a winter wonderland. Willow chased snowballs and looked a little like a snowball herself.

Today I went back up and the snow had turned back to rain. The snow covered trees had shed their layer of white. It was foggy as temperatures adjusted. It has been a very mild winter so far.

Bohemian Waxwing.

We headed for the lake and ran into a flock of waxwings looking happy. Somewhere along the way Willow decided to roll in what I believe was goose shit. The warm weather has revealed smells for her to discover.

Back when I was a kid if our dog rolled in something they weren’t allowed in the house. They had to stay outside day and night until they were deemed fit to come back inside. I mentioned this to Lisa but she didn’t think this would be fair to Willow. Instead she said I should give her a bath and told me Willow’s shampoo is in the left drawer of the bathroom cabinet.

The Ol’ Boneyard.

The bathroom cabinet is under the sink. It has 2 drawers and 3 cupboards. I realized then, as it had never occurred to me, Willow and I share one small drawer in the bathroom. Shampoo, tick repellant, cider vinegar for skunk smell and a couple razors. The rest of the cabinet is for Lisa’s stuff. I mentioned this to her and she said, you two are low maintenance.

It’s bound to get cold sometime. I wish it would hurry up. This mild wet weather always makes a body feel cold. A warm cold.

On Thin Ice

Fresh ice under a waxing gibbous November moon.

A thin layer of ice formed on Lake Windermere in the last couple days of November. Very late compared to years past. Since I usually skate on the lake in November, and wasn’t able to due to the thin ice, I took the opportunity to get in a final swim. More of a dunk actually.

I creeped out on the ice until it cracked and I went through. I had an axe with me to chop my way to shore if needed. Willow wasn’t happy with my choices. Even she knows thin ice can’t be trusted. Lisa took the photo and told me explicitly beforehand not to expect her to save me.

***

The good neighbour was having vehicle trouble and broke down a few miles from home. He asked if I’d give him a ride and help him get it going.

A little tinkering and we got it going. It sounded like shit. Which isn’t totally unusual as the good neighbour has always driven beaters. He usually got them through a trade of one sort or another. At one time he would drive them until they died and then leave them in his yard. I guess his thought was he may get them going again. Then he would start filling them up with other stuff that wasn’t working, but he might get going again. Kitchen appliances, screen printing equipment, even big stuff that made you wonder how he got it too fit. He had a 60 inch TV in one of them. He called them his treasures and reminded me he’s never had a car payment.

Once we had his car going and we let it idle for a while I followed him home to make sure it didn’t break down again.

He says he has some travelling to do over Christmas so he is going to have someone look over the vehicle.

A few days later he texted me and said Grant took a look at it and it still starts. Grant is one of his drinking buddies and is a retired grocer. I, as well, have drank with Grant and if there is something I know it’s that he is not mechanically inclined.

I texted back, ‘You had Grant the grocer diagnose your vehicle? Most people in the same situation employ a mechanic.’

He texted back, ‘That’s a little harsh. If I only had your looks.’

There you have it. The good neighbours vehicle has been given a clean bill of health by Grant the grocer and he is set to take it on his Christmas tour all over British Columbia in the dead of winter.

As long as it rolls out of his driveway he is good to go.

CME

Clouds catching last nights auroras make for an unsettling sky.

The sun has been very active with many coronal holes or sunspots stretched across its equator.

Several of these coronal mass ejections hit earths magnetosphere last night, causing aurora that could be seen into the southern United States.

Here it was cloudy but it is always worth a look. Willow and I took off for the creek and followed it around to the backside of the mountain. We walked to the bottom of Lisa’s trees.

It had rained, and was muddy and slippery hoovering around freezing. The cloud covered sky was odd looking, bruised in places, glowing here and there. I could tell something was going on above the clouds. We walked around, Willow seemed equally taken back not making a peep. We waited around peering above the trees until I was sufficiently damp and cold.

Today, the truck is covered in mud, especially where Willow sits. She is close to the ground and acts like a shaggy mop head in such weather. Reports say it was a fantastic display of Aurora, seen as far south as Florida. Tonight could be the same. It is still cloudy without promise of letting up. Willow and I will probably stay in close to the fireplace.

Fading

Comet Lemmon, you are going to have to take my word for it!

C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) is quickly fading from view. Since it was clear Willow and I thought we would give it one more go to spot it.

This time I took my 20mm wide angle lens knowing that if the comet could be seen it would appear very small in the photos. This is the lens I am most comfortable using for night photography because it gives such a large view of the sky. It also allows me longer exposures before the stars streak.

The sun went down and the full moon came up behind us. It dipped quickly to -4°c, which felt chilly. I am going to have to toughen up if I plan on making it through winter. We walked around where Slinky and Ara are buried. It is truly a beautiful spot. As the sky turned blue and darkened we spotted flashes of white as we jumped several White Tailed Deer. They were quick not to stick around. It reminded me of hunting with Dad. Seeing the best game when it was too dark to shoot. Both because you couldn’t see the far sight on the rifle, and more importantly, it’s against regulations.

The full moon illuminated the mountainside. Only the brightest stars could be seen. Of course, the moon also washed away the comet. Still I had faith and pointed the camera in the general direction of where it should be.

Moonlit night.

Both Willow and I were glad to get back to the warmth of the truck. We picked our way along the back rounds, through frozen puddles, staying the best we could above the ruts. Such a pleasure in my life to putter along old and overgrown roads. I used to do it with a beer in my right hand, now it’s a coffee if anything. We stopped at the lake. It was calm and the moonlight reflected the mountains. I listened for fish jumping. Willow heard something and gave a bark. Her echo barked back at her and then the barking match was on. Willow looked at me seriously, ‘there is another dog out here’.

Time to head back to the valley bottom and the warmth of bed.

An enlargement of the top photo. Due to moonlight, even blown up, Comet Lemmon is hard to spot.

and now for something completely different

This is a composite made from a photo my son Hunter took in downtown Calgary, and a picture I took of the Milky Way.

There is a photographer who used to do cityscapes with stars in the background. They were compositions when they weren’t easy to do with the software available at the time. He tried to show what cities would look like without light pollution. They were eerie. His name is Thierry Cohen if you want to check him out.

Many, if not most, of the astrophotography photos seen now are composites in one way or the other. Often the landscape is taken in one shot and the sky is taken in another. The time and place of the two or more photos can vary greatly. Like this composite for example.

The problem is composites are often presented as real. There is a photo of a nearby historic town with a well known mountain. Above the mountain the Milky Way shoots straight up in the east. The problem is the Milky Way is never in that position. It is a two photo composite. The photographer never presents it as such. The photo has been on magazine covers and sold as fine art photographs. It is probably one of the most well known photographs of that area. Yet the scene it depicts doesn’t exist. Does that matter as we enter an era of AI produced images? Where it is becoming impossible to tell the difference between what is real?

I have always appreciated documentary style photography. It is what I try to do on this site. It is to show change and also provide a record. That attitude probably comes from my family’s history in newspapers.

With this said, I like Hunter and my collaboration. It is not representative of reality, it is more symbolic. What would a city look like if the lights were off on a clear night? Would the world be a different place if we all could see the stars?

Hunter enjoys mixing music. Like his mixes, like art, like this photo, it is essentially storytelling and exists to make us think.

Comet Hunting

Tried to peek through the clouds to get a glimpse at Comet Lemmon. It hasn’t been easy with clouds rolling in just as it’s been getting dark, however thought I’d give it a try regardless. You’ll never catch fish if you don’t put your line in the water.

As the clouds parted I was able to easily see the comets nucleus. In the photo you can even see it reflected in the river. The tail was harder to see. The camera picked it up nicely even amongst the light pollution of the Village of Radium Hot Springs.

Just a word about light pollution; it was interesting to have been in Waterton recently and saw how they have tried to limit light pollution. They are part of a dark sky reserve and it is important to them. In the Windermere Valley light pollution gets brought up occasionally but never gets much traction. The only way it ever will is by showing decision makers that there is some profit in shining lights down. That is a tough sell in a valley growing as fast as this one.

Speaking of pollution, notice the ‘scratches’ in the sky around Comet Lemmon. These are Starlink satellites. It is amazing and annoying how many are in low orbit around the earth. It is almost impossible to look into a darkened sky without seeing them now. This is only going to get worse as Starlink continues to launch thousands more and other countries and companies begin to launch their own version of Starlink.

Without regulations or common sense it may become impossible, in the future, to enjoy the stars, meteor showers and visiting comets, as the night sky fills with streaking satellites. Humans should be ashamed of polluting the atmosphere, oceans, water and land, instead of giving it a second thought, however, we have moved onto corrupting the space and stars above us.

I would still like to get a better look at Comet Lemmon, but my chances are limited as it gets closer to the sun and our weather fails to improve.

Take your shots where you can

Bad weather with no chance to see Comet Lemmon again.

The garlic is in the ground. Four rows, I hope they come up in the spring. You can never be sure.

Very strange year, weather and otherwise!

***

It would be great to have Dougie Ford and Wab Kinew running the show. This ad sure got under the skin of the Whitehouse. I know we are going to have to back down, but it was fun while it lasted.

Lazy days

Morning skiff.

Clear skies tonight and I might give Comet Lemmon another shot. It has moved away from the tail of The Big Dipper and closer to the sun. I searched this morning but couldn’t see it. The evening may be provide a better opportunity.

Only the belt of Orion (top center) and Sirius (far left) visible this morning.

It’s getting chilly, the long underwear and long sleeve undershirts are on for the season.

Here are a few photos from the last few days.

Gazing across the valley at a far off range. Taken from a high perch.
Mount Baldy, the top obscured in morning cloud. This used to be valuable habitat for elk and grizzlies.

Orion

Another beautiful morning. Deep blue skies. The moon is closing in on the sun as it wanes to a thin crescent.

It is time to get the carrots out of the ground and plant next year’s garlic. The garden is getting too big for Lisa and I. Not so much the looking after it but the food it produces. I may have to reevaluate it next year.

Orion is beaming in the mornings. Wintermaker, as a good blogging friend calls it. A much more apt name. It is tough to not be drawn into all it’s mystery, legend and science that accompanies it rising and setting in it’s own season.