Month: November 2019

Canadian Pacific Railroad Holiday Train.

The CP Holiday Train came to my part of the world today so I went to see. There are actually two trains – the Canadian train and the US train. This was the US train; on Monday it will begin making stops in the States.

This is the 21st year the train has made its journey to collect food and funds for local food banks. So of course I donated some food and money to our local food bank. The hook to draw people to the event is that a musical performer performs a short free concert at each stop. The performer(s) on this years’ US train is Alan Doyle (of Great Big Sea fame) and his Beautiful Band. The weather was not bad for the end of November – overcast, a light breeze, temperature about 33F or 1C.

I was fortunate to see the show, and fortunate to be in a position to donate for people in need.

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Mask

House Sparrows have a striking face mask.

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Looks

A Downy Woodpecker looks for a tidbit at the shelled sunflower feeder.

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It must have been lost.

My workplace is an industrial facility, about 40 acres in size and roughly rectangular in shape. There are two plastic lined water retention ponds over on one side and a spray field, which is sort of naturalized, in one back corner.

I was returning from a site inspection walk on a not warm afternoon. It was about 8 degrees C or 46F and I was just outside the main admin building when something caught my eyes. I veered towards it.

A crayfish (I called them crawdads when I was in Texas) was at least 100 meters from the nearest pond, and more than 200 meters as the crawdad crawls from the spray field. About 4 inches nose to end of tail. It had no business being on the concrete pad behind the building. I can only speculate how it got there.

I seemed to remember they they burrow down into soft mud in cold weather. So I took it back to the edge of the water at the spray field where it had at least a chance.

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Overwhelmed

I was at work when Faye suggested I go out to look at the dawn, so I did.

My camera wasn’t handy and my phone camera was overwhelmed by the brilliant reds and oranges.

I was overwhelmed. What a glorious start to the day.

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Darth Fitzi revisited

One year later, this photo still greatly amuses me. Fitzi, right in front of me with stick in mouth and in a very high pounce, invites me to play.

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Monitors

Though Fitzi is curled up on a dog bed in the living room, he still monitors what goes on in the kitchen.

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Waves

As the molten white sun rises, a phragmites head waves in the morning breeze.

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Lovely

I was fortunate to be able to stop and take in lovely dawn.

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Brilliant

A brilliant late fall dawn graced this morning. It was most welcome, after a snowfall and two cloudy mornings.

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