July 30, 2007 is the day my life began again. Achilles, Stella, and I arrived at our home after a journey rich in miles, time, and living. Sometimes people ask if I have been home, meaning Texas, lately. I reply ‘This is my home.’
I would not trade that journey, and my destination, for anything.
I like to track weather and climate data. Though my instruments are non-precision they help me track daily high and low temperature, rainfall, and snowfall. I write the numbers on the calendar then transfer them to a spreadsheet, in which I keep the data in tabular and graphical form. It’s a cool way to see what happens during the month, year, and over the years since I have lived in Dresden. It’s also neat to compare against climate data collected here by Environment Canada during the years 1971-2000.
Here is the graph for January through yesterday morning. The red line is the high, the roughly corresponding line is the low, green = rain and lighted blue = snow. Up and down the temperatures have gone. Despite that big dip our average low of -6 is three degrees warmer than the historic average of -9. Another big dip looms in the next few days, which should bring that average low more in line with the historic data. The green spike is a day of rain, and we have already exceeded the average snowfall by a comfortable margin.
The winter thaw has departed so it’s back to winter for the duration, the length of which remains to be determined. We have had about 12cm of snow in the last 36 hours or so and tonight’s low temperature will be around -12. Good curling for curling up on the couch with some movies. Our choices are In Her Shoes, Chasing Amy, The Human Stain, The Ides of March, and Swing Vote. Not sure which one or two will catch our interest.
Snowshoeing with Stella in Saratoga Swamp a few years ago.
When I emailed friends in Texas about our first snowfall in Goderich, I included this photo of how such a foreign experience affected me – curled into the fetal position, thumb in mouth. My friends were amused, replying ‘Yeah right.’
They were right.
I took this photo in December 2007, my first winter in Canada after relocating from Texas. We lived in Goderich at the time, which Ontarians will recognize as being in the snow belt. And boy, did it snow that December. There was a week during which Faye and I shovelled the driveway and sidewalk daily, ant not only to have something to do. Sometimes we shovelled twice daily. THAT was quite an introduction to winter, which I so contended I wanted to live in, to experience.
Another old photo, taken when visiting friends at a cottage outside Port Albert. Two people enjoying a sunny, breezy day.
This patch of ice caught my eye, looking like a buffalo head, or an alien, or vaguely like a longhorn steers’ head and horns if you are a previouslytexan.
previouslytexan 