Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2015

Finally lots of ice on lake

Last night the cold set the ice from the north to the south, a pic of the bottom of the lake with ice and from the north end. Note the Donovan Tower in the second pic.

Yesterdays trip to town

Here are a couple of pics of  the ice in the trees that finally took out the hydro the day before.  All along the high elevations the ice was bad.  Down in the valleys not as bad.

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Ice storm and open water

Yesterday around 4:00 pm the ice storm finally fell some trees out on the highway.  Power went out until 2:30 pm today.  Thank goodness for generators. Here is a pic of the ice starting to build up on the pines in the yard.  Some freezing rain on the lens.

Here is a picture taken down near the Post Office of the lake still open all the way to the south.

Tonights sundown

7th of December weather great

Ice in ice out

Again today the lake is still open, yesterday warmer and lots of the bay ice being chewed up by waves. 

Here's one from early this morning

This was taken about 6:30 am.

Moon shining on the frost in the trees

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Pond starting to freeze up

This is the beaver pond up the Bouche Rd. west of town. Today it was frozen all the way across.

Birds are starting to arrive at the feeders

Here is a pic of a Evening Grosbeak

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A couple of pics around town

Here is a couple of different views of the town.

and one from tower hill

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Moon shot with new camera

Here is a shot I did about a week ago with my new camera Nikon Coolpix P900, it bought this for it's 2,000 mm telephoto zoom. I have taken a pic of the fire tower 12km south of Gowganda. I need to use the tripod and get a nice crisp and cool day to clean it up better. Anyway here is the moon.

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More of Fall

This is one of Hedlund Marsh, haven't done one of these for a long time.

Late October leaves

A couple more pics of leaves along highway 560 taken a couple of days ago.  Today it's not quite as colourful.

click on pic for bigger pic

Ferns

Here are some ferns peeking above the rock catching some sun.

Some fall colours in Gowganda today

Not much to say here the pics talk for themselves

Last nites Northern Lites

Most of it didn't last long, if I had been later I would have missed it.

The sleeping bear

Out ATVing yesterday up the mine road to  Obushkon Lake, weather cool but finally warmed up in the afternoon.  On the way back on a small trail back to town Gord spotted something and jumped off his ATV and pointed out it look like and animal sleeping.  After taking a picture and looking at it on the computer it looked like a sleeping bear to me.  What do you think?

The solar eclipse as seen from Gowganda

Up and ready with two cameras with lots of battery power and empty cards just waiting to film and photograph the eclipse.  As soon as the moon was up, way before the event I took a pic of the moon just heading into the clouds and that's all I saw the rest of the night, clouds.  Here is the moon 

just entering the clouds.

 On an other note here is a pic of sunrise a week and a half ago.

Some more pics from the canoe trip

Pouring rain set us looking for a campsite, nothing to be found, finally paddled up to Arthur Lake the spot where I figured would be a camp site was at the bridge and the road, the parking area was a lake.  Went on to Arthur Lake and found one that needed lots of clean up, still raining, put up the fly and hunkered in and finally had supper under the fly.  After dinner got the tents up and crawled into the bags.

Next day it started out grey but turned all right and paddled right up to Pigeon Lake where we found a great site on top of and island.  The first thing on the agenda get all the wet stuff out and hang it up.

We got there early so had a lot of time to get all the tents up and bags in for the night to come.

Here is the cook reading the directions on the bag of dehydrated food.  We all need a good meal and a dry spot to sit on to rest.

Lots of time to eat and rest and a good evening enjoying the camp fire after dinner. Set off the next day under good weather by the time we were down to the portage into Duncan lake it started to pour again.  Down Duncan and back to the vehicles and back to Gowganda to dry everything out again.  Great trip with Geoff and John (brothers) and as always Brian.

Short video of some of our canoe trip on West Montreal River

Starting at the Big Four Bridge west of Gowganda on Hwy. 560, going thru Sams Lk., Houston Lk., Arthur Lk., Pigeon Lk., to Duncan Lk., the put out.

Harvest time on the Little clay belt

East of Gowganda about 50km. is the fertile clay belt, this happened thousands of years ago when a great lake drained and left the fertile soil behind.  Gowganda is on the Precambrian Shield, shallow soils and lots of rock.
Right now the farmers are getting their grains, corn, canola, beans off the land.  Weather has been favourable and they have been at it steady for some time.  Here are a couple of pics of some of the fields they work in.

A tip from Mary Bullock tonite, Bald Eagle landed across the road

Mad rush to get camera had to come back for a new battery and still got a few shots.

click pic for larger view

Tonights moon

Here's one of the moon a day late of the supermoon.

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More from Edith Lake

Here's a common plant around moss and damp sites Creeping Snowberries (Gaultheria hispidula).                

Warmer yesterday

Got all my wood covered up for the winter, finally.  This is wood that I will use two years from now.  Nice to have that all finished up.
The sun came out in the afternoon and it warmed up a bit too.  Took the ATV out to the Edith Lake Rd. for a look at the river to see how fast the current was going.  I thought it would be worse but it's not that bad.  Ending up going up the trail towards Obushkon but didn't get to far as there were lots of pics to take. A great Black Spruce area with lots of mosses, plants and mushrooms.
Here is some that were on the trail, these are very small but a great colour.

Haven't seen a lot of the sun lately

The summary for this week so far is cloudy skies, rain and drizzle and getting a little cooler.  Tomorrow the sun may shine and be a little warmer.  This is the last known record of the sundown for some time.  It's amazing how far south the sun has traveled already. 

Hummingbirds at the window

Trying some new views with the GoPro, this one up close and personal. The glass in the window makes it a little blury

Cool and wet

Cooler today with scattered showers better than the heat we had a couple of days ago.  Have finally checked all the video and pictures I took of the Perseid meteor shower a few evenings back.  I saw 7 meteors but the camera never caught any of it. By 2:00 am I rigged the GoPro overnite to cover another couple of hours, nothing on film.  I did take some pics of the Milky Way in the south west skies.

Back to Clark Lake

Have been trying to get back to Clark Lake to check out the Arethusa Orchid not going to happen this year.  I have decided and looked into many field guides that I have not got the right flower.  My pictures were taken leaning over the canoe, with the wind blowing me away from the side of the floating bog.  Sorry to say I should have taken more than the two I have.  Have cleaned up the best one with Photoshop to try and sharpen it a bit.  This is what came out of that editing.  From what I see now I believe it's a Rose Pogonia (Pogonia ophioglossoides).  I'm going to go to the expert on this ML who watches when I make mistakes.  I am glad to have her help me in cases like this.

Computer home finally

Finally home with the patient, had a hard drive transplant and several other critical areas fixed.  I guess it was getting to old.  Once home had to start and put in all my programs, the doctor installed some too.  Any way 2 days of care and working on it, it's close to getting back to work.
Just some pics of LeRoy Lake checking out the bog looking for cranberries.  While there 2 Sandhill Cranes walk past, I will check it out next spring there may be a nest.

Main computer in the hospital for a few days

Computer has flu, until he gets better more blogs will appear.  Hope it's not catchy.  Doctor will phone tomorrow with results, so he says. ML will get back to you later re plant.  Bill

Retracted the Arethusa, will have to go back and see more of the plant

I will try and go back this week or so to get some more info on the plant that was on the blog yesterday.  Need to study it a bit better yet.  There is a plant very similar to Arethusa that needs another look at.

Looking for the start of this years canoe trip

Our canoe trip this year might start near Cryderman Lake which is on 560 just east of Shining Tree.  I put in at Cryderman and went south down Chlorus Creek and portaged into Clark Lake which is a stream with bog and beaver dams.  I stopped for lunch and took some pics, this plant is called Pale Corydalis.  It's a biennial that grows granitic rock barrens.

Back from a month off

Been off the blog for a month for some R&R.  It's been the longest time since 2008.  Now will get some pics on the blog again and news.
It has been very dry and hot the rain seems to pass either North or South of us.  The blueberry crop has suffered from the heat and dryness.  Hopefully some of the later berries will make it.
The last couple of days have had scattered heavy showers and lightning, a fire started last week down the Beauty Lake Road, water bombers have put it out.  The heat was terrrible last week but is getting cooler.  Here is a couple of pics of the scattered showers we are getting.