Could Summer Really be Here?

What a nice day!  Chester and I didn’t walk along the Red River until after my exercise class at the Y followed by breakfast and I didn’t check the temperature at that time.  I think it was about 9C when I left for class though.  Now around noon, it is 22C under a sunny sky with very little wind.    They are predicting 26C on Tuesday – but I’ll believe that when I see it.

I started the walk off by taking pictures of my iris as now the tall ones are almost all blooming at once.

Iris June 11

Iris June 11

Iris June 11

They are so pretty – but they last such a short time.

Then while walking along the river, we found a Mallard and her 9 babies.

Mallards June 11

Duckling Stragglers

ducklings (still not all together)

Mallards June 11 (almost got them all in this one - but just the beak of #9)

Finally - got them all!

They have now put scaffolding back up at the block across the street, which I assume means that they really are going to be working on it again.  I don’t know if its been sold and it is another company doing the work or if the ones who were working on it before finally got their act together and got moving again, but it has been well over a year since all work stopped.  The best thing right now is that they cut the grass/weeds which were over a foot tall. 

On Africam today we have seen Elephants, Giraffes, Kudu, Zebras and more.  Click here to see today’s pictures with all the sightings for the day so far.

Red River May 14th

Apparently we have the sun shining today.     I wasn’t sure what the bright shiny object in the sky was, so I asked on Facebook and some of the people recognized it as being the sun.  We don’t usually go this long without the sun, so I really wasn’t sure after all this time.  And to top it off, the temperature has risen from 2C this morning to 14C in the early afternoon.

After my exercise class at the Y this morning, followed by a huge breakfast at the Red Top and the Chester walk along the Red River, I did some yard work – including planting some impatience in a pot on my front step.

On our walk, we saw Wood Ducks (3 pairs), some Spotted Sandpipers, a crow and several swallows (that moved way too fast for me to get a picture of).  My tulips are blooming and my rose is coming back too. 

Wood Duck pair May 14th

Wood Duck pairs May 14th

I didn’t even see the one hen until I looked at the picture a 2nd time.

Spotted Sandpipers May 14th

Tulips May 14th

Bunny damaged raspberry bush

It looks like the bunnies has a little snack on one of my raspberry bushes over the winter.  I focused on the wrong branch, but you can see what I mean.

Bunny damaged raspberry bush

But – they are tough bushes and this is the top of the stem above. 

Almost forgot the Crow

Click here to see what has been happening at Africam today. 

Birds and Water

Today’s walk with Chester was after my exercise class at the Y followed by a big breakfast at the Red Top Restaurant – a Saturday tradition.     I didn’t check the temperature when we left, but it was 9C when we got back and I have no idea how long it took for this walk.  I’m going to have to map it out to see how far we go on nice days.  I have pictures of the water and pictures of birds, along with another beaver cut tree.  This tree is close to where the other one is and looks like i is freshly cut – maybe the other one was too.  I hope I get to see the beaver one day and I wonder where he is building his home.  There is no way he could even consider building a dam on the Red  River.

Beaver Cut Tree Apr 23

Big Tree Apr 23

bird April 23

bird April 23

Canada Goose April 23

Mallard Duck Apr 23

Mallard Duck Apr 23

Weekends are when I get a chance to get things done around the house – or sometimes I just spend my day watching the cams at Africam    I spent most of yesterday (Good Friday) watching the cams – so today I am getting outside and doing some raking in the yard.  The weather is gorgeous and the temperature has risen to 14C  in just the few minutes that I’ve been sitting here getting this ready to post.  I didn’t even turn the cams on while sitting here because I know myself well enough to know that the raking would go undone.  My other option was to head out to Lockport and see if I can get pelican pictures again.  It was a few years ago that I got some great pictures there, but lost the originals when my computer crashed with the pictures not saved.    I do have pictures on my blog though from that day – its just that they are re-sized.  I am hoping that next weekend has more than one nice day so I can use one for a pelican day.  If you are interested in seeing those pictures you can search for pelican day or pelicans.  I am going to post this without getting the link 

Have a great day – I’m heading out to rake now.

Strong Kids

The YMCA-YWCA of Winnipeg has started the Strong Kids Campaign for the year.  It started off yesterday with a cycle day.  Right from 6am until closing, we had at least 2 people riding stationary bikes in our front lobby after giving a donation or collecting sponsors (or both).

Click here to see the video from City TV about the campaign.  Luckily, I managed to avoid the cameras 

The South Y was a very busy place yesterday with people coming and going all day – some of them to exercise on their own, some of them to take classes for themselves or to take their children to classes and some of them to cheer on the bike riders or to ride themselves.  The campaign will continue with other fund raising activities so drop by any of the branches to help the Y help the kids – both here and in Mexico.  If you hear some of the stories from our Mexican Y, you will understand the need there.

The weather yesterday wasn’t bad – temperature hovered in the low minus teens up to about -8C, but this morning it is -20C with a nasty wind giving a wind chill of -35C.  It is March 1st and I woke up to fresh snow on the ground.  My policy is to never shovel after the end of February until next winter begins – so this snow is just going to have to sit there until it melts.  It is only if we have a storm that I will bring out the shovel again.   I believe this wind qualifies as March coming in like a lion – so hopefully it will begin to improve significantly so it can go out like a lamb. 

Chester and I had a short walk due to the cold wind today and didn’t make it to the river (where the wind can almost knock us off our feet).  By walking down the lanes and sidewalks, we were protected somewhat from the breezes.

Things are busy on the cameras at Africam these days.  As I was watching this morning, a small herd of breeding elephants passed by at Elephant Plains followed by some zebras.  You can see all of today’s pictures here.

Elephant at EP

Zebras at EP

Just a Little Rant

Do you remember the good old days when the mail was always delivered (you know – through rain or snow, etc).  Well, as you may know, we get a lot of snow here in the winter.  I know they won’t deliver if my sidewalk isn’t clear, so I keep that clean, even though I do not use the front door myself.  The one thing I do not do though is to clear it all the way to the street.  When the plows clean the street, they dump 6 foot piles of ice and packed snow along the boulevard in between the sidewalk and the street.  I don’t have a shovel that will move that stuff as it becomes rock solid unless it is cleared within a 1/2 hour after it is deposited there.

So – apparently the mail carriers who deliver parcels from vehicles do not deliver if it is not cleared all the way to the street, even if my house is the 2nd from the corner and it would only mean he had to walk an extra 50 feet (if he parked at the corner) to deliver it.  He can not deliver the card to tell you there is a parcel – so he returns to the post office and puts the card in the mail for the regular mail carrier who walks, to put the card in my mail box the next day.  I guess I will have to remember not to order any parcels between the end of November and the end of March from now on.

I have to balance out the rant with a good service story.  A couple of weeks ago I took my car to JB Transmission on St. Marys Road for an oil change.  This was the first time I had been to this place.  He found problems with transmission fluid leaks, which didn’t surprise me since I saw some spots under where the car had been parked when I returned after dropping it off there.  He gave me a written estimate for the repairs and placed the 3 items in order of most important, in case I could only afford to do one at a time.  A few days later, I decided I might as well get them all done at once and made an appointment for the next week.  The appointment day came and went and I completely forgot about it.    Two days later I returned home from work to a message from him wondering if something had happened.  I phoned him back first thing in the morning and apologized and asked when I could bring the car in.  He said I could bring it that day and my reply was that since I would have to leave in 10 minutes, I hopefully wouldn’t forget.  I did not forget  and I dropped the car off on the way to work.  I returned after work to pick it up and the actual price was a tiny bit lower than the estimate because the price of one of the parts went down.  It wasn’t a lot lower – but it didn’t end up costing me more.

The last garage I went to gave me an unwritten estimate for some work and then charged me quite a bit more when I had the work done (which is why I needed a new garage in the first place).  When I questioned him about it, he said the quote had only been for a portion of the work, but I had watched him figure it out and he phoned for the parts prices while I was in front of him and he told me how much the labour would be.   Since I didn’t have the quote in writing, there wasn’t much I could do about it.

I did it!!  I worked 6 days in a row this week and survived.     My reward is that I get a 3 day weekend (starting now) and then I only work 3 days next week.

After my exercise class at the Y this morning, I will be eating breakfast at the Red Top Restaurant and then getting groceries (since I was working yesterday and couldn’t do my regular Friday morning shopping trip).  Then it will be time to walk the Chester dog along the Red River and get some quality time in front of the cams at Africam.  The last few mornings at Africam, we have been watching and listening to some baboons as they play with some of the equipment at Elephant Plains.  We watched them dangling one of the IR lights from its cord and listened as they played with  the mics.  It sounded like they were at both mics and maybe having a contest as to who could make the most noise.

Baboon at EP

Although this baboon looks very innocent here, he may be one of the ones responsible for the work done on the mics or lights at Elephant Plains.

Too Much Snow

When the snow stopped coming down last night, the temperature began to drop.  By morning it was -20C.   I went out early to shovel around the car before leaving for my exercise class.  Luckily for me my wonderful neighbour Andy had cleared behind the cars with his snowblower.  I knew I would have to leave the house early enough to get all the snow off the car – but hadn’t thought about all the ice – since the car was warm when I parked it yesterday and the first snow on it would have melted.  It took me awhile to scrape enough ice off it to be able to drive it.

I went to the exercise class, then went for my usual big breakfast at the Red Top, then came home and walked Chester.  I couldn’t put off shoveling any longer, so then got out the shovel, planning on getting the mound just left by the snowplow behind the car first.  Luckily for me,  Andy beat me to it – so I got the roof rake out to get the roof cleaned up first.   I’m learning – last time I cleaned the steps and sidewalk first and had to re-do them after dumping the snow from the roof on the steps and sidewalk.  Of course the pile of snow was much larger – but it was better than doing it twice.    Most years I only have to use the roof rake once, but this is the 2nd time this year – sure hope its the last.  I hope I’m not too stiff and sore tomorrow.

We had a bit of excitement on Africam today when 4 new male lions spent some time at Nkorho.  Unfortunately, we did not get to see them – but could hear their roars and Karin from the lodge said they were new, possibly from Kruger and were beautiful.  I hope she got some pictures for us and will post them tomorrow.

I didn’t take any pictures today – too busy shoveling to get the camera out – so the picture of the day is a Zebra that I took at the zoo here last summer.

Zebra

January 3rd

New Years Resolutions!!!  Don’t you just love them?

The answer for me is NO!  I work in a fitness facility and what better new years resolution could there be other than to get fit?  I know that most of the people who came in today or phoned today will not get fit.  Many of them will pay the money to join up and never come back again, until they decide to cancel the membership next month because they don’t have time to use the facility.  Some will exercise hard for a few days and be so sore that they will stop coming and also end up canceling next month.  Many will decide after a couple of days that it is much too busy there and just stop coming until they see the next month’s charge on their credit card and they will come by to cancel also.  Some of these people won’t actually cancel for several months because they fully intend to exercise tomorrow, but eventually they too will realize that the payments keep coming out whether they use their membership or not.

All day today the phone kept ringing and people kept coming in – they came in groups and they came on their own, but usually ended up in a line of people  – all wanting either information, to try it out for the day or to just get their membership.  Some of the existing members came to work out today – but most will disappear for January because they have been through this before.  The entire facility is almost wall to wall people and it is very difficult to get your turn on a treadmill, elliptical or weight machines.  They know that by the end of January it will have started to slow down again and by mid February, things will be back to normal.  Out of the hundreds who will start their membership in January, there may be 5% who will actually follow through and stay with the program.

Tomorrow should be better because many people will be back at work after having today off in lieu of New Years Day.

Maybe next year I should take all of January off work.  I know – I could spend the month in Africa!!!

The weather this morning was a chilly -26C, but luckily there was little or no wind in the morning.  Right now it is -18 C, but with a wind it feels like -28.  It is only supposed to go down to -22C tonight, so that is much better.

I am sure glad I have the cams at Africam to watch to relax and unwind.  Last night we had a hippo in the Nkorho waterhole for a few hours.  He had a wonderful snooze 

 

Hippo at NK

Hippo at NK

 

Hippo at NK

Thats all for today.  I’ll see you again tomorrow.

December 4th

Winter is officially here weeks before it is officially here.  We now have more snow than we had all last year, but I know there will be more – lots more, before we get spring.  The temperature is not bad today -10C as I write this around noon, but that usually means more snow and today is no exception as the snow is currently coming down.

After my workout at the Y and breakfast at the Red Top and walking the Chester dog, I proceeded to give Chester a bath.  He really does not like baths but we both survived.    A few years ago I bought a dog bath that is elevated to make dog bathing easier on me and the dogs.  Dakota was a water dog and loved her baths – but Chester fights them all the way.  This bath has a tie down to keep him in and also has a hose with a spray wand to make it easier to get him wet and to rinse him off.  Unfortunately, the tap on the sink has become jammed so I can not get the hose on to the faucet, and I have to use a pail to get him wet and rinse him off.  This takes more time and more effort and does not do as good a job on him, so I rinsed him with about 100 pails of water to make sure all the shampoo was off.  All that rinsing takes more time and that means Chester gets more upset.  But, as I said we both survived and he is now happily shaking and drying himself off.  Now that it is winter and snow is covering the ground, he should stay clean for several months 

I haven’t been taking many pictures as the Red River is now frozen and is not changing much each day.  These pictures were taken November 30th when there was still a bit of open water and that is now gone.

Red River November 30th

Red River November 30th

We have had more lions at Nkorho on Africam to report.  By the time I got home from work on Thursday, I heard that 2 or 3 lions were lying in a dark area at Nkorho and we could just barely see a light spot or 2 where they were.  Amazingly enough they stayed right there until dawn and we could get a good look at them.  There were 2 lionesses and they were very relaxed until the landie drove out so the guests at the lodge could see them.  At that point they left.  A  brave bush buck walked very close behind the girls at one point, seemingly unaware of the lions who also seemed unaware of their potential meal.

Lionesses when starting to get light

Lionesses after colour added to camera

Lioness zoomed in

Lioness

This is the way she was looking when the bush buck walked behind her.  Unfortunately I wasn’t quick enough to get a picture – but luckily someone managed to get a video.  You can see it here.

Well – that’s it for today.  

April 24th

An exciting wake up for me this morning.  I fed the dogs and sat down at the computer – opened the cams for Africam and within less than a minute, I was staring at a beautiful leopard at Elephant Plains!

Leopard

Leopard

If you want to see more of the leopard visit, Gerda was ready and videotaped him/her.  We are hoping to get an ID on this beautiful animal from the ranger at Elephant Plains soon.  You can see the video here. Thanks Gerda!

Then I went off to the Y for some exercise, followed by breakfast and some shopping and dog walking.  When I sat down and opened the cams this time, there was Roy, the hippo just behind the waterhole at Elephant Plains.

Roy, the hippo

Roy, the hippo

You can see the rest of the critters seen at Africam on Saturday here.

Since it’s been awhile between postings this week, I have a few pictures from around here to show you also.

Red River looking North April 20

Tulips Apr 20

Tree across river Apr 21

Wood Duck Apr 20

Tree across River Apr 23

You can see that the tree is no longer surrounded by water.

Tulips Apr 23

I see there has been a bit of nibbling being done on the leaves.  Someone has been hungry – I wonder who?

the probable culprit

He seems innocent enough here, but I suspect he is the hungry tulip eater.

wildlife along the river Apr 24

Dakota has been scaring me on our walks.  She isn’t falling as much, but both her back legs seem to give out on her often.  If only she didn’t tire herself out before we even leave the yard by running around with excitement.  Our walk is very short and very slow, with her getting to sniff as much as she wants too, but just around the block is a little too much now.  She still wants to go back out when I’m taking Chester though and has to be told she has to stay.  Chester, meanwhile doesn’t get anywhere near as long or as fast a walk (run) as he would like to have.  I take him several blocks, but at a fast walk (for me) instead of a run and he is still raring to go when we return.

April 10th

Its a nice spring day here today and is 12C as I write this. The dogs and I had our separate walks again today and it is working out well. Dakota’s walk was 1/2 the distance we did yesterday at her pace, and she had no falls at all. Chester’s walk was much quicker and much further than Dakota’s walk – so both dogs were satisfied and I had some exercise.

I took a couple of pictures of a pair of Mallard ducks sitting on a log in the Red River, but otherwise no pictures on the walk. I came home to take pictures of Dakota, since we had a picture of Chester yesterday, but Chester gave me a cute pose – so I got another picture of him today too.

Mallards Apr 10

Mallards Apr 10

Dakota Apr 10

Dakota Apr 10

Chester April 10

Chester was preparing to sneak up on Dakota in this picture.

You can see in these pictures that my grass is still mostly brown with small bits of green starting to show through.  I’m hoping that more will turn green soon, but have bought a big bag of grass seed to help it along.

Its been a couple of days since I took a picture of my Elm Tree’s buds, so I took another one today to see if they have changed much.

Elm Tree buds Apr 10

Doesn’t look like much of a difference, but the temperature is still dropping down to around 0C each night.

Last night on at Elephant Plains on Africam, we had a parade of elephants in a breeding herd.  They walked by single file and didn’t even stop for a drink on the way by. Then this morning we had a warthog family on camera for some time. Its nice when I actually get to see some of the critters. You can see the pictures here. You can also see the pictures of the Impalas, Kudu, Baboons, Terrapins, and Water Monitor while you are there.

I just saw that Morris put up a video of the elephants passing by and it also has a lot of the night sounds with identification for those of us who do not know all the mysterious sounds of the night.  Take a look at it here