Everything is Grey

I actually took a photo while I was out yesterday, but it was 500 shades of grey: grey sidewalk next to a grey road where grey people were driving grey cars, all bordered by grey snow and grey walls with a grey sky and grey clouds overhead.  So, I'm not bothering to post it.

I'll try to post some things on my other blog, just so there's some content somewhere out there this February.  I hope to resume regular posting here in the gusty month of March.

Fake birds and ice breaking

Looks like someone living aboard has gotten tired of cleaning bird poop off things.  I thought at first that I was imagining the shape from a bent-up furled jib or something, but no — fake bird ahoy.

Out on the harbour, the marine unit was ice-breaking:

At least it was sunny today, despite being -15°C (or -27°C with the wind chill).

With abject apologies

I know there hasn't been much here lately.  I'm really sorry but I just have not been bothering to take my camera out for the very perfunctory walks with the dog this past week.

It's just miserable out there, and unless you really like photos of snow, there isn't much to see; most of the time, there aren't even other people out there walking.  Toronto's dogs must all be house-bound this week, can you imagine?

This is the view this afternoon off my balcony.

As miserable as it looks, it's even worse to walk through.  I think we spend more time getting the boots, coats, and other gear on (and taking it off again) than we actually do being outside.

I tried to zoom in on the airport to get a photo of a plane trying to take off. This is all I got:

That vague line 3/5 of the way down is the runway.  Yeah.

Cormorant and other things

I finally saw a cormorant in the water today — I don't remember seeing one here in the inner harbour since early Summer.  The harbour itself is still pretty frozen, but close in to the shore in the marina is open water.

As it turns out, the far eastern end of the harbour may be plagued with them (or at least was, in 2009).

Just as I was arriving at the lakeside today, they were putting someone they'd pulled from the water into an ambulance.

Not sure what happened exactly, but I’ll keep an eye on the local news.  It looked to me like the police (in black) were pulling stuff out of that grey car and stuffing it into a bag.

Closer to home, the wind has been carving some interesting shapes into the snow wherever there’s an overhang.

February Snow

We got around 22 cm  (around 8.6 inches) of snow yesterday and last night.  That left walkable space pretty slim, especially after roads and sidewalks were cleared and the snow piled alongside.

Queens Quay West does at least have clear sidewalks, which is a luxury.

The geese I photographed last week in their lack-of-snow are now making up for it.