It's that time of the year.

It's cold, and wet, but at least it's rain today instead of snow.  15C feels totally balmy!

You can see CN tower today, which looks surprising to me because it's been hidden in mist for what seems like weeks.

The Yankee Lady and the skyline with CN Tower

We were up next to the malting silo today too, and I really liked these rusted old gears.

It's like a metaphor for life, man.

Closer to home, the planters are starting to show signs of Christmas Infection.

Yo ho ho and a bottle of (wait, that's the wrong ho ho, isn't it?)

Shrink wrap it, please.

Yes, it's still cold and still snowy. The little bit of sunshine we had this afternoon convinced some of the live-aboards who haven't enclosed their boats yet to get it done, like, now.

Now I just need to wait for them to get their Christmas lights up!

Snow snow.

Yes, more snow.  And it's really starting to stick,

Even to the roads!  Oh the humanity!

It's a good thing we got the dog's rubber paw covers out this week.  She really hates snow between her pads.

So -4 today, and oh my is it windy.  I tried to get a photo of the white caps on the water today, but the camera phone just isn't good enough to capture it -- it tends to blur and blend colours so anything that's a variation on white-grey ends up just a blur.

Anyway, I saw this little guy in the marina with a big green collar on.  There were numbers on it; I'm assuming for now that it's scientific and not just "goose got his head stuck in something".

I hope he at least feels fashionable.

There is ice clinging to the sides of the various boats.  The Miss Mary looks very cold today.

Seeing the name always ends up in me humming the Vic Chesnutt song.

Meanwhile, the harbour looks really super cold, though you can't really see the whitecaps here.

Brrr!

Ducks and leaves

It's pretty awful outside.  We had some snow on the ground this morning, but since then the snow has been falling as big wet flakes or just plain old rain, and it's all washed away.  Still, it's real misty out and wet and cold and blech.

The oldsquaw (aka long-tailed) ducks are still hanging around and collecting in larger numbers.

They're diving ducks, so they're fun to watch.

The trees are getting more bare day by day, but at least the ground is covered in colorful leaves.

Gold and red dominate the maples along the quay.

The UN is in town

The UN is in town, or at least someone from the UN is.

Sorry... camera phone zoom really sucks.

I haven't seen anything in the news about it, so I'm going with "it's totally not newsworthy".

Ducks and a new sign

The long-tailed ducks are beginning to congregate in (slightly) larger numbers on the harbour. Unfortunately, this was as close as I could get -- they're pretty skittish, unlike the usual mallards.

Those dots are ducks -- I swear!

Over toward the middle of the harbour, the Caledonia and the Empire Sandy have moved into their Winter moorings:

You can also see the red-hulled fire boat there.

And they've put up a new fish sign along Spadina Quay:

I've definitely seen some really large black carp in the marina itself, though not in the last couple months.