Last of January

The last day of January saw some snow.  The M. R. Kane looks kind of forlorn, in the snow and ice like that.

In the "Things people have thrown out onto the ice now that rocks are harder to find" category, today we have a large flower pot:

And a traffic cone:

Just a little snow.

We got very little snow in the Snowmageddon 2015, though to be fair they were not predicting much for us.  Most of the snow I saw was on the slowly-reforming ice in the harbour.

The giant wire geese just east of us showed no sign of snow whatsoever by this afternoon.

Ducks

The marinas and bits of the harbour are still frozen up pretty hard, but I can hardly blame them as it didn't get above -6C today.

Not sure that one dock is supposed to be out in themiddle like that.

The Western Gap was clear, though, and the ducks were enjoying it.  There were mallards (not pictured) and long-tailed ducks:

And I think a red-breasted merganser or two, but I could not get close enough to tell for certain.

Surprises

So, can anyone tell me how I've managed to miss a pair of decorated Christmas trees down at the marina even though I walk by them at least three times a week?  Muh.

I'm pretty surprised they still have decorations, especially in today's 50/kmh gusts.

It's still zero degrees C out there, too, but the ice is starting to break up under the bright sunshine.

Down near the Empire Sandy's berth, I could see — wha? — people out on the water.  One guy with a sled, and another actually bobbing amid the ice.

I just had to get closer to see what was going on.  Around at HTO West, it looked like a training exercise for the Marine Rescue Unit there.

I hope this guy got paid well for playing victim out there today.

Right at hand there, was another thing in the ice.

Frozen

Today, it was all about things frozen in to the harbour's ice.

A parking ticket:

A shopping bag:

A box of crackers:

A … dead bird (ick):

A trash bag?  A body bag?  Maybe?  It's difficult to tell:

Ah, Old Milwaukee — damned littering hipsters:

Sunset

The sunset tonight was really gorgeous.

Great blues and oranges.  Too bad it was still before 5 PM, eh?

It's a sunny day out there, but still more chilly than you really want — especially when the wind blows.

The Western Gap is all unfrozen though, but for a few mini-floes.

The dog spent most of the walk happily tucked inside my coat.

Coming back toward the homestead, I noticed that the marina area is still frozen, and the rock tossing is getting out of control.

Turning around, it's easy to see where the rocks all come from.

Looks like all the loose rocks are gone, and they're having
to dig them out of the soil now.