I am totally amazed. I have only been blogging since December 31, 2011, which makes it almost five months. Today, officially, there were 900 people in total who have viewed my blog! 753 from Canada; 66 from the United States; 42 from Russia; 15 from Germany; 4 from the United Kingdom; 3 from Thailand; and 2 each from Australia, Brazil and Latvia. At first when I discovered how to check my 'audience', I was floored at these climbing numbers. What I have found out since is that there is a button at the top of the blog that says "Next Blog". You click it and it takes you to somebody else's blog. Try it yourself and you will see what I mean....I expect for the most part that's how readers are happening onto mine, not by design, but purely by accident. Who knows if they even read it or not. I hope so, because if some of the stories make me laugh, then surely they're making some other person smile too.
I'm so happy with the way this year has turned out weather-wise. In this part of the world, we've had day after day of lovely weather all through the Summer, Fall, Winter and now Spring. 2011-12 has given us the best weather we've had for years. I love the changing of the seasons and don't really know how I would fare in a country that only had all hot or all cold. To me that wouldn't be too much fun. Personally, I think Spring is the best season because as the snow melts, the water starts to run and the air becomes incredibly fresh with the humidity moving to normal. The birds come back and start to build nests and things outdoors start coming back to life. The trees start to bud, plants poke through the soil, and the grass turns green. All this tends to sneak up on you because one day the trees are bare and the next they are full of leaves. It's incredible to watch.
The melting of water bodies is also amazing. The best part about the Saskatchewan River in Saskatoon, for instance, is when the ice chunks are going over the weir, near the railway bridge. That is a mesmerizing sight that will keep you spellbound for as long as you stand there. I could hang around and do nothing else but watch that scene by the hour. Unfortunately, you have to time it just right, because the ice flows don't last very long. It doesn't take much to miss the whole performance if you aren't careful. Watching a lake thaw is also a timed event. It doesn't look like much when you look out across it. Just the lake frozen solid and covered with snow. You know the weather has warmed up considerably, so you to realize that the ice is getting really rotten and slushy underneath. You know that one day soon that blanket of ice and snow will magically become a big body of water that moves to and fro with the gravitational pull and gets thrown around in the wind to form white caps. Too many people have learned the dangers of rotten ice the hard way. The ice may have been ten inches thick and great for ice fishing when it was minus 30 for weeks on end in January...but give it several warm weeks and that changes way too fast. Remember some lakes have currents in them just like rivers, so that makes them unpredictable for somebody like you or I to play around on. You might have guessed, when I see trucks and ice fishing shacks out on the lake in late Spring, I catch my breath. The ice can go out from the lake in very short order, so if you're sitting there watching, be careful not to turn your back for too long or go get a coffee, or visit the washroom because you just might miss it! I'm kidding!...It probably doesn't happen quite that fast, but maybe...
Sometimes we get snowstorms in Spring and the snow is really wet and heavy. That's a great time for snowballs and snowmen, but not so great for shovelling driveways and roof tops. We had one like that this Spring, especially bad in the area that includes our lake. The first thing that happened was trees snapped off or got bent right over. Power lines fell and the power went out. There was at least a couple feet of this wet, heavy snow and it took my son several hours to get out with his truck and up the fairly steep hill that leads out to the main road.
Imagine if you lived in a country near the Equator. They never get snow. They don't even know what it looks like or how it feels. Now think about this, some likely don't understand, even in some parts of Alberta that in Saskatchewan, snow makes a sound....it crunches under our feet when we walk on it or creaks under our tires when we drive on it as the temperature hits minus 40 celsius. My cousins were raised in Alberta by home grown Saskatchewan parents and this concept had to be taught to them.
If you live in the Arctic, I would think you definitely know what I'm talking about. My brother worked for a seismic crew on the Beaufort Sea when he was quite alot younger. He didn't have to watch the show "Ice Roads" on T.V., because he actually experienced driving on them. I don't know if I could do it. I guess the biggest problem can be from driving too fast. If a wave gets rolling under the ice, because of increased speed, the pressure could cause the ice to break. The program itself shows these huge semis loaded with things like logs that must weigh a ton driving across a frozen body of water. And you thought your job was stressful! My brother also talked about staying in a camp in the Arctic where their camp houses were up on huge pilons (stilts). The reason for this was because of the polar bears who would otherwise ransack everything in search of food. Those folks living near the Equator don't have to put up with anything like this. Well, they do have to deal with other problems like scorpions, alligators and lions....but that's another story.
We don't either for that matter, but we do have to contend with surviving the winter. Even with furnaces and car heaters, we still have to be careful. A number of years ago, many people will remember a lady going missing in Saskatoon. Months later, it was discovered that she had probably hit black ice, lost control and slid into the river, car and all. I wondered why she just wouldn't crawl out of her car and come to the surface. I never thought about it, but found out that even though the car makes a hole in the ice, the river is still moving underneath. Chances are the person wouldn't surface at the same entry spot and wouldn't be able to break through the ice. What a tragic thing to happen.
When you think about it though, there are lots of activities you can do winter or summer. I just don't like extremes of either. Heat is OK when I'm near a place to go swimming. I like moderation in all things, including temperature. I would never do well in a desert. My friend is currently in a very hot country for a short while. It is between 40 and 45 degrees there every single day. He says everything moves so slowly and there is a certain loss of civility. I think I would get cranky too having to contend with that kind of heat every day myself.
So, I'll be happy enjoying the four seasons. Watching them come and go and changing my life to accommodate them passes the time and brings me peace, a breath of fresh air, and most often a smile.
I'm so happy with the way this year has turned out weather-wise. In this part of the world, we've had day after day of lovely weather all through the Summer, Fall, Winter and now Spring. 2011-12 has given us the best weather we've had for years. I love the changing of the seasons and don't really know how I would fare in a country that only had all hot or all cold. To me that wouldn't be too much fun. Personally, I think Spring is the best season because as the snow melts, the water starts to run and the air becomes incredibly fresh with the humidity moving to normal. The birds come back and start to build nests and things outdoors start coming back to life. The trees start to bud, plants poke through the soil, and the grass turns green. All this tends to sneak up on you because one day the trees are bare and the next they are full of leaves. It's incredible to watch.
The melting of water bodies is also amazing. The best part about the Saskatchewan River in Saskatoon, for instance, is when the ice chunks are going over the weir, near the railway bridge. That is a mesmerizing sight that will keep you spellbound for as long as you stand there. I could hang around and do nothing else but watch that scene by the hour. Unfortunately, you have to time it just right, because the ice flows don't last very long. It doesn't take much to miss the whole performance if you aren't careful. Watching a lake thaw is also a timed event. It doesn't look like much when you look out across it. Just the lake frozen solid and covered with snow. You know the weather has warmed up considerably, so you to realize that the ice is getting really rotten and slushy underneath. You know that one day soon that blanket of ice and snow will magically become a big body of water that moves to and fro with the gravitational pull and gets thrown around in the wind to form white caps. Too many people have learned the dangers of rotten ice the hard way. The ice may have been ten inches thick and great for ice fishing when it was minus 30 for weeks on end in January...but give it several warm weeks and that changes way too fast. Remember some lakes have currents in them just like rivers, so that makes them unpredictable for somebody like you or I to play around on. You might have guessed, when I see trucks and ice fishing shacks out on the lake in late Spring, I catch my breath. The ice can go out from the lake in very short order, so if you're sitting there watching, be careful not to turn your back for too long or go get a coffee, or visit the washroom because you just might miss it! I'm kidding!...It probably doesn't happen quite that fast, but maybe...
Sometimes we get snowstorms in Spring and the snow is really wet and heavy. That's a great time for snowballs and snowmen, but not so great for shovelling driveways and roof tops. We had one like that this Spring, especially bad in the area that includes our lake. The first thing that happened was trees snapped off or got bent right over. Power lines fell and the power went out. There was at least a couple feet of this wet, heavy snow and it took my son several hours to get out with his truck and up the fairly steep hill that leads out to the main road.
Imagine if you lived in a country near the Equator. They never get snow. They don't even know what it looks like or how it feels. Now think about this, some likely don't understand, even in some parts of Alberta that in Saskatchewan, snow makes a sound....it crunches under our feet when we walk on it or creaks under our tires when we drive on it as the temperature hits minus 40 celsius. My cousins were raised in Alberta by home grown Saskatchewan parents and this concept had to be taught to them.
If you live in the Arctic, I would think you definitely know what I'm talking about. My brother worked for a seismic crew on the Beaufort Sea when he was quite alot younger. He didn't have to watch the show "Ice Roads" on T.V., because he actually experienced driving on them. I don't know if I could do it. I guess the biggest problem can be from driving too fast. If a wave gets rolling under the ice, because of increased speed, the pressure could cause the ice to break. The program itself shows these huge semis loaded with things like logs that must weigh a ton driving across a frozen body of water. And you thought your job was stressful! My brother also talked about staying in a camp in the Arctic where their camp houses were up on huge pilons (stilts). The reason for this was because of the polar bears who would otherwise ransack everything in search of food. Those folks living near the Equator don't have to put up with anything like this. Well, they do have to deal with other problems like scorpions, alligators and lions....but that's another story.
We don't either for that matter, but we do have to contend with surviving the winter. Even with furnaces and car heaters, we still have to be careful. A number of years ago, many people will remember a lady going missing in Saskatoon. Months later, it was discovered that she had probably hit black ice, lost control and slid into the river, car and all. I wondered why she just wouldn't crawl out of her car and come to the surface. I never thought about it, but found out that even though the car makes a hole in the ice, the river is still moving underneath. Chances are the person wouldn't surface at the same entry spot and wouldn't be able to break through the ice. What a tragic thing to happen.
When you think about it though, there are lots of activities you can do winter or summer. I just don't like extremes of either. Heat is OK when I'm near a place to go swimming. I like moderation in all things, including temperature. I would never do well in a desert. My friend is currently in a very hot country for a short while. It is between 40 and 45 degrees there every single day. He says everything moves so slowly and there is a certain loss of civility. I think I would get cranky too having to contend with that kind of heat every day myself.
So, I'll be happy enjoying the four seasons. Watching them come and go and changing my life to accommodate them passes the time and brings me peace, a breath of fresh air, and most often a smile.
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