By the time we get to
the last month of the year, time flies by so fast that we wonder where it went.
The Weather, of
Course
The month started off
slowly, with winter well-entrenched. Cold
temperatures prevailed, culminating in 41 record low temperatures broken in BC
on December 23. Osoyoos had a record low
of -21.8C versus -17.5C in 1983 while we reached -28.1C up on
the hill. Snow came every few days,
never in large amounts, but it just kept adding up. Brian blew the driveway 8 times in December,
more that he ever did in a winter month in Ontario. Something is just plain wrong with this
picture.
Speaking of pictures,
we did get a number of nice winter wonderland views.
During this time, there
seemed to be weather bombs falling all over Canada like Russian missiles, and
travel plans were horribly disrupted for many people whether on the road or in
the air. We hope you were not caught in
any of the dicey conditions found almost everywhere.
Christmas on
Anarchist Mountain
We were delighted to
have a return of the Firehall Potluck Christmas Dinner on December 18. The Fire Hall gets decorated to the ying
yang, everyone brings one or two dishes to share and we sit down to a very
generous meal (and of course we all eat too much). That was suspended for two years during
Covid.
In preparation, all of
the equipment is driven out of the hall, tables and chairs are set up, and the
decorating begins.
Then a mob turns up
(they expected 120 people this year) and there is much visiting and fun. We are warned that if there is a fire call, we
need to just sit down and stay out of the firefighters’ way. Fortunately, none of that kind of excitement
occurred.
In October, I showed you a quilt we
finished for a fundraiser; the quilt tickets were all sold, and we had the draw at
the Potluck. The best part of it was
immediately handing a cheque of $1911 over to the Fire Department for their use
in the future.
Wildlife Sightings (or
not…)
After giving you so
many bird pictures last month, I thought I would balance that out with some
deer pictures and correspondingly moved the game camera beside a trail commonly
used. They didn’t. With all the snow on the ground, I believe
the deer have herded up other than a few stragglers that venture by to eat
under the bird feeders. If they do come
by, they tend to use the driveway/sidewalk/path to the bird feeders like the
sensible animals they are.
This led to a number of
big misses. Brian came in to excitedly announce
that he could see elk tracks by the garage and up to the feeding ground. I checked, and the kind of beast was
confirmed by the fact that they were pawing the ground clear to get grazing. This happened again!! No camera!!
Then, we saw a couple of beautiful mule deer stags noshing at the
feeding ground!! No camera!! Finally I move the camera back and pointed it
toward the yard to catch the big guys.
Finally one came, and gave the camera a very close inspection. So much for the wildlife saga this month.
Atmospheric Phenomena
With the unusual
weather this December, we saw a huge variation in clouds and skies. I don’t know if you have experienced this before,
but in still conditions with specific ice crystals in the air, you can see
columns of light going upwards into the night sky from the street lights
below. Very beautiful and somewhat
eerie. We experienced something even
more unusual this month. Again, with
still conditions and specific ice crystals in the air, you can see a column of
light coming down from the sun. I took
pictures, but this one taken by a local photographer (Laurie Lennie) was even
better.
Thank you
for visiting, and we wish you a happy and prosperous New Year.
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