I always jump at the opportunity to spend a few hours at the park with my grandson, a.k.a. ‘The wee laddie’ or ‘Pickle’. He is an energetic and the most lovable four year old who is always up for an adventure with his Gran. They live ten minutes further along the lake from us and he is a great companion and loves our lakeside exploring as much as I do.
As is more often than not the case, we were the only ones at the park. Due to the current restrictions that is the only way we can be there safely. We played on the swings and slides, tag, snow baseball, slid down slopes and built these adorable little snowmen on a picnic bench. The snow was not packing so this was our best effort.
Listening to the weather forecast it seems we have not had a decent amount of sunshine in the past three weeks and I definitely concur. However, the light was actually beautiful if a little surreal. All of the white is the frozen lake. It is still open water at the horizon and you wouldn’t catch me out there until at least the end of January!
Huge numbers of geese gather at the edge of the ice in the slowly shrinking open water and what a noise they make. Ice fishermen are starting to test the ice in the hopes of reeling in a prize catch and the duck hunters are doing their thing. When we first moved here and heard the gunfire it was pretty unsettling. Even now I just don’t understand the killing of a creature for sport. When the wee laddie first heard the shots booming out over the lake he was quite scared and it was a rather difficult thing to explain to a toddler. So we came up with it being that the people were hunting ‘ducks for dinner’.
Soon enough all the kite surfers will be out. The hockey and skating rinks will appear and be carefully tended to create the best ice and a Canadian winter will be in full swing.