Ducks on ice

The snow started Wednesday afternoon and by Thursday morning we were blanketed in it. Overnight it warmed up so the snow was not light and fluffy but heavy and wet. I spent some time shovelling the stuff, then drove to a nearby farmer's market to pick up sweet cider that was on sale for one day only. I bought two jugs, one for me and one for the girl next door who helped me shovel the snow.

One of the two Reservoir ponds froze over completely a few days ago when it was bitterly cold, the other smaller pond only half froze. Now all the ducks are crowded into the half frozen pond, and for some reason they prefer to stand on the ice than float on the water. Who can guess what goes on in the mind of a duck?

When the small pond is frozen completely the ducks will leave. A few will come back in the spring, but the majority will not return until next fall.

I photographed the Reservoir Dog Tree before the snowfall. Hapi's ornament is in the upper right, I printed her name on it but not very well.

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I am trying an experiment, a technology Sabbath. Technically, the Sabbath runs from Friday night to Saturday night, but I have chosen Sunday as my technology Sabbath. Basically, no screens. Last Sunday I turned off the wifi, the computer and the tablet. I turned off my cell phone data and also text messaging; the only thing I could use the cell phone for was voice calls. I decided to leave that function on. I could have used the phone camera but decided that was too screen-y. Most of my books now are e-books, so no reading online. My evening entertainment is watching Netflix and Prime shows on my computer, none of that either.

The hardest part was not having TV shows in the evening. Reading while eating one's supper is not easy, I listened to the radio instead. Mostly CBC's Cross Country Checkup. I went through my library of paper books and picked out a couple of novels that I didn't mind rereading, so I would have something for reading in bed. One small glitch: I was going to do some baking in the afternoon but most of my recipes are now on the tablet. I was able to do something that I had committed to memory, but one recipe (Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread) I had to postpone to another day since I did not have recipe memorized.

It was a successful experiment which I will repeat again tomorrow. I learned a few things about myself, one of which is that I am addicted to weather reports: I constantly check the weather online throughout the day. It felt weird not to know what the forecast was, or whether there was any precipitation showing up on the weather radar.