The Fedex man thinks she needs socks....

We’ve just had the first biggish snowfall of the season, somewhere between 20 and 30 cm (that would be 8 to 12 inches).  Since I didn’t have to drive anywhere and wasn’t waiting for a bus (transit’s on strike at the moment, anyway), I quite enjoyed the weather.  It was a bit of a slog heading up the driveway in boot-top-high snow to get to the mailbox, but it wasn’t cold and it was ohhhh so quiet with the flakes whispering down and occasionally leaving cool, wet kisses on my cheeks.  There were very few cars on the road, and each one that passed made that special driving-slowly-through-snow sound that I remember from growing up near Montreal.

The picture of the lovely lady on the left was taken in the late afternoon of the first day of the snowfall.  By winter’s end she’ll be up to her neck in snow and she, and I, will be ready for green growing things and warm breezes (note that I did not say we’ll be ready for +30C temperatures and 100% humidity!).

By yesterday afternoon the snow had stopped and the day turned sunny.  Frank and I went out to take some pictures of an old log-building ruin near here that I’ve been wanting to do a painting of.  He let me play around with the infra-red camera and here are a couple of the results (make sure you click on the pictures to get the enlarged version):

Old outbuildings on March Road

The pictures taken with the regular camera looked fairly pedestrian, but the IR makes the sky dramatic and just gives the whole picture an eerie otherness that I quite like.  I won’t be painting from this photo, but I like how it turned out.

Below, a picture of Frank (his jacket is actually red and purple, just to give you an idea of how the colours are altered), engrossed in his work.  By this time the wind had come up and it was too cold for me to stay outside of the truck.  When we left the house it was reasonably warm and windless, so I had removed the hood from my jacket and left my hat and scarf at home.  Shouldn’t have (but will I remember this lesson the next time I leave the house when it’s relatively warm and still?) ….

Frank bundled up against the wind

It was lovely to come home and sink into a hot bath before supper and read a few pages of Robert Henri’s The Art Spirit.  A quote: “That which is worth while in a landscape is the expression of human emotion in it…. Paint mountains as they are when they look wonderful to you, when they seem to move and have a life of their own.  Try to discover what it is you see when they look so wonderful.”