The weather this spring has been less than ideal. Groundhog Day came and went and whether or not the shadow was seen, we've had more than six more weeks of winter. March came in like a Lion, and went out like one too. Now here we are in mid-April, and it is about 10 degrees colder than the seasonal average, and it is snowing again today. The mid day sun is intense now and we only need a clear day and the snowpack starts melting, even if the temperature is not all that high. It seems as though every weekend that I had the time to head out with my cameras, the weather was awful. There were a couple of occasions that I was able to get out, but when I did it was either cold, windy or overcast with flat light or all of the above. I drove out east of the city on several occasions and explored a bit in Elk Island National Park, and then continued on through the park and explored some old buildings beyond.
In early March I photographed this old abandoned store. The light was flat and the image nothing spectacular. Mostly I was shooting some film that I wanted to experiment with processing in different developers. This is a digital snapshot from that trip...
Later in mid-March the girls and I went for a walk down in Blackmud ravine here in the city. This was during one of the few mild spells that we had. At the time it seemed as though spring had arrived and the runoff was underway. A short time later it turned cold, and the creek froze over again. The runoff was put on hold and it would be nearly a month before the melt really got going again.
While we were down in the ravine we explored this spot where there had once been an old farm yard. There was an old well that slowly seeped a trickle of water. Over the winter this had built up into a dome of ice. The girls thought this was really cool and that it looked like and "ice volcano". Of course, despite my warnings about how slippery it was, Anna wiped out and fell heavily on the ice, bruising her backside.
In early April I was out exploring again. This time the light was pretty flat, and it was a blustery day with a stiff breeze. I found a couple of interesting old houses and carried on with shooting some test shots so that I could continue with my development tests. Here are a couple of snapshots from that afternoon out...
Then this past weekend I headed out again, back into the same area. This time around Margarit and all three of the girls came along with me. We actually saw quite a bit of wildlife including a bald eagle, some deer, a bison in Elk Island, some beavers, a flock of snow geese, a porcupine and lots of ducks and geese. Here are a number of snapshots that I took as we spent the afternoon exploring. It was a nice sunny day and it was great to get out, but it was still not very warm. There was a bit of a breeze blowing, and the temperature hovered around the freezing mark all day long. One of these days this crappy weather has to come to an end and perhaps spring will finally arrive?
We came across this Bison in Elk Island National Park as we were making our way back home at the end of the day.
This poor old coyote had been having a meal of pigeon when someone shot him in the backside. It was right at the entrance to a road in to a construction site, so no doubt one of the workers decided to take a poke at him.
We found several cool old buildings including some houses, a community hall, and the same store that I had photographed a month prior. We were able to go inside some of these abandoned old buildings as they were open. It never ceases to amaze me what gets left behind when these places are abandoned and I often wonder if the previous residents might have passed away... or just moved on to greener pastures.
Here's that flock of snow geese that flew overhead during one of our stops. Then a little later, we came across this lumbering porcupine. It appears as though he had ripped into some of the wrapped bags of grain that were stored in this field and was having a pretty good feed. I'm sure the farmer would have taken a shot at him if he had seen this. It looked as though there was a quill stuck in his snout so perhaps he had gotten a little too close to a rival. It was hard to imagine that he could have done this to himself...
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