Contents
- 14 May 2012 - At The Canadian Tulip Festival
- 13 May 2012 - Haircuts
- 01 May 2012 - Rachael Visits
- 23 April 2012 - Snow In Late April
- 22 April 2012 - Ruth Gets a Zafu
- 02 April 2012 - Volunteering
- 19-23 March 2012 - Heat Wave In March
- 26 February 2012 - Skiing Season Restarts
- 10-12 February 2012 - Barbara Merkis' Funeral
- 31 January 2012 - Niche Skiing
- 09 January 2012 - Ruth Gets Out Skiing
- 01 January 2012 - Ski Season Starts
Click to enlarge photos
At The Canadian Tulip Festival
We picked a really beautiful day to wander through Commissioner's Park and take in the tulip beds at the Canadian Tulip Festival.
Haircuts
Both of us have been growing our hair since August 2012, but today Ruth decided she needed hers cut short, so I did as well.
Rachael Visits
With her college year done Rachael decided to come up to Ottawa for a visit. She isn't sure how long she will stay yet, but it has been fun having her here. We have all been doing some long hikes and even a quadracycling picnic that involved some swinging.
We shot a video at a local park of Rachael and Ruth cavorting, too.
Snow In Late April
We often get a bit of snow in early April here in Ottawa, but this year we had temperatures of nearly 30°C in mid-March. Now we have snow in late April. The climate is certainly getting unpredictable and unstable.
Ruth Gets a Zafu
Ruth finally got her own zafu. For the uninitiated a zafu is a special mediation cushion.
Ruth says about it, "The crescent shape gives me good leg support and really cuts down on the pins and needles I sometimes get in my feet. The cushion is also very firmly packed (with buckwheat) and so also really helps me with keeping a proper meditation posture. It works for me on more than the physical level. It's easier to focus on meditation when you're not fighting a slowly curving back, sleep or stiffness from forcing yourself to stay upright."
Volunteering
We both do quite a lot of volunteer work here in Ottawa. Ruth volunteers with the Ottawa Buddhist society and on Yahoo Answers, while Adam volunteers at National Capital FreeNet, COPA Flight 8 and on Wikipedia.
The first picture shows Adam with his NCF shirt and Ruth's NCF waterbottle - just supporting the cause! The second shows Adam at a Monday session at the NCF office fixing a computer that is used for DSL modem configuring and testing. On Fridays he mans the NCF office front desk, answers the phones, tests and configures modems and writes help pages there, as well as fixing the odd computer.
Heat Wave In March
The week of 19-23 March we had unseasonable warm weather that set records by a wide margin each day. We had temperatures in the range of +27°C each day, when the normal daytime high is +5° and the records were in the range of +15°C. We normally don't get started on cycling until mid-April here, but the snow quickly melted and so we got our Catrikes out for a couple of really early trips. We figure that if we are going to have climate change then we have to make the best use of it.
Ruth wrote a couple of blog entries about this:
Skiing Season Restarts
Skiing has come to a halt in the last few weeks as the freezing rain and then thawing temperatures turned the snow to ice and then water. But we recently had a snowfall of some 12 cm and this restarted our ski season. Today we went out into the greenbelt and broke trails there under bright blue skies.
Fresh snow gives the opportunity to see signs of wildlife and we saw lots of tracks from rabbits, squirrels and, as shown below, coyotes.
Barbara Merkis' Funeral
Ruth's older sister Barbara died suddenly and the funeral was held in Burlington, Ontario on 11 February 2012. We travelled to Burlington with Matt and Katia and during the weekend met up with most of the family who were there for this sad event.
Niche Skiing
This winter has been a real challenge for XC skiing, with any small amount of snow always followed by lots of freezing rain. Today was no exception as a warm front brought 3-4 cm of fresh snow to cover the ice everywhere and allow a bit of skiing. But the half decent conditions didn't last long, as they were followed by hours of freezing rain once again. This year you definitely need to get out skiing at the right moment or else miss the opportunity completely.
Ruth Gets Out Skiing
With poor skiing weather and snow conditions this year so far and Ruth being down sick, she hadn't been able to get out skiing until today, when we went for a short run in the Wetlands.
Ski Season Starts
We had a bit of a long fall in 2011 and that meant that skiing was somewhat delayed. But by New Years Day there was (just) enough snow for a 5 km ski in the Sawmill Creek Constructed Wetlands. With Ruth housebound with conjunctivitis, Adam went skiing alone. Ruth will have to make up the kilometers later!
This web-page is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.
