Winter Scenes

Full moon, warm fire, Orion's Belt

Having survived an aptly-named "weather-bomb", and being forced to unearth and don all our warmest under-and-outerwear, it is safe to say that we are fully in the throes of winter.  Today I offer some of the first winter scenes of the season:  first from a New Year's trip to the farm, and second from a winter hike through Hemlock Ravine.

The Farm

As I alluded to in my last post, Clark and the kids spent a few glorious days at the Richards' family farm: a favourite spot no matter what the season. It was cold, of course, but boasted a good healthy layer of snow, which is something we have not yet been treated to in Halifax.  I was sad to miss out this time around, but luckily Clark took his photographing duties seriously, and captured some lovely moments.

Crisp walk to the river

Bundled and sun-blinded on the ice

Deep in conversation, mid-woods walk

Wood shop time with grandpa: Newly constructed mallet! 

Deep in concentration: designing a wooden airplane

Snuggles and reading with grandma

Moonlit hockey

Warming up by the firepit

The best group shot of the bunch:  at least Bill and Barb are looking at the camera!

Hemlock Ravine
Back home, we spent a nice bit of time this weekend exploring one of our favourite local hiking spots: Bedford's Hemlock Ravine.  It was actually colder than I had anticipated (Clark and I were a bit underdressed in the end), but the kids were properly bundled, and it was a necessary antidote to the cabin fever we all developed from the many storm days we spent cooped up inside the house. 

*(side note: the storm manifested itself here as extremely high winds and driving rain, and resulted in the kids being off school both Thursday and Friday.  It was far too miserable to do anything outside.  We were some of the very lucky ones that only lost power briefly, and only in in the middle of the night)*

Frolicking on the frozen heart pond 

Thoughtful hiking dinosaur

Another, smaller pond, post-twirl

Winter woods walks can be completely gorgeous, and rewarding - there are little frozen pools everywhere you turn

A couple of random extras:

Finally, I offer two random additions. The first is self-explanatory:

Yearly family Christmas Tree shot!

The second however,  is something pretty neat, and deserves some explanation.  Last Friday, we watched a movie called Kubo and the Two Strings.  It was one of the most beautiful movies I've seen in some time.  Part of the magic, I would argue, came from the style in which it was filmed: stop motion animation.  After watching the movie, we youtubed a little "making-of" documentary, which we all thought was super cool.  Linden, however, was particularly inspired: he has been talking for a long time about making movies when he grows up (in particular, he plans to write and produce a series centred around his trademarked super hero, "Dino-man"), but it had never occurred to him that he could start practicing now.  So, he quickly got to work doing some set construction, and came up with a little story line.  Then, with Clark's help, he made his very first stop-motion vignette.  He has big plans for future endeavours (where he will, for instance, add some audio over top), but he was pretty pleased with his first try:

That's all for now.  See you next week!