November Days

"So dull and dark are the November days.

The lazy mist high up the evening curled,

And now the morn quite hides in smoke and haze;

The place we occupy seems all the world."

~ John Clare

Since I tend to be pretty lousy at keeping track of just when some of my photos were taken, I can't always compile some images from the same day. But I know that doesn't really matter to you. Does it? Nah!

So some of these are from different days - especially those which show the lake frozen over in some places and completely liquified in others. But they're all from late November and that's probably good enough. Right? I thought so!



I know what day this is. It's the day after the boat was removed from the dock. It's also early in the day that the the dock was ultimately removed. Ice had formed on the lake but it was mild, and there had been rain. I glanced out the window to see the last of a large gaggle of geese stepping their way past our house.






This was quite clearly a different day. It was actually a few days into the week, once we had our first snowfall. Here you can see some more weather making its way across the bay.





But let's go back in time just a little bit, to a misty day when I took my morning walk. This is the road leading back toward our place. Benny and I walk for about fifty minutes most mornings. We live just around that bend and down a ways.

 



About two thirds of the way into my walk, I see this cool, old camper trailer. I often don't bring my camera along on my walks, these days (as I explained before.. weather is often unpredictable and Benny makes handling him and the camera difficult at times - he's not a road-smart dog) but I decided to bring my camera along on this day because I wanted a photo of this relic. To me, it screams early 1960s right down to its colour and curtains. Frank thinks perhaps even the late 1950s. What do you think its vintage is?





Here, stand back and have another look.





Frank spotted this cute little muskrat hanging out in front of our place, one afternoon. He kept diving under water/ice to grab some vegetation and then sit upon the ice to enjoy it. I used the long lens, and I wasn't excessively far from him but the lighting was so flat that I was unable to get much clarity in these photos.





He was only mildly cautious and never seemed too bothered by my presence except for one time when I snuck up a bit closer to his spot while he was underwater. The click of the camera startled him when he surfaced and he immediately dove back under. But he quickly returned and got used to my incessant photo taking. Thanks for indulging me, little guy.





I had one of those second take moments when I looked at this image. It sure appeared to me that our muskrat friend had caught himself a newt or salamander. The body looked right, and muskrats do indeed include them as part of their diet. But the feet looked wrong. Newts have separate toes on their feet and this thing looks like it has solid disks for feet. Conclusion: It's probably just a very newt-like piece of vegetation.





Toward the end of the afternoon (of whatever day we have now morphed into), the fog rolled into the bay, dusting the hills across the way.






But worry not. Another sunrise will come along before you know it.

More photos in a few days.