Took Maggie for a walk up at the Dam and Fish Hatchery. Snow still around but all dirty and grungy. The mountains looked pristine as ever mind you.

I am thinking about what seeds to get for this year. Usually, I get seedlings already planted up in May but this year I want to plant more heirloom varieties and you just can't get those out of a regular garden store (although my co-worker always tried very hard to get some heirloom tomatoes in but customers did not want to pay the higher price.) I think I shall use this seed supplier  as he is local and not just a seed supplier but also a seed sanctuary. Here is their mission statement:

• We are a charitable organization dedicated to the health
  and vitality of the earth through the preservation and promotion of
  heritage seeds.


• We are committed to maintaining, evaluating
  and keeping records for all the edible, medicinal and useful crops that
  can be grown in Canada.


• We are a learning centre and network encouraging local food and seed production.

While hubby and I were drinking our morning coffee and chatting, we saw the most amazing thing, a thing you only read about in books. It was a crow playing in the snow on the neighbour's roof. He did a little slide on his bum feathers with his wings awkwardly outstretched for support. Then he walked his way back up to the peak and after a few blurry steps ( as though he weren't quite sure how to get his body in position) he rolled a few somersaults down the roof. Fantastic.
It reminds me of Bernd Heinrich's ravens in "Mind of a Raven" (if you haven't read it, you definitely should treat yourself) wherein his ravens do snow bathing and playing, not necessarily to get clean, but just to have a good time:
     "... but the most popular activity going was snow-bathing. In its simplest form, this involved skooching down and flapping their wings, just like bathing in water. But there was more. They also slid forward on their breast and belly feathers, being assisted not only by wing-flapping and leg-flailing, but also by gravity. Hodui twice rolled completely around sideways down a short bank of snow. goliath, Fuzz and Lefty did only partial rolls."          Mind Of The Raven. Pg 284.

After much work, I have Spinyurchin back up. The other year, I had been messing around with the templates and somehow screwed up my blog; some pages would appear correctly while others wouldn't and the "comments" field would not display at all. Disheartened, I took it off-line to tinker with it but weeks turned into months and I never got around to it fully, just piecemeal. On the plus side, I had done a backup of the content, it was just finding the time to manually post every picture and blurb. On the downside, I can't get the corresponding "comments by visitors" inserted. This is a shame because not only is it nice to read the comments but I feel it really helps to round out the blog.  I sure had fun going back over all the old entries and comments I tells ya and it makes you realize how important it is to keep a journal. Lots of little happenings of the day just get plain forgotten.

Still lots of snow on the ground (lots for us in this region) and a bit more to come apparently. It has been a big, white Christmas and the snow cover has been keeping me busy with supplying the Steller's Jays with peanuts and the smaller songbirds with sunflower seeds and millet. Oh who am I kidding, the jays keep me  busy snow or no snow.

The poor old sun tried to fight her way through the annoying stratus but to no avail. At least there is no rain, just this stubborn grey blanket.

Weather is off and on with rain this past week. Daffodils are open in gardens as are the snowdrops of course.

I'm sure that was Bonnie Tyler's first draft to her hit song, "Total Eclipse of The Heart". (Okay, I know she didn't write it herself but I can just imagine some Far Side kind of cartoon with her pausing to change the lyrics as she sings.)