The Oak Hammock Marsh

I so appreciate all the supportive comments and emails I received from everyone over the past week.  I got back from Winnipeg yesterday and although it was a sad and difficult visit, it was also great to see all my relatives and especially to visit with Diana's family.  The memorial service was held at a hotel as my sister wanted it to be a celebration with good food, fellowship, honour, and dignity.  All of that was certainly accomplished and more.  One of Diana's friends gave a long and lovely tribute to my sister, a few other friends played music and sang an Irish dirge, and her brother-in-law sang the Lord's prayer which he was supposed to have sung at their wedding 20 years ago, but had missed the wedding due to airline trouble.  There were photos around and everyone talked and mingled and visited and remembered together. 

You never knew when things would get difficult though.  You might be doing the most mundane thing and then would be reminded about why we were all there and the end of my sister's life and how sad it will be for my brother-in-law and my nieces and nephew.  On Thursday my niece and I popped into a grocery store to quickly pick up two more pumpkins to carve.  When we were checking out the cashier asked us if we would like to donate money to help fight breast cancer.  I glanced over at my niece to see how she was doing and made the donation.  Then the cashier asked if we had a loyalty card from that store.  I didn't since I was from out of town, but she said she could look it up from my niece's phone number.  When she found the number she announced that there was a card belonging to Diana ...  gulp ...  just when you thought you were doing something so innocuous and fun as buying pumpkins, you are reminded about her death.  Unfortunately I think there will be a lot more moments like that for them.  


Mixed in with the sad moments, though, there were pumpkins to carve and costumes to make.  My niece had her heart set on being a popsicle for Hallowe'en, so several of us helped my niece and her friend make popsicle costumes out of boxes and a pink tablecloth - phew!  Several hours of work later they looked really cute, which is fortunate as I had my doubts when we were in the middle of the process.

On Thursday we went to the Oak Hammock marsh, which is a wildlife management area, just north of Winnipeg.  It was great to see my sister's children running, and climbing, and playing, and laughing.

The Oak Hammock marsh is an important wetland where thousands of birds, especially waterfowl,  gather to feed on the grains in the area before their long migration south for the winter.  Usually there are thousands of Canadian geese, snow geese, and ducks here in the fall, so many in fact, that apparently when they are startled the birds darken the sky as they take off.

Unfortunately the weather had turned cold at the beginning of the week so the last of the masses of birds left the previous weekend.  We did see a few stragglers, but they were not really hanging around fattening up - they were on their way south.

This ice was in the shadows - I'd move on too if I were a goose.  Winnipeg's nickname is Winterpeg for good reason.

The ice looked like a piece of art when held up to the sun.

We hiked along the trails, although it was a little bit wet.  The prairie fields have huge puddles and wet areas which has made it difficult for the farmer's to get their crops in and the water level in the rivers are very high.

We looked for some prairie dogs in this active colony, but of course they have all gone to sleep for the winter.

That didn't stop the fun, though, as there were cartwheels to spin, and rocks to climb, and piggy-backs to give,

and boardwalks to take us through the marsh and the dried tall prairie grasses.

The interpretive centre is a lovely sinuous building made out of stone the colour of the prairie grasses.

This cabin, built in 1938, used to be the ranger's station.  I love its early prairie vernacular style.  According to my brother, a lot of prairie buildings have the roof sloping in on all four sides like that so the wind can't catch any shingle edges and blow them off.

I just wanted to show you how flat the prairies are.  Well, in actual fact they aren't always - but they sure are around the Oak Hammock marsh!

While we didn't see the thousands of geese we would like to have seen, we did see some and it was lovely to get out and walk in the tall grass prairie. 

The funny thing was, the next day we drove down to North Dakota to pick up my sister who was travelling from Kentucky by train and we saw all the geese in the photo below while we were waiting to cross the border.

Houses in Winnipeg

As you know I was in Winnipeg this past weekend visiting relatives.  I wanted to show you some photos I took of houses in a lovely area of Winnipeg called Wolseley.   See they even have their own sign posted on a telephone pole above a bird house.

Wolseley is an area that is located near the centre of Winnipeg with the houses being built mostly between 1905 and 1930.  Many of the people who live in that area now are artistic and socially/politically active.  It really has a granola, hippie feel to it.  For example there are not many areas that you would see this going by - someone biking along towing a canoe - yep that's pretty granola all right.

Winnipeg is a prairie city of about 670,000 and one of the main trees in the area is elm.  Wolseley is particularily famous for its lovely elm-lined streets (they all have sticky strips around them to keep them healthy against bugs and Dutch Elm Disease).

This next house won an award for its preservation of historic details.  Isn't it gorgeous.

And now for the hippie element - how's this one.  I bet it looks very cheery in the middle of  winter.

What I especially love is the roof-top garden at the back.

And one example of the artistic side of Wolseley is this lovely wooden horse statue in someone's front yard.

Those beautiful historic houses are almost enough to make me want to move to Winnipeg - now if they could just do something about the weather.

About Winnipeg and the Snakes

I'm posting this from Winnipeg, where I've come to visit some family for the weekend.  Winnipeg is also known as 'Winterpeg' (for good reason as it has an average winter temperature of -23 C (-9 F) ) , so it's definitely a good thing I'm visiting in the spring.

This was how I entertained myself while I was waiting for the plane.  Do you see the man in the lower left corner of the photo wearing a red hoodie and a green vest.  

Here's a close-up of what he was doing - playing with a yo-yo!  Too funny. 

When I got to Winnipeg there were relatives to visit, including a sweet little niece that gave me a dandelion.

Today we went to the Narcisse Snake dens to see the red-sided garter snakes that over-winter in limestone pits in the ground and every spring they emerge by the thousands to mate and then leave to go to their summer grounds.  They were only just starting to come out of hibernation but we did get to see some snakes and even some clusters of mating snakes.  

 

I'm not a real fan of snakes but I have to say it was very interesting.   I've read about these snake pits and always wanted to see them.   I did attach a couple of photos of the snakes but I didn't want to scare anyone.

There were hiking trails to follow between the four snake pits,

and snakes to hold,

and aspen trees with their leaves just emerging,

and an unusual basket-type bird nest to see.

A lovely day catching up with the relatives and the snakes.

My Moose

Last week I posted a photo of a moose that walked across the still frozen lake in front of our cottage.  Unfortunately I did not get to see that moose as we arrived at the cottage after it had walked by.  I have seen moose about a half a dozen times in my life, though, so I decided to post a photo of one of my favourite sightings. 

 My husband convinced me I needed a closer photo of the moose, so here it is -

We saw this moose in Riding Mountain National Park, Manitoba in 2006.  I had taken Kate, her friend, and her cousin for a walk through the woods.  It was one of those still, peaceful mid-summer days with the sun shining and the air just the right temperature.  We walked along eating raspberries - a lot of raspberries.  Later that night at an evening program we discovered that we weren't supposed to eat the wild berries as they were for the wild animals - whoops!  We all looked a bit guilty but not too guilty since they had been really, really tasty.

As we were walking along the trail we looked down into a swamp and there stood a huge male moose.  We just stood and watched him eat.  I have to say that seemed like the perfect moose spot, don't you think? Lots of trees and rushes and grass.  Just where you would expect to see a moose, and we did!

*****************************************************

Thank you to Sarah at All Our Fingers in the Pie for this lovely blog award.  If you want to see a true foodie in action you should head over to her blog.  The unfailingly kind comments and helpful supportive friends I have met have been among my biggest pleasures in starting a blog.  So to all of you - I'm passing on this award.