Come On In, The Water's Fine!

We notice the sun coming up earlier every day ad it even stays light ill almost 6 pm! Birds flocking and becoming more active are another sign that winter's snow flurries, freezing temps and ice have nowhere to go but down hill soon, at least in the valleys. The mountains will have a snowpack for months!

One of the great advantages to living in western Vermont is enjoying views of the New York Adirondack Mountains. Here they are tentatively illuminated on a Saturday morning.

Along the edge of the New York side is a 200 foot cliff wall, known as "The Palisades" and home of eagles and towering over shipwrecks in the 200 foot deep water below. Here we see waterfalls frozen in time, for now. In the spring as we paddle our canoes and kayaks on the Vermont side we will see them and hear them spilling cold mountain water into the lake.

Near the mouth of the Otter Creek and historic "Fort Cassin" which, it turns out is not really a fort, sits Diamond Island, a small pair of diamond-shaped islands. You can see them almost in the center of the picture. It is very unusual for the lake to be open this time of year, especially in the narrow part, where it is only a mile or two across.

Throughout the winter, bays will freeze, then crack up in heavy rollers during a storm. Here we see a few ice chunks melting in a very cold, but still largely open lake. They remind me of stories I heard growing up, of ice fishermen getting caught stranded on drifting ice, away from would-be rescuers, never to be seen again.

A legendary stone house built in 1790, the Hawley House, serves as the anchor for a Vermont State Park, known as Kingsland Bay. It is a wonderful visit any day of the year. It is constructed of native Panton limestone.

Rippin' and Shreddin'

Whether you are an armchair snowboarder or a serious shredder, you won't be able to look away from this hot video in Mother Nature's white stuff. Have you skied or boarded this winter yet? Kawabunga!

Video: reppinNW, youtube

There has been lots of controversy in the press lately about whether the extreme weather and snowstorms on the middle eastern seaboard are proof that global warming isn't real. Here is a a short video with weather and climate experts explaining why the storms are happening. It shows an arctic air oscillation is unusual and is creating abnormally warm temperatures which are 10 - 15 degrees warmer than normal in northern Canada and other Arctic areas, as well as places like Melbourne Australia near the Antarctic. More record highs are being recorded worldwide as the Earth continues to warm, even though we may see cold regional weather.

We need to keep in mind that weather is the local or regional conditions while climate is the long-term average conditions. Be wary of those who claim that their particular local or regional weather is an indication of the global weather or climate!

Video: greenman3610, youtube

Do you remember your first stereo system and how cool it sounded? Or your first computer? It's been a few weeks since Steve Jobs launched the new iPad, with all the hype it deserves, and now an anxious world appears to be ready to buy them. What will happen to the iPad during the next few years is predictable. New, cooler, sleeker versions, with new functions, more memory, new apps and better just-about everything. But you know what? It's just another gadget.

Want to see something that will truly knock your socks off and it's only a few years away? It's called the 'sixth sense' and it was developed by an MIT student, Pranav Mistry. If you want to skip the first couple of minutes and get to the good stuff, just go to 1:45 and watch the next couple of minutes of this clip. It will change the way you look at technology! Watch what it does and then tell me you really need an iPad!

Video: JAAYBI, flickr

Ice is Cool

My friend who grew up in Pennsylvania used to ask "How is life in the great frozen north?" Much as I would laugh about this he had a point. Burlington IS a pretty frosty place after October. the ground freezes every winter. How deep the soil freezes depends on how close you are to the lake, if you have sun to warm, or snow to insulate the ground from inevitable frigid air temperatures. And of course it depends on how much polar air rolls down off the arctic and Canada.

This is not an exceptionally snowy or cold winter so far. That said, we did have the biggest snowfall of all time, but not much since then. We did have a frigid few weeks in December, but since the temperatures have been close to average. One thing is for certain, when you get into the woods you will find ledges and outcroppings on hillsides that collect ice from melting snow during the day then freeze at night. Over a few weeks or months, the ice builds up into some pretty cool formations (please excuse the pun)!

Hard to see in these pics but there are some shades of pastel golds, blues and greens from minerals in the rocks with copper, iron and other elements, imparting their brush strokes to the canvas in the waning afternoon light. The lichens and moss add an extra refreshing sight, with hope of more greens to come soon, don't they?