Mosaic Monday

Linking up today with Judith of Lavender Cottage and her Mosaic Monday.
Thank you for hosting Judith.

Today was Family Day here in Ontario, so we were able to relax with this long weekend. My husband and I ditched our son ;) and went for a lovely walk down and around Second Marsh. Again, this is part of the wetlands that border Lake Ontario, just a bit east of the previous marshes I have shown you here.

Second Marsh is a wetland that has been preserved through the efforts of General Motors of Canada who have their head office on the border of the marsh. There are quite a few trails around the marsh, and it's a beautiful walk. I would like to come back again in the spring time to see what sorts of birds are around.

GM Head Office

Our temperatures had dipped way down on Friday to -30C with a wind chill of -40C. It quickly froze the marsh, and there is a huge area that is quite popular with skaters. It has warmed up considerably today, and was only -10C, but there was a steady, brisk wind whipping in off the lake! Isn't this a great setting for an outdoor skate.

The families out here were really enjoying themselves, but I'll bet they were feeling the cold after a while. We walked across the ice and it was cold! Hearing the ice crack as you walk across is a little unsettling, but we could see that the ice was quite thick.

This marsh is a sensitive area and dogs are not allowed on the trails. Did we see any dogs? Of course we did because there's always someone who ignores the rules! A couple were walking their two large, and rather scary looking dogs without a leash on either of them. The dogs charged up to us barking and wild, and the look in one of the dog's eyes honestly made me feel like he was going to attack me! Of course the owners called to us (from quite a distance away), that the dogs were friendly. Rather than get into an argument with this couple, we didn't point out that this was a dog-free area. Maybe they couldn't read.

Anyway, after the dog scare, and after I tripped over a large rock and fell down hard on my knee onto another rock (ouch!), we had a really nice walk along the easy trails, and headed down to the open water of Lake Ontario. Crashing waves and roaring wind greeted us. I love it, but my husband ... not so much.

My husband got a soaking when he was walking around this little tangle of branches. He miscalculated the size of the waves coming in and and got caught by a "rogue" wave ... right ... soaked up to his knees! He refused to follow me any further, so I was forced to turn back to the safety of drier land. I have to treat him nicely or he'll never come out with me again (but secretly I was annoyed).

There were lots of interesting ice formations on the branches.

These trails are through an old farmstead that was operating until the 1980s. These informative signs were placed along the trails. "Cool Hollow" would be a very refreshing trail on a hot summer day. Today is was very quiet and much warmer away from the noise of the waves and wind on the lakeshore.

I took some birdseed down with me in case my little friends the chickadees were present ... and they were! These birds weren't quite as tame as at the other marsh, but a couple of them came to my hand. There were quite a few bird houses set up along the trails for springtime nesting. Some birds have made their own nests of course. The line of old maples along this portion of the trail (see bottom right photo below) would be gorgeous in the fall.

This must have been a beautiful farm, but I'm glad it's now been reverted back to a wildlife refuge.

Would you like to hear a horrible story now? Okay :)

I used to come here more often, with my kids and the daycare kids. But one time we had walked down to the lake on a hot summer day. On the return trip along a pretty tree-lined trail, we were suddenly attacked by red ants! I'm telling you, it was like a scene out of Indiana Jones! Red ants were biting our bare feet (we were all in sandals & crocs), crawling up and biting our legs and arms! When we looked at the ground, we could see the swarms of red ants coming up out of the ground. It was awful! I think they were all aroused when we first walked down to the lake along this same path. I yelled at the older kids to run ahead, but I was left carrying the smallest boy and then one little girl fell down right in the swarm. I was yelling at her to get up! get up! but she just lay there screaming as the ants crawled over her. I ran back, grabbed her up in one arm, the other boy in the other arm and hurried along the path as quickly as I could. When we finally reached the van, everyone had bites. I checked the little guys' feet and there was a carpet of red ants inside their crocs and sandals. We finally shook all the ants off of us, and I drove to a water park where we all cooled our bites in the water. I have never been back to these trails in the summertime! Although today was quite cold, I still preferred it over the ants ;)

Thanks for stopping by!

Wendy