Monday, February 15, 2016

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




24 comments:

  1. What a beautiful icy scene! Sometimes we forget just how pretty nature can be in the middle of winter. Oh those red ant bites hurt!!

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  2. Such beautiful photos of a great day - minus crazy dogs and soaked pants!! Lol Truly such a pretty area and how fun to be out skating.

    However, your ant story sounds like it was right out of a horror movie!! ;) Thank goodness everyone escaped alive. Yikes!!

    Have a great week dear Wendy! xoxo

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  3. What a beautiful and interesting post! Lovely, even though cold, scenery!
    Many months of snow and cold weather are a little bit boring, but I try to remember to be grateful that at least there aren't ants, ticks, flies etc. :)
    Have a great week!

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  4. Beautiful snow scenes.....love the icicles!
    Happy Tuesday!

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  5. Lovely photos, all...especially enjoyed that one of the skaters! :)

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  6. Lovely photos, all...especially enjoyed that one of the skaters! :)

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  7. Hello, cool shots of the lake and skaters. Have a Family Day is a great idea. The Red Ant story sounds awful, I have seen them but never been bit. Happy Tuesday, enjoy your day!

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  8. What a beautiful area and nice to know that it is being preserved despite GM having their headquarters right there. Love that last set of snaps of the trees. I hear you on the hubby. I used to have it set in my mind where I wanted to walk, at what point we would turn around, and he never wanted to go the distance. I always got annoyed because I wanted to do what I had set out to do. Sorry to hear about the scary dogs and the fall. And the ants. Yikes! Reminds me of when me and two friends were staying in the country with our 10 kids (they had 3 and 5 respectively and me just the two :) one of the kids must have stepped on a bees nest by the pond and those bees swarmed up their shirts and started stinging like crazy. You've never seen 3 mamas rush into action so fast. Ripping clothes off, putting kids in cold baths and then administering Benadryl and calamine. We had some crazy times that summer.

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    1. Actually it's GM that has preserved this wetlands, and I'm glad they have. Otherwise, this area would have been slated for yet another housing development along the lakeshore.

      Your bee incident sounds even worse than the ants!

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  9. What a beautiful place to walk, although a shame about the irresponsible dog owners. I think the ants would put me off going in the summer!

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  10. Wow, what a lovely serene place to visit.

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  11. You are the only person I know who has this much excitement on their walking adventures Wendy. When I was reading about the red ants I was hoping you weren't going to say a little one had a bad reaction to the bites - what a horrible experience!
    You do have some nice places for hikes.

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    1. Thank goodness for no reactions to the bites! But red ants really pack a wallop when they bite.

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  12. Those photo's are beautiful Wendy but it looks sooo cold, I feel sorry for you poor hubby I bet he was freezing after being drenched with that wave. The dog incident sounds terrifying and so do the red ants! it's freezing here today but of course no where near as cold as where you are I'm just going to stay indoors and have hot drinks I'm no where near as brave as you. :) xx

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  13. Beautiful photos, as usual. How scary about the ants! My husband is much more adventurous than I am, so it would have been him wanting to go on. I can walk much further in cold weather, it gets to hot here it's hard to do long walks in the summer.

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  14. Lovely photos ! Looks like every one had a good time ! Our lake Erie isn't frozen enough to be skating on actually none of our water ways are , they said what ice there is is thin and dangerous even the ice fishing industry had to shut down because of it this year our river isn't even frozen the temps keep fluctuating to much lol ! Thanks for sharing , Have a good week !

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  15. This looks like a really nice place to walk and enjoy nature Wendy. It would be awesome to get there at the 'right' time in spring or fall for the bird migrations and take pictures. Your story of the fire ants was horrifying indeed! Yikes! They are in parts of the Maritimes now too but so far not in our area. Have a great week.

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  16. A wonderful post with beautifully captured photos. I have had experiences of red ant bites..not fun.

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  17. Great photos, Wendy. I loved all the cold pics. I was telling my husband you've had -40c wind chill but now warmer at -10 and he laughed and said to tell you it's positively balmy here at 4.5c :o) (I've been shivering all day!). x

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  18. Oh my goodness, I think that I would certainly prefer the marsh in the winter than in the summer because of the ants! Quite scary indeed. The marsh all look very beautiful at this time of year doesn't it, the ice that is around the edge of the water is quite amazing isn't it. So lovely to go on this walk with you!! xx

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  19. Oh what a wonderful place to frequent!!!...:)JP

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  20. Cool shots, Wendy! The attack of the army ants made my skin crawl!

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  21. More gorgeous photos, Wendy. I enjoyed 'our' walk. And that is my exercise for the day covered :-)
    Amalia
    xo

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  22. Oh stepping on a red ant nest is really a horror story.. Here we have fire ants (later when it gets hot) and they're even worse because they're smaller and harder to spot.

    That walk looks wonderful .. It makes me happy to see the gold colored plants showing through .. Spring must be getting close for you.

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Thanks so much for leaving a comment, it's nice to know when you've stopped by! :)

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