It was cold yesterday

...but we bundled up and drove down the Hanson Lake Road to the Sturgeon Weir River. A trapper had phoned us on Friday night to let us know about a pair of ducks on the remaining open water. Sure enough, two Common Goldeneye were bobbing on the fast water, preening away and looking unconcerned even though they were the only two ducks there. We looked around for the otter he'd mentioned, but it was nowhere to be seen. Otters are a treat to watch, especially in the snow.

On the way back to town we stopped at Annabel Creek. I photographed culverts until I was cold and wet from squatting in the snow. I'd neglected to wear ski pants. It took forever to warm up, but there's something wonderful about getting back in a warm car and shivering as you sip on hot chocolate. I love winter. I'll upload the pics once blogger has resolved the uploading issues. There is a work-around fix, but changing the code is too time consuming.

UPDATE: The culvert pics are up.

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I finished reading Shut Up He Explained the other night. I learned a great deal from those pages. Now I'm itching to read other literary memoirs. Any suggestions?

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When I was procrastinating one afternoon last week, I visited Languagehat and learned of Merriam-Webster's Visual Dictionary Online. An hour later, there I was deep in the structure of the earth, listening to the audio pronunciation of Mohorovicic discontinuity over and over, saying it myself each time, and wondering how I could possibly make such a mouthful work in a poem.

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Blog encounters of the best kind:

How the reading and writing of poetry can serve fiction writers.

The recording of Robert Bringhurst's reading last week.

The CBC puppet controversy.

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It's -20 right now. Snowing lightly. The cat is sleeping nearby, groaning every time I make too much noise. And I am noisy. I laugh when I read. I groan. I talk back. When I write I always read my work aloud. Then I revise it and read it again. The poor cat never gets any peace.