Saturday morning Lakeshore walk

In a (vain) effort to tire Jax out, we took him on a 2.5 hour walk to the Lakeshore this morning.

We went through the High Park Zoo on the way to the lake.  Jax met the local emus, who apparently don't mind the snow.  He kept trying to stick his nose through the cage to sniff the emu, and the emu kept trying to peck his nose - it was pretty funny.  Someone really needs to teach Canadians about how nasty emus are though - there was a little kid next to us and her Dad was encouraging her to feed the emu snow.  I wouldn't be putting my fingers anywhere near an emu!  (If Jax gets his nose pecked, that's his own problem.)

 Welcome to Sunnyside Beach - covered in about 10cm of snow.  There's ice all the way to the breakwater, so you'd have to be crazy to go swimming.

I'm not quite sure why but the snow on the beach was covered in little pieces of ice like this - maybe it has something to do with the salt melting the snow.  

Stephen and Jax on the edge of the lake.  Big ice floes everywhere!

 Careful Jax, the ice is slippery!

This is the swimming pool on the edge of the lakeshore - currently filled with snow.  That would be a pretty cold swim.

Some snow dinosaurs hanging around on the boardwalk.

Stephen decided that he and Jax should go on the swing again.  As you can see, Stephen has a great time on the swing, and Jax just closes his eyes and waits for it to be over.  

Found in the park...

Snow lady and snow dog.  Looks a bit like Jax, eh?

Snowmageddon was snowverrated

There was a pretty big snowstorm headed for us the other day - 20-30cm of snow was predicted, schools were closed, and everyone was going on about snowmageddon.  In the end it was a bit of an overreaction - I think we got around 12-15cm of snow on top of what was already there.  There's about 25-30cm accumulation total now, which makes going offroad with Jax a little more difficult than it otherwise would be.

Jax was pretty insistent that he wanted to go out and see the snow.  "I'm the cutest dog you'll ever see - just ignore the fluff where I tore my toy to shreds again... take me outside!"  Once outside, he proceeded to tear around like a puppy, sniffing and bounding over the snow.  He loves the snow.

White white everywhere.

Hmm... how are we going to open this gate?  

Inside the baseball diamond (Jax's private off-leash area) - pristine snow!  Not for long!

There's actually more snow than this here - the bottom layer is frozen solid and the top layer is what fell last night, so you stand on some snow and sink into the rest.

The Canadian geese don't seem to mind the snow.  I thought they were supposed to fly south for the winter, but there seem to be a lot of them around, honking wildly and flying around in V-formations.  

"My bag of food is bigger than I am!"  Guess who had to carry all 13kg of it back from the shops... my shoulder hurts.

We're doing pretty well at the moment - Stephen started his new job the other day, and he's enjoying it.  I'm finishing off the last few weeks of uni before looking for a job myself.  I received some good grades back for my assignments, so I'm on track for some good marks for this trimester.   We know a few more people now, so we have people to chat to and go out with, which is nice.  Jax is getting better at staying at home on his own, and we found a daycare centre that can look after him despite his aggression problems (separated exercise areas for the dogs), so that frees us up to go on holidays again - watch this space, we'll be going somewhere more fun soon :)  

Dog-sledding!

For Stephen's Christmas present I bought us a half-day dog sledding tour, and the big day was Wednesday.  The dog sledding place was about 250km north, so we hired a car through our car sharing service and left at 9am from Toronto, aiming to get there well ahead of our 1:30pm booking.  Unfortunately for us, it snowed overnight...

... so we arrived to this.

Hooray, all fixed!  Unfortunately, the roads were covered in snow, and the ploughs hadn't been yet - it took us two hours to get to the freeway, which was around 6km away.  Ouch.  We eventually made it to the sled place at 1:45pm, and being as we were the only people booked that afternoon, all was good!  Lucky!

We had a quick tutorial in the basics of sledding - how to get them to move, how to get them to stop, the golden rule of sledding (never let go of your sled), and when to brake.  They harnessed up the dogs while we held the lead dogs in place - unfortunately for me, the lead dog of the other team decided that my leg resembled a tree, so my introduction to sledding involved being peed on.  Lovely.  (I imagine that Jax was really unhappy when we arrived home, smelling like other dogs and with dog pee on my leg.)

With that, we were away!  And it was incredibly cool!  We drove our own sled the entire time - one of us driving and one sitting on the sled as a passenger.

Here's a video of us sledding across a frozen lake:

Apparently they check for the ice to be 20cm thick, and then it's fine to drive a sled on.

Break time!  It was freezing cold out there - my fingers and toes were going numb - but every time we stopped, the dogs would roll around in the snow to cool down.

We had plenty of interaction with the dogs - they were absolutely beautiful :)

Here's the sled - it's basically just a couple of bits of wood with a thin mattress to sit on.  There's a brake at the back that you step on to slow the sled down, and it basically just digs into the ground.  The only problem was, sometimes we would put our entire weight on it and the sled would keep moving - those dogs have some serious pulling power.

Posing for photos with our team :)

On the trail with our team, heading home.  The dogs seriously loved to run - like I said above, sometimes the brake didn't work to stop them.  When we stopped for breaks, and they'd finished rolling in the snow, they'd jump up into the air and throw themselves forward into their harnesses, trying to get us to move again.

Run over!  Time for some water :)

We had a much faster drive back to Toronto, making it back in 3 hours.  It was a fantastic day, and we had great fun :)

Snow Day!

This morning we had some real snow - the weather bureau was still calling it "light snow" though!  I'm wondering what "heavy snow" is, considering the results.

Jax loves the snow - he likes to bite it in midair.  

This is the average snow depth (and you can see, still snowing) - it's nearly up to Jax's stomach in places, and it's over the top of Stephen's shoes.  It was AWESOME.

Winter trees :)

The cars are all covered in snow - check out the buildup on the side mirrors :)

The view down our streets.  You can't see the footpath :)

The main road near our place - the snowplows haven't been yet, and it's a bit of a mess.

Winter trees with snow - the snow falling from the sky plus the snow falling from the trees when they move makes it pretty hard to see! :)

Jax in the snow.  He looks like he's swimming when he walks in it!

Stephen tried to go tobogganing but the snow was too soft - it was pretty funny though :)  You can hardly see the toboggan, it has so much snow on it.

Stephen enjoying his seat on the park table and chairs - there's a lot of snow there :P

Stephen and Jax running in the snow.  We use the local fenced-in baseball diamond as an off-leash area because the official off-leash area has a) other dogs and b) no fences.  Jax loves to run - and when it's snowing he just bounds across the top of it :)

Catching-up

I haven't posted for a while - the Christmas/New Year period was lost under a deluge of assignments, which aren't quite over now (1 to go).  Here's a quick update though:

Christmas roast!  The roast beef is ready to go in the oven!

I tried to "fit in" by making cornbread muffins - unfortunately I used too much baking powder and they were disgusting.  Oh well!

The veggies, ready to go in the oven.  Yes, it was just for the two of us :P

Christmas dinner - roast beef with potato, sweet potato, carrot, pumpkin, corn (not pictured) and Yorkshire Pudding!  It was seriously delicious.

I bought Stephen a balaclava for Christmas - no, we're not planning any bank robberies, it's just very cold on our faces when we're running.  He hasn't been game to wear it outside yet.

Post-Christmas photos:

Jax having a bath - he hates baths.  Hilarity ensures.

Jax cuddling the couch - I don't know why he does this.

My boys, chilling out, working.  

 It's a hard life.

Merry Christmas from Canada, eh!

Here's our little Christmas tree - I managed to kill it by not watering it!

Christmas Day is more than half over in Australia and still 11pm Christmas Eve here.  It's very strange - Christmas to me involves a BBQ, some cold ham and salad and a couple of beers, followed by a dip in the pool.  The cold and the snow - plus the lack of people we know - makes it feel like it's not really Christmas.  The Canadians all seem very happy that the forecast is for a clear, cold Christmas Day - no snow!  We, on the other hand, are disappointed - I was hoping for a big snowfall so that we could go tobogganing in the park again (the snow's starting to get a bit patchy with so many people walking on it).  So I guess Christmas will be white, but sort of a mushy sludgy white :)

Our Christmas plans are for roast beef and roast vegetables - roast potatoes, sweet potato, pumpkin, carrots and corn, with cornbread and Yorkshire pudding.  And apple pie with ice cream for dessert.  Should be good!

Merry Christmas everyone!  Hope you have (or had) a great day, full of whatever traditions you enjoy!

Cold weather running

So after 4 months off running due to stress fractures in my legs, I'm finally allowed to run again.  Unfortunately, there's no way of checking that the stress fractures have healed, so it's just "hope you've stayed off it for long enough".  Right now it's feeling fine, so my new running orthotics and heel-wedged running shoes are hitting the streets to try to get back into training for our goal of a marathon this year.

The streets are a little colder here than they were in Sydney, so we've had to learn about what to wear in the cold weather.  Here's my cold weather running outfit:

That's a thin running shirt under a thick running jumper (both made of that weird wicking material).  The front of the pants has a windproof layer and the back doesn't - fleece-lined on the inside and also made of that wicking material.  Socks made of the same stuff - apparently anything cotton is bad in this sort of weather because it soaks in the sweat which then freezes in the wind, so everything has to be about getting the water away from your skin.  The jumper even has holes for your thumbs so that it stays over the glove-shirt divide :)  I'm also wearing gloves and a toque (beanie).

Check out how awful my beanie is:

Yes, it has a hole it for my ponytail.  It looks ridiculous, but it keeps my head warm.  I think I have a big head though because the "one size fits all" womens' beanie doesn't cover my ears fully - maybe I need to stretch it a bit more.  We do need to solve the "cold face" problem, because your face gets seriously cold in when it's -11 windchill.  Perhaps we need to invest in some balaclavas!

The actual running part is easier than I thought it would be in terms of the terrain - they're amazing here at clearing roads and footpaths.  They put salt down on the footpaths, which lowers the freezing temperature of the water and keeps the footpaths completely clear - pretty smart.  So there's no issue of slipping and sliding all over the place like I thought there would be.

The bigger problem is that after 4 months off running, I can barely run 2km - ouch.  Hopefully I can get myself back to a decent level fast.

Tobogganing!

(Yes, that is how you spell it, I checked.)

Stephen and I saw some kids with a toboggan the other day, so we decided to buy one ourselves and give it a shot.  High Park (next to our place) has some big hills and everything is covered in a few cm of snow at the moment, so it was awesome fun!  You actually go much faster than you'd think :)

We went to Zellers (Big W) and bought this one for $5 - it's basically just a sheet of thin bendable plastic with two handles at the front.  One side is totally slick and the other side is corrugated for sitting on.

I managed to go straight... for a bit.

We picked a different hill (much steeper).  All I seem to do is freak out and end up going backwards down the hill, but Stephen seems to have perfected the art of tobogganing already.

Stephen and Jax share some quality time on the swing before heading home.  We've been trying to make him do all sorts of silly things to demonstrate leadership (he has to do whatever we say as we're the pack leaders) - we took him on the slides a couple of times which he hated, but he actually seemed to enjoy swinging with Stephen.  Awww :)

When Jax Attacks

I thought I'd try something new today and see if I could do anything with the video capabilities of my new HTC Desire.  Jax seems to go crazy at times - yesterday, his big thing was dragging the bedding (towels) out of his crate and death rolling them like a crocodile.  He spent about half an hour doing this, and every time I'd put them back in his crate he'd drag them out and start all over again.  

Maybe he just wanted to make sure that they were dead before sleeping on them :S