This work by Jason M. Adams is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Header image credit seakwenby.
Twitter button by Randa Clay Design.
Willow in her natural environment. She has taken to eating all the snow she can find. Right now it’s melting, and there is an ice path leading along the side of my apartment that is covered in water. (Water on top, ice on bottom.) No picture of that, though. This is her on Valentine’s Day.
It has been snowing here all day, so I’m in a wintry mood. I’ve taken a few pictures over the past couple weeks with my new camera. I particularly like this picture of Willow in the mirror with a snowy tree visible in the window.
A couple weeks ago at Frick Park, one of the trails iced over completely. Walking on it was pretty hazardous and I was slipping a lot, but there were joggers running by who didn’t seem to have a problem. Maybe I have bad snow shoes. Daedal didn’t seem to have a problem with it, either.
Willow loved the ice road more than Daedalus. You can probably see that she is a filthy mess in this picture. There was an area where the ground wasn’t frozen and it was insanely muddy. If she likes anything better than a hole in ice where she can lie in the water, it’s a hole in ice where she can lie in mud.
And here is Willow at Schenley Park last Wednesday. She looks kinda wolf-like to me. Like she is about to chase down a ball and hamstring it.
I took the dogs to a different dog park than usual today. Schenley Park is within walking distance of our apartment, and then it was relatively easy to find a stretch of grass far enough away from the road that I could feel safe letting Willow off leash to play ball. Daedalus and her both explored the woods a little bit, Daedalus still on his leash. I just can’t trust him to come when called if he gets on a scent. Their coloring was perfect for the partially snow-covered leaves.
It snowed yesterday enough to cover the ground, but freezing rain turned to rain overnight and it was all gone by morning. It’s back to flurrying today and there was one stretch that was particularly beautiful as the snow was whipped around by the wind. It could have been a blizzard if it lasted for more than 10 minutes.
That picture came out better than I expected, actually. I’ve had difficulty in the past getting snow to show up on film and be anything more than a gray fuzz in the air. I used flash with the “action shot” setting on my camera. Speaking of cameras, I need a new one. This one is going on four years old. And I guess film is the wrong word there since this is a digital camera, so what I would call it? Showing up on silicon?
The snow continues here. Today it was covering the road. When I took Daedalus and Willow out in the morning, they both weren’t having any of it. Daedal balked at the door and Willow was stepping gingerly and obvious wondering what had gone wrong with the world. They finally got used to it, though the poor boy was shivering his butt off after a short while. Willow was more in her element. We’re gonna have to get him paw gloves.
Here is the scene out my office window. They are currently building the new Computer Science Complex here. One of the buildings is the Gates Center. You can actually see shots from the live webcam 24/7, though the show is quite boring after about 4:30pm or so these days. What’s amazing to me is that people are out there working right now. In South Carolina, construction work ended as soon as the sky darkened and rain fell. If snow fell, it would be like the end of the world had come. I don’t think this makes them any faster, though. Another bizarre difference between construction crews here and there is that there are no hispanic people here. This is a very bad thing as it also means there’s crap for Mexican food. You could find good Mexican every time you turned around in SC.
The first (somewhat) serious snow came today. Well, not particularly serious, but compared to South Carolina where I’ve spent most of the last 22 or so winters, it would’ve shut down schools for two days at least. Daedalus acted a little prissy. He didn’t want to get his paws cold I guess. He got used to it quickly and went exploring. Willow had no problem with it. She loves the cold. The wind was gusting and that was more than the Bug could handle. I wish I could’ve taken a picture of his face. Normally getting him to come in is a hassle, but a quick “let’s go” and he was running for the door.
This weekend will be the peak time for the Leonid meteor shower. It is so-named because the meteors originate from the section of the sky corresponding to the constellation Leo. The most locateable star in Leo is Regulus, which rises these days just after midnight on the eastern horizon. A little while later, Saturn rises behind it. Saturn and Regulus are both fairly bright so they make an easy pair to spot. The sky map below is from a perspective of Pittsburgh, PA at 1:51 am tonight (November 17, 2007). Peak time for the shower will be around 4am tonight and tomorrow night. [source]
Of course, you don’t have to find the constellation Leo in order to enjoy the Leonids. The comet Tempel-Tuttle leaves a trail of dust as it orbits the sun and occasionally we stray right into it. In 1833, the event was so huge people from Europe and North America took note of it. Estimates of the storm activity put it at over 200,000 meteors per hour! I dream of such a thing. It even led to the song “Stars Fell on Alabama.” Another big storm occurred in 1866 and again in 1966. Unfortunately, it looks like this year will be a modest viewing year, which puts the Leonids lower on the totem pole than the Perseids, which occur back in early August.
Viewing conditions for Pittsburgh look grim, which is typical of this time of year. This morning we had our first real snow. It had snowed a week or two ago briefly, but that was more of a snowy drizzle/wintry mix. Today there was actually accumulation on the dead leaves in the yard and on some cars. Nothing major yet.
