Rainbow Haven in winter.

Today the dogs and I headed to Rainbow Haven, that is after I checked the tide times.

Being on the Atlantic side it is not dangerous to get tide times wrong; it just means that you may be disappointed by the total lack of beach.  I learned that low tide was to be at 12:30 so I knew that by arriving at 1 ish there would be lots of beach, and I wasn't disappointed.

The beach is quite different in winter with blocks of ice that have been pushed up to the high tide mark.

Frozen in time the waves lie rigid on the shore.

 Not just bigger waves, but little ones were also stopped in their tracks too.

How remarkable is this ?   Frozen bubbles !

Of course I wasn't walking alone.    My best buds were with me.  I think Sooki looks particularly dignified in this photo; which isn't easy considering the crazy outfit she's wearing.

And of course they were glad to have a huge expanse of beach to run on. 

In a couple of hours this whole area would be under water.

In the summer we'd walk up the beach and then circle back down on the path that runs up the peninsula which juts into the harbour.

Compare the photo above with the one below.  Both images were taken at just about the same spot.

It would appear that even more of the land is being covered at high tide.  The land to the right of the path is covered by ice.

And in the foreground was an interesting ice formation with layered slivers of ice.  Of course I just had to taste a piece to confirm it contained salt.  And yep, it did.  

Wouldn't you ?

A New Year's Day gift.

An amazing thing popped up on my Facebook feed yesterday from the background casting group I belong to.   Surprisingly, the message had nothing at all to  to do with background work.  

The message read:  If you are handy to Cow Bay, please go help out!

An image was attached:

I called my  friend Amy-Lynn who lives in Cow Bay and told her that a call had gone out for help to rescue a beached Pilot Whale, stranded on the beach at Rainbow Haven.  She, her hubby and her two grandsons bundled up and drove there.

They were among the first to show up, but soon had lots of company.

People brought buckets and shovels to try to make a channel to drag the whale out to sea.  Unfortunately the tide was out and not coming in any time soon.

So how do you get a 2-4 ton whale down a beach to the water.

The Marine Animal Response Society arrived with the solution.

A flattened inflatable boat was worked under the stricken whale.  It was gradually inflated.

Then in spite of the minus 20 degree temperature the rescuers struggled to maneuver the heavy whale hundreds of metres past the shallows out into deeper water.

Among those rescuers were local surfers and volunteer fire fighters.  Some of those rescuers stayed out in the bitter water for over an hour taking the whale into deeper water.

At this point I'll let Carolyn Ray of the CBC pick up the story:

Annette Thompson, an off-duty firefighter and former commercial diver, was one of two remaining people in the water along with Ben Hawkins. By that point, they had no flotation device and were trying to return to land, but there was a new challenge.

Pilot whales are extremely social creatures. This one had bonded to its rescuers.

"We righted him several times," Thompson said. "Ben and I stayed with him as long as we could. Unfortunately, he kept following us to shore."

Thompson said it was like dealing with one of her dogs. 

"I kept saying to him, 'you can't come home with me, you have to go back,' and he'd just look at you and you could hear him breathe. It was just absolutely amazing."

Hawkins managed to separate from the animal first, but the whale stayed by Thompson's side. Finally, King on his paddleboard managed to get between the animal and his rescuer. 

Hawkins managed to separate from the animal first, but the whale stayed by Thompson's side. Finally, Todd King on his paddleboard managed to get between the animal and his rescuer.

"Eventually — this is after three or four attempts — I got Annette into the reef at a point where she was safe," King said. The whale then started following King on his board, so he headed to deep, open water.

The paddleboarder Todd King, led the whale into deeper water:

"Most of the time, I was at risk of hitting the whale with my paddle — that's how close he was," King said. "As we paddled along, he got stronger and stronger."

When they finally got about two kilometres away, the animal started swimming away.

"The whale just rolled on his side and looked me in the eye," King said.

There have been no sightings of the whale since, which rescuers hope is a sign it has rejoined its pod.

Happy New Year everyone !

12 months.

Those bloggers over at WordPress have all the fun.     Several of them are doing 12-month retrospectives prompted by a "Freshly Pressed" challenge.

Unfortunately WordPress allows for some nifty ways to display those photo collections  and I of course, am not using WordPress.  I'm starting to wonder why not.

How many photos do you take in a year ?  It's hard to imagine selecting 12 favourites from a year's worth of photos, and as you will see, I was not able to do that.

I picked this photo from January because I thought it was rather artsy.  The steps are up  the side of a WWII bunker at Hartlen Point, where I had gone exploring with Trey.  You're not supposed to be there.  This photograph represents my love of exploring and my disobedient tendencies.

In February, my friend Sandy from Ontario came for a visit,

Sandy at the Blomidon look off.

and I visited my brother Darrell and some family in Ottawa in time to experience the Winterlude Festival on the Rideau Canal.

Oh dear.  I picked two photos for February.

For my March birthday, friend Amy-Lynn, made me a gift of the beautiful portrait she'd made of your favourite goofball and mine -- Trey.  Didn't she just capture the soppy look of his eyes perfectly ?

The high point of April was a trip to visit family in Portland, Oregon.

The beautiful Japanese Garden.

Stacey and I.

May was marked by two wonderful events -- a solo visit from my sister-in-law Janet,

and the wedding of my good friends Amy and Mickie at Hartlen Point.

In June my friend Pat came for a visit from Ontario,

and the lupines gloriously came into bloom.

The Pride Parade was in July.  I love the pride parade more each year.

Me, Mickie and Amy.
Photo by Timothy Richards.

July, actually, June, July, August, September and any another month with a "diggable-day", is a good day for gardening.  I love moving rocks, shifting plants that have barely gotten accustomed to their current location, to a new ones, and planting trees.

In July, the Tall Ships came.

August found me travelling to Bear River, aka "The Village on stilts" and then on to Brier Island with friend from Ontario, Margie.

Friends Sue and Roger also visited in August.

In September I had a wonderful camping adventure on the Bay of Fundy.

My lovely brother, Darrell, visited in October,

and Lynne and I explored McNab's Island.

In November, I went hiking with Amy-Lynn, Lynne and "flat Kathy" in the woods near Lynne's home.   Actually I go hiking all the time but this photo represents a year full of hikes.

And this one, the almost daily walks with Wendy and Trey.

December found me showing Lynne the sights around Blomidon. 

And there you have it, a year in review.

What a marvellous exercise this has been !   I am so grateful for all the family and friends who have visited and for all those who live nearby.

Gardening, hiking, exploring.  Gosh I'm lucky.

The apparently thin line between foolish and fun.

I took Wendy and Trey for a walk at Rainbow Haven today.  The large parking lot there, which is inaccessible to cars at this time of year, was partly covered in ice.

To amuse myself, I lazily slid the ball across the ice.  I didn't even throw it.  I just rolled it gently, maliciously thinking how amusing it would be to watch the dogs slip and slide after the ball.  The lack of friction meant the ball just rolled and rolled.  As I expected, Wendy and Trey skidded across the slick surface after it.

What I did not expect was for the ice to break, and them to be trapped, chest-deep, floundering to get out of the frigid water.

It's is a freakin' parking lot -- not a lake !

Both dogs have broken through at this point.  

Wendy, being taller than Trey, managed to get out pretty quickly, retrieve the ball, and make her way to the grass, where she happily trotted around in a "nyah, nyah" sorta way.   "I have the ball and Tre-ey doesn't".  Trey was too preoccupied with his current situation to even care about the ball.

The ice kept breaking under him as he tried to climb out.   

I quickly regretted my foolishness as I watched him struggle.

I watched as the ice kept breaking under him, as he valiantly tried to climb out.  Even though he wasn't getting out, he was inching forward through the broken ice.  But I could see him shivering, and the look of worry on his face is evident in these pictures. I moved to a spot on the grass that was closest to where he was and sized up the situation, and considered how I could get to him, without falling ass-over-tea-kettle myself.  Before I went for the big rescue, and I urged him to try one more time.  He was shivery and barked at me in frustration.   And then, he tried.  He tried one more time, and

he found that the ice was able to hold him.  Gingerly he hauled himself out, and oh-so-carefully, spread-eagled like Bambi on the ice, made his way to shore.

He was soaked and trembling, but very relieved and happy to be on dry ground.  Suddenly, all he wanted was the ball.  "Throw the ball !   Throw the ball", he barked.  I didn't even tell him off for barking.  I gave him a quick rub-down with my mitts and heaved the ball into the grass.  

I wanted to keep him and Wendy running until we made it back to the car.

And I did.  By the time we got back to the car they had warmed up. I gave them each a good rub down  with the blankets and towels that I keep in the car, started the engine, and got the heat blasting.

No harm done.

But gosh, I can be stupid sometimes.

A well-rounded day.

Today, I, fed some ducks,

 went walking at Rainbow Haven with two dear friends,

and then went to another taping of "This Hour Has 22 Minutes".

Who's a lucky girl, then ?