Frozen North Shore Mountains

January 13, 2013 – I love living in the shadow of these mountains. Whenever I look to these, I see home.

The past few days have been glorious. Sunny, clear, and crisp. I feel like I wake up on days like this. I am a Northern girl, and as much as I don’t miss living where I am from, I can’t say the same for the clear winter days that I grew up with. When the temperatures headed South into the -20’s and -30’s the skies usually cleared and brought the most fabulous sparkling crystal clear days. Combine that with fresh glittering clean snow and it was a recipe for stunning beauty the likes of which are rare here on the Lower Mainland. So when there is snow on the North Shore Mountains, and the skies are blue, and I can see my breath, I am grateful.

We, again, thought about pulling the motorcycles out for a ride, but when we factored in the wind chill that comes with highway speeds, we both opted for a brunch of eggs Benedict and a wine spritzer instead. We then headed down to Granville Island for a Market day and revelled in the wonderful sights and smells that come with a visit to Granville Island Public Market.

When I was growing up, winter meant root vegetables (carrots, potatoes, turnips), or home frozen summer vegetables. Fruit was limited to green grapes, oranges from Florida, bananas from far away places, and apples stored away in the fall. We canned our own fruit and jams; summers were spent picking and preserving cherries, apricots, peaches, pears, currants, and plums. We froze carrots, corn, peas, beans, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, and huckleberries. We made jams and jellies from raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, saskatoon berries, and currants. And all of it came home with us to be packed away in the deep freezer or the cold room, to help us bear the lack of variety in the grocery stores over the long winters.

How things change. Now we can buy cherries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, and a plethora of other fruits. In January. It does come at a price, both financially and ecologically. These fruits are expensive at this time of year, and they should be. When you think of the distances they have to travel, it’s a bit mind boggling that we take it for granted and complain about the cost.

But that’s what we come to expect when we live in a city like Vancouver, in today’s times.

As an aside, I am LOVING not doing a 365! I feel like grabbing the camera has become fun again. I can pick it up and take a photo because I want to and not because I have created a self imposed and rigid need to do so. The 52 week project is manageable, and the 113 photos is a fun scavenger hunt. The camera is my friend again and that leaves me the time and inclination to get more involved in Flickr again. I have rejoined two Challenge groups I used to be active in, and am back to moderating in one again. I was shocked to realize it had been two years since I had been active. It feels good to play again. It also means that I am picking up the Nikon again, and that I will probably start playing with all those different lenses and different cameras again. That feels good too.  🙂

#91 – Frozen