Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Two Rascals And Festival Preparations

Through January, work gets underway at the various Winterlude sites for the festival, which starts on Friday and runs for three weekends. Confederation Park, across from City Hall, is one of the focal points of Winterlude, with ice sculptures set up through the park. I passed through one grey day (we get a lot of grey days in the winter). The shelters were being set up at the time. Christmas trees get a second use, lining various sites through the festival, so they were in place waiting to be set up.


While I was in the park, a couple of squirrels were busy chasing each other. They stopped long enough for me to take some shots. Kleine duivel is a Dutch term that always comes to mind with these devious rascals- it means little devil. Fortunately they're so adorable.


This might seem odd. It is outside Fifth Avenue Court in the Glebe. This and several others have been set up in various locations in the city to be filled with snow- the artificial version of snow that's brought in as opposed to waiting for this thing to fill up naturally. Once that's settled into a cube shape, it's ready for snow carvers to come in and get to work on it for Winterlude. When I passed by this one yesterday, it was in the process of being worked on.

35 comments:

  1. I am so happy that the squirrels stopped their antics long enough to enable you to photograph them, William. I love them. :)

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  2. I didn't just understood the last photo and thing. But I await with interest what will happen.
    You have a lot of snow.

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  3. Squirrels come out to play in the snow

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  4. Enjoyed learning about the boxes to be filled with snow and the repurposed Christmas trees.

    Janis
    GDP

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  5. I never called the squirrel a little devil. I always like to see them, they are so cute.

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  6. @Linda: they are cute.

    @Orvokki: I will photograph this one. It looked yesterday to still be in progress.

    @Bill: they do!

    @Janis: I look forward to the festival.

    @Marianne: my dad did!

    @Tanya: they are.

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  7. So that's how they start out with the snow carvings. Interesting.

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  8. I'm looking forward to Winterlude! Always like to see those black squirrels as they are so different from our squirrels.

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  9. i love the idea of reusing the Christmas tree. so smart. ( :

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  10. Those squirrels are adorable, William !

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  11. Snow carving is easier than ice carving as you can correct any errors easily. You can still get the same quality of same.

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  12. We are having grey days here as well. Love to watch those squirrels!

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  13. Love the black squirrels, so unusual to my eyes but not so much for you William. They look so good in the white snow! Looking forward to the ice sculptures 😊

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  14. @Sharon: yes, I watched them setting these up, sans snow, so at some point in the last few days, artificial snow has been added in. I've seen several of these in varying sizes.

    @Lowell: just a few days away now, and no doubt I'll have plenty of shots.

    @Beth: it's a very good idea.

    @Karl: they are, yes.

    @Red: yes, with ice carving, one mistake can spell doom for the sculpture as a whole.

    @Marleen: today finally we have blue skies- for as long as that lasts.

    @Grace: we get a lot of black, grey, and brown squirrels. Some red ones, which tend to be a bit smaller.

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  15. The squirrels are adorable and they are fun to watch.

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  16. Squirrels are adorable and quite agile. Little devil suits as their nick name :-) I've never seen black squirrels in person. Squirrels around here are all brown.
    I look forward to seeing all the ice sculptures!

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  17. You have very black squirrels, ours are grey or red-brown. Little devils is a good nickname for them.

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  18. I heard this morning that we had 1/2 the usual hours of sunlight in January this year. It has been so dreary!

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  19. It will be fun to see the ice sculptures again. The black squirrel is always a nice sight. I haven't seen any squirrels here, I wonder if there are any. I'll have to check on that.

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  20. @Nancy: they are!

    @Tamago: we do have a variety of them.

    @Jenny: it fits their behaviour!

    @RedPat: that doesn't surprise me.

    @Bill: they're working on the set up. I have photographed one crew setting up something at City Hall.

    @Whisk: especially those tails.

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  21. Where I once lived, they tossed old Christmas trees into the lake to provide structures to attract fish.

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  22. Can't wait to see the ice creations this year. Those are some hardy squirrels!

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  23. Glad to see that the Christmas trees have a second life. And I'm looking forward to seeing Winterlude again.

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  24. Those black squirrels are looking very frisky.

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  25. I have a little squirrel that sits on the fence outside my kitchen window and watches me. our Squirrels in Texas are a bit smaller than yours.

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  26. @Revrunner: also a good idea.

    @Mari: they're going to be starting tomorrow. Some ice sculptures are already in progress or done, but not the competitive ones.

    @Kay: I'm looking forward to photographing it!

    @Catalyst: indeed. They seem to be handling winter pretty well.

    @Janey: they're such fun to watch.

    @Jennifer: hopefully not!

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  27. Yesterday there were four squirrels at my bird feeders! I went out the door and they ran off. Devils, yes.

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  28. I wouldn't call squirrels 'kleine duivels', they are much to nice for that name, but it's great you managed to get so many cute shots of them.

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    Replies
    1. I should really have a few peanuts on hand when I go through that park.

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