Friday, September 17, 2010

Falling Towards Winter

Yesterday in the skies north of La Ronge:

We had a short period of wind that made our lights flicker wildly for a few minutes today. This was followed with a period of snow. Yeah, that stuff. "Ah, it's northern Saskatchewan", they tell me. I'm hoping someone remembered to pick the rest of the cherry tomatoes and bring them inside to finish their ripening process indoors. You know, the Saskatchewan way of ripening tomatoes! It always seems like we got such a short season of picking them ripe from the plant. At least the carrots will last in the ground for some time yet. I've also found that green onions left alone in the garden for winter will survive until spring, making for some nice little spring onions.

I've been meaning to go out and do one last blast of the glyphosate on the poplar shoots, but alas, work has kept me from the meaningful and important (read: gardening) activities of life. Instead, I took a flight to the small community of Southend, SK. This is their airstrip:

There's little room for pilot errors here. Either you fall off into the lake, or tumble down a little hill into brush and the lake. Most of the terrain north of La Ronge consists of thousands of tiny lakes in the glacier-etched depressions in the rocky shield. Just north-east of this town is Deep Bay, a 13 km wide meteor impact crater now located under Reindeer Lake. Take a look on Google earth, it's the obvious large round part of the lake at 56° N latitude in northeast Saskatchewan. It's quite deep and apparently has tall rocky ledges surrounding it, both of which are uncommon features in this area.
Check it out in the list of the 10 greatest major-impact craters on earth: http://green.yahoo.com/blog/environmentalgraffiti/15/10-greatest-major-impact-craters-on-earth.html

3 comments:

Kyna said...

My family all live in Buffalo Narrows, some of them mentioned on Facebook that they had a little snow already in Northern Sask.

That landing strip is crazy! O_O

Northern Beauty Seeker said...

I am guilty of *not* picking my cherry tomatoes in time. (Maybe I was in denial) :)

You are very brave or have great pilots!

vermontflowerfarm@outlook.com said...

Fall is coloring Vermont hillsides as sugar maples provide the first yellows and a few reds. Still no frost here but the daytime temperatures have dropped enough to slow production. I pulled the string beans last week. The deer or bear ate all the Bluebell grapes Friday night.

The zinnias look especially good and I'm hoping I can squeeze out a few more frostless days so they can help adorn a friend's outside wedding Saturday. Looking around our nursery I remember Mothers Day in May standing in a blizzard talking with 9 ladies about gardening. One asked "what are we doing here?" and another replied something like "getting ready to garden". No matter where gardeners live, they love what they grow.

George Africa
The Vermont Gardener