Well, Winter has finally arrived. Sort of. We had our first real frost on Monday and today was the third morning that there was frost out. It got all the way down to about 29 degrees out (It was -1 Celsius). Brrrrrrrrr.
Maybe this will finally kill the mosquitoes off.
Tomorrow, though, it is supposed to be in the mid 40s again. I am afraid that, despite all the dire warnings I heard about this winter, we won't get any snow at all.
One thing to note, though, is that Dutch apartment buildings are well insulated. I can see the flat top of the apartment house across the street from me and there were no bare spots in the frost on the roof at all. It all stuck til the sun came up. I thought that was pretty good. Very efficient.
When I went to class today, there was a little skim of ice on the top of the little canal pond (where I took all of the pictures of the coots and geese that entertained you all so, this summer). It wasn't a very big skim--it didn't cover the whole pond--but one of the coots was running along on top of it.
Now, apparently, coots get really, really fluffy winter plumage and they fluff themselves to keep warm, as well. So, for the last little bit, they have looked like giant, fluffy, black marshmallows with teeny-tiny heads. They kind of resemble guinea fowl. Well, this one little guy was up on the ice and he didn't seem to happy about it. He was running along, trying to get to the edge and into the water, but his little feet would slip when he got going too fast so he was just this little, fluffy, fuzz-ball, wobbling along, slipping and sliding, and trying to get to the water. It was mighty cute. Though apparently it was upsetting for him.
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