Strange Matters

 One of these things is not like the others...

One of these things really doesn't belong...


The raccoons are awake, and hunting along the shoreline.  They do belong...  Although oddly enough they are not a native species up here. They followed the settlers back in the early 1900's. Toronto is the Raccoon Capital of the known universe.  If you check out Col. Chris Hadfield's photos from the ISS closely, you can just make out the shine of their eyes in the posts he's done of the Southern Ontario cities.  (kidding...)

 These tracks, along the edge of the ice, were placed there, like a book in which we can read strange matters.  They look like they may well have been printed by our mourning doves.







But then there is this...   someone has been running the open water at the Main Dock.  That can be fun -- and admittedly here the water is so shallow you could simply stand up and walk out, but it is a caution. Ice-aways operating on docks keep these pockets of water open. Much to the glee of the geese arriving back from the South and all the other animals who take advantage of the open water-fountain, the water never freezes.  If a sled is going fast enough, it will skim across.  In Dorset, it's not uncommon for the Puddle Jumpers to fly across almost half a mile of open water through the Narrows.   But really... it doesn't belong here...

And it tells its own story...