A Honeydew Comes out of Hibernation

There were a number of things that happened in December and January that forced me into my basement office for the past few months. Who would have thought that this would be the year that winter would come back to Canada? I have been working in our unheated basement and have written up a couple of papers and one big section for a grant proposal literally while wearing gloves. I am glad that winter is finally letting go and I can get back to the mobile phase of this sabbatical.

I have been back and forth to UNB a number of times over the past little while working on papers and grants and supervising some Honours students. It is all fun but I really wanted this sabbatical to be a chance to work at the bench, inorganic synthesis is what really pulled me into this profession and I really want to have at least one last time where I can be part of a larger work and where I am reporting work of my own hands.

Going back and forth from here to there this time of year has its challenges. The winter has been long and there is still a lot of snow in the woods. This drives the local deer out towards the highways where the foraging is better / easier. It also brings them into close contact with highway traffic.

Deer are not the most intellectually gifted animals that the Good Lord put on this Earth and when the thought gets in their head that they need to cross the highway there isn't much room for discussion. This leads to a number of somewhat negative motor vehicle experiences for the deer. I heard on the CBC that the divided highway operated by MRDC is keeping track of deer kills this year and it is in the dozens. I know when I made the 200 km trip yesterday I counted seven spots where it looked like deer had been killed and I drove by a mangled carcass this morning as well. I guess I will have to be careful driving until the spring foliage comes out and they have better browsing in the forest. They also cause a large number of drivers to randomly slow down and gawk which presents its own hazards driving. What I did this morning is what i do in bad weather in the winter ... I found a transport truck that was going my way and tucked in behind him and just followed him. I figure that if there is an obstruction on the road he can deal with it and as long as he can see me in his rear view mirrors we're cool.

With the road kill come the scavengers and down on the Sheffield Flats this morning near McGowen's Corner I happened to see this guy out waiting for someone to hit something. He was sitting on a snag down by the river near the highway. I slowed down, stopped and rolled down the window as if to ask him directions and he studiously ignored me so I took his picture.

As you can see the river is still frozen over but the spring freshet is on and the river is opening up river from the Mactaquac dam down through Fredericton so I would expect the river to rise over the next few weeks and that always makes the trip "interesting". The new MRDC highway is all on high ground except the Jemseg - Coytown stretch across the Sheffield Flats. I stopped under the new highway bridge there and was fascinated by the objects that get thrown over the side the bridge such as this object which is common enough along the highway where truckers decide that stopping is just not an option.

And then there was this hubcap that caught my eye:

It is somewhat a metaphor for life that all of this will be changed and perhaps washed away as the spring floods come through and scour the countryside. I could use some scouring right now.