Whites and blues of winter

What a change in the weather today! Maybe two days ago, we had a windchill of -34C. Today, 13 February 2018, it is windy, overcast, and the temperature is PLUS 7C, with a windchill of 2C. In a way, it feels good to hear the drip-drip-drip of melting snow, but the forecast says we are to get more snow in the next few days.

Yesterday afternoon, 12 February, I ended up going for a short drive SW of the city, to my 'usual' area, partly just to get a change of scenery. I hadn't driven out of the city since 17 December 2017. Almost no wildlife to be seen, other than a Raven, a Magpie, a Rough-legged Hawk perched at the top of a tall tree, and a couple of small, unidentified birds that flew across the road ahead of me. Still, I did take a handful of winter scenic shots and a couple of barns/sheds. At first, I didn't realize that one of the dark, horizontal lines through the snow was, in fact, a long line of dark cows, all heading back to feed.

To drown my sorrows over not being able to find any owls of any kind, I decided to call in at a small cafe/restaurant in the area and brought home a bowl of delicious chili with garlic bread. Made an enjoyable ending to my afternoon drive.

As mentioned yesterday, I had bought a Panasonic FZ1000 over a year ago, so that I would have a back-up camera to my old FZ200, ready for my trip with friends to Trinidad & Tobago in March 2017. I didn't get the chance to try out the FZ1000 for many weeks, as I was so busy preparing for my trip. When I finally did take a few test photos, I discovered that on Playback, the camera would show a photo or two and then jump one. It kept doing this throughout the Playback. All the photos were there when I downloaded them to my computer, but I couldn't see every photo in Playback, unless I changed the direction and tried again, which was a perfect nuisance. As soon as I discovered this fault, I went back to the store and asked what would need to be done. I was told that the camera would have to be sent for repair, but I could not risk not getting the camera back in time for my trip (only the second holiday of any kind, anywhere, in about 35 years!). Anyway, finally in December, I took the camera back for the store to send it off for repair. I found out later that the young guy didn't send a copy of the receipt, etc. with the camera and next thing I know is that I get a phone call saying that the repair estimate was $700+!! What! The camera was still under warranty, but the repair place didn't know this because the receipt wasn't sent. Two or three weeks later, I got a call to say that the camera was ready for pick-up, and I did so a couple of days ago. I was so glad to get it back, but that feeling was very short-lived when I discovered that Playback was still skipping images!! So what happens now? I guess they will want to send it off again, but I don't know what to do. Various friends have the FZ1000 and love it - I really like the colour and image quality, but this whole fault and repair problem is giving me stress that I definitely don't need.