Just Ducky! No Ducks but a Lone Bachelor Drake

"Be like a duck. 
Calm on the surface, 
but always paddling 
like the dickens underneath."

Michael Caine 

Rick Wackeman's instumental - "Ducks and Drakes"

A couple of weeks ago, I finally got my first indication that summer was truly underway. A personal tradition that began way back in 2008. Back then I shot a photo the first one of a pair of ducks, swimming on the pond/fountain at the complex where I work. I say pond/fountain as because it is so big I am never sure, even with the water spouts, whether it is one or the other. You could even describe it as a pool. If they didn't empty it for winter, it would make a jolly good skating rink. If they failed to empty it, it would crack from the expanding water as it froze.

Baby IT Was Cold Outside! The Eisheilige 2014

"It's too cold outside for angels to fly."

Ed Sheeran

Margaret Whiting & Johnny Mercer - Baby Its Cold Outside

Most years in May, with some exceptions, Austria along with most of Europe goes through an icy spell that throws us back into winter for a week. Those glorious spring days seem to take a break or disappear without so much as a protest to be replaced by rain, icy winds and extremely cold weather.  In the Alps, the days can sometimes herald the last of the winter snowfall for the year.  After that is generally becomes a downhill run into summer.  

The days are referred to at the Eisheilige (Ice Saints). The worst day is usually St. Sophia’s feast day and she is referred to as the Kalte Sophie (Cold Sophie). Despite global warming and indications of climate change during the seasons, these days religiously, (pardon the pun), arrive every year around the same time and have for centuries. Farmers generally hold off some of their labours, to ensure that any work in the fields is not wasted. The days generally are: 

St. Mamertus, Bishop of Vienna – 11. Mai

St. Pankratius, an early Christian Martyr – 12. Mai

St. Servatius, Bishop of Tongeren – 13. Mai 

St. Bonifatius, an early Christian Martyr – 14. Mai

St. Sophia, an early Christian Martyr – 15. Mai