Would You Believe???

Greetings Everyone,

Yesterday was different. The weather forecast alerted us to a 'blizzard warning' with strong winds and 4 inches of snow. We did get the strong winds - up to 45 mph gusts for most of the day.  At the onset of the strong winds, we could hear the lake ice cracking and popping - sort of like a gun report echoing across the frozen lake ice.  Then the winds began pushing the ice around until all the ice was pushed out and down river.  The lake now has no ice.  

We are back to watching the ice reform on the lake -- maybe.  I say maybe because instead of snow, we got rain!  We do have some snow still, but its VERY slippery after the evening temperatures dropped  below freezing.  Today, the temperatures are suppose to get up into the mid 30's so hopefully we can get out for our walk.

Because the lake 'broke up' and the winds were pushing the ice around, we decided to go out and move our boat further up onto the beach.  We were not sure if the lake ice - some of it 2-4 inches thick - would be pushed into our boat and bang it up.  So out we went to move the boat.  This required that we place 'rollers' under the bow of the boat and winch it.  Actually Ernie winched and I push the boat from the stern. Now the boat is high and dry - safe from ice.  Also because of the warm weather, we removed all the frozen ropes from our boat and brought them into the cabin to thaw and dry out.  

With all the wind blowing our windmill was spinning and pulling in 'energy' so that I was able to run the washing machine and do some laundry.(We had pumped water on Thursday - filling our inside 100 gal water tank). Since Friday was a sauna day, we hung our clothes to dry after we took our sauna.  Most of the clothes were dry within one hour.  We take a dry sauna so the sauna temperature was up to 150 degrees F..  

Clothes drying in the Sauna

The other day I made Pumpernickel bread for the first time.  It was so hard and a big disappointment.  I ended up smashing it with a hammer - as best as I could - and fed it to the birds - and they ignored it completely!  I made a second loaf and that one came out perfectly - obviously, I had done something wrong the first time.

Speaking of birds - Ernie and I spotted a flock of Barrow's Goldeneye's - a type of duck.  They seem to be hanging out here for the winter or taking a break from their migration.  We'll see if they are still here after the storm.

Take care and we'll keep in touch!