Farewell to Winter

We recently spent a wonderful three weeks up north. Prior to our last week there, we were treated to 4" of fresh snow, which really made everything pretty and which provided some great opportunities for skiing.

I'm pretty sure that the snow is on its way out now, though. Temperatures were trending upward the day we left. Although one of my little bears was covered at one point, I'll bet he is free of any of the white stuff by now.

Ice on the lake was really interesting. We think that it initially froze over when the lake was higher. When Xcel Energy started taking more water for energy production, the lake surely dropped under the ice. We saw evidence of this in a variety of ways. One of the most fascinating to us was the way in which the ice curved down, rather than breaking down, under the bridge. I don't suppose the pictures will do it justice, but the result was a kind of saddle shape. It was really glassy and curved down in both directions, across both the length and width of the bridge.

Where the ice did break, we could see how thick it was, on the order of 10" or more. Weather had smoothed it, and there were streaks of air in it, but it was the prettiest pale blue color you can imagine.

This may have been the best time so far that we have had at our place during winter months. When we return, spring will be showing itself. In the meantime, it will be fun to remember the fun we had, and the beautiful snow and ice we enjoyed. Here is a final picture demonstrating how deep the snow can really be up there. (Or maybe the subject of this photo is trying to play tricks on us!!)

Will, Sandy, & Anders at the Lake

It was a not quiet weekend here at Lake Wobegon (but a very happy one). On Friday evening, my eldest and his family drove up here to spend some time with us. We met at a favorite local restaurant to partake of the ever-popular Friday fish fries that are so popular up this way. Then we settled in for the night. The next morning, I found Anders and his Dad hanging out on the couch.

Shortly after that, Dad got him dressed. He definitely is one of the "World's Cutest Babies." I know of four!

Mom whipped up some rice cereal for him. He is very recently into solid foods.

Then, he spent some time playing with his toys.

Since there was a basketball game on TV in the afternoon, a change of clothing was necessary.

Before the game, however, Mom and Dad wanted to try out one of the local ski trails. Unfortunately, even with the great new snowfall we had, the trail had not yet been properly groomed. Sandy had some new skis that she waxed up.

Will likes to skate ski, but with the trail not being groomed, he had a real struggle plowing through the new snowfall. A prior trail user had at least gouged out a classic ski path, but even with that, Sandy had to work hard too.

So, off they went, completing something over 4 kilometers and working up a good sweat.

Meanwhile, Anders hung out with Grandma and waited for game time to roll around.

Alas, the Hawks lost in a close one. Will fixed dinner that evening–salmon on the grill, asparagus, and some yummy Italian or French bread.

This morning, Grandma and Anders enjoyed the rocking chair and the morning sunshine.

Meanwhile, Josey and Lucy loafed and napped.

Anders tried out some squash and more of the rice cereal. He already wants to handle the spoon himself.

Grandpa got some "Anders time" too. Grandpa likes Anders' bib choices.

Then, it was time for more skiing, this time on the lake. Grandpa preferred to give Anders a ride in his dad's old sled.

Anders was so excited about the opportunity, that he dozed off.

Meanwhile, the other three skied on up to the bridge to see the unusual ice formations there (stay tuned for a future posting about that).

Grandma wanted to show off her classic skiing form (though isn't the downhill stance somewhat unusual on a perfectly flat lake?).

Back at the ranch, Anders enjoyed snuggling with his mom.

Then, he showed us all how he can already stand alone (or his Grandma giving him a hand there?).

Wish they were still all here, but unfortunately, work demands required that they head back home.

Island Shelves

Not much news to report, but I thought I'd keep something going here with a couple items.

First, for those of you interested in fishing and "fish stories", we recently received an email with some attached amazing pictures of an enormous Northern Pike that was supposedly caught in Canada some years ago, although there is debate about the exact origin of this story. Via Google, I have found numerous other instances of these pictures and comments about them. One of the best is here, but they appear here too, and this latter one contains lots of related, interesting commentary. Even if you don't care about fishing, the last picture in the set of three is pretty amazing. I urge you to take a quick look.

Second, we have long thought that a set of shelves could be placed under the edge of the island in our kitchen here at the lake and free up some cabinet space as well as provide a place for sodas, beer, and wine and whatever else. So, last October I took very careful measurements, two or three times, of the available space under the island and carried that information back to IA. Last month, I built a set of shelves, and we brought them here with us on this trip. In spite of the "measure twice--cut once" mantra, I messed up somehow and made the shelves one foot too long, although I got the height right, fortunately. As Homer Simpson would say, "D'oh!" So, I spent my first day up here taking 6" off each end and reassembling and sanding the shelves. Then, I spent several days varnishing the whole thing, which I had planned to do here anyway. Now they fit. I still don't know how I messed up. Maybe I wrote the measurements down wrong. More likely, I read them wrong or simply goofed when transferring measurements to boards. Anyway, all's well that ends well.

In looking at this again, it sort of seems like we are displaying products for sale. Obviously, that is not our intent. For example, I can obviously store lots more beer than shown, something important to note!!

Birds and Cross-Country Skiing

We awoke this morning to fresh and falling snow. It was really quite pretty. I know that I have probably too frequently written here about our bird feeder and the sites we enjoy there, but I can't resist. Of all the things we enjoy here at the lake, this is one of my very favorite things all year round. Maybe it was the snow or the fact that I had recently refilled the feeder, but we seemed to have a Blue Jay convention going on this morning. There were dozens of them below the feeder, in the trees, and all over the forest floor. Squirrels, Chickadees, and Hairy Woodpeckers have also been around. I took the following shots through our window, the first through the railing of our deck. Click on some of the pictures to get a larger image and to better enjoy the colors of these wonderful creatures.

This afternoon, we decided to break out the cross-country skis to see if we could remember anything about this sport. We had thoroughly enjoyed skiing two years ago, and you may remember that we were here in January last year, expecting to ski, when we learned that we had a water break at our home back in Iowa. That put an end to any time we might have spent up here last winter.

There are lots of groomed trails in the area, about which you can read more here. We decided to drive to the closest one, which is the Mukwonago Trail. If you click here, you can see a map of this trail. We did the shortest loop, and I have to admit that I skied most of it, fell a couple of times on downhills, and walked the very last part due to being a bit winded. They had the trail nicely groomed for both skate skiing and classical cross-country, but I am both out of practice and not in the best shape. Still, it was fun, and I'll definitely go out again. I must admit that I like skiing on our lake, which is nice and flat, so I might work on my technique that way for a bit before I try hills again. Anyway, here is what we look like when we are upright. Right now, we are relaxing and enjoying things of an alcoholic nature.

Winter in Wisconsin

We are back in Wisconsin and enjoying the feel of winter at our place. Sarah and her friend, Kelly, visited us this past weekend.

We also got to meet Sarah's new Cocker Spaniel, whose name is Dala. Dala has a little problem with one of her tear ducts, so you may notice some redness in her left eye. She has an appointment with a veterinarian soon to see about a remedy. She is a sweet little dog, although she and Josey were somewhat possessive of food and toys. So they tended to avoid each other after initial introductions.

Sarah and I went for a walk on the lake one day, and she borrowed our dog booties to help Dala be more comfortable. She first seemed to act like her feet were mired in molasses and kept lifting them very high as she walked.

But once we got out onto the lake, she accepted them and returned to a normal pace. Aren't those booties a nice Hawkeye color?

Of course, we had to introduce Kelly to our pinball game.

Sarah, who has some training in astronomy, was impressed with our clear, dark skies and could make out lots of constellations and other features. Here she is pointing out many of them to Kelly and Kathie. She wasn't crazy about my use of a flash.

The ladies all went out for another walk on the lake yesterday afternoon. The ice seems to be 8" or more thick. We have seen some snowmobiles coming and going from our neighbor's home.

Different from summer, the views are still always beautiful to us.

Josey loves to run around on all of that frozen water. I wonder if she finds it confusing when she is here in the summer and cannot do that.

I took this picture early this morning.

Piece of Cedar

Not having much else to blog about lately, I am electing to write about a little project that has really kept me fascinated recently. I find every piece of wood I work with to be interesting. Each one has something to be said for it--color, grain, burl, texture, whatever. One piece of wood has really captured my interest these past days, and it came from my own back yard!

A couple of years ago, I trimmed some trees in the back yard, including cleaning up some storm damage. We have a dozen or so scrub cedar trees along one border of our yard. These are of the type very commonly found growing wild in the countryside and in our ditches. I know my grandmother and step-grandfather used to cut small ones for use as their Christmas trees. They aren't always very eye-catching. Their needles can be kind of grey, and their shapes can be very random. When they are large enough, however, the wood can be quite interesting. Hence, the fascination for me.

While I was trimming the trees, I set aside a length of one of the cedar branches. It was about eight inches in diameter and about four feet long, so I thought that if it dried well without cracking too much, it might turn out to be a reasonable piece to turn on my lathe. Since then, I had pretty much forgotten about it. Then last week, I was doing a little straightening up in my garage and came upon it again. It seemed quite dry, so I took it down to my shop. I cut the log into two lengths, one of which you can see here. The tree has a bark that is quite stringy and which pulls off in strips.

The interior of the logs is always very red (really, almost pink) surrounded by a very, very white wood. They have that familiar cedar smell to them, especially when the wood has dried and is then cut. Branches that emanate from the trunk or a larger branch have their own red core, surrounded by white. So, where that occurs, you get the red color radiating outward. You can see this in the picture above, where a small branch was trimmed from this larger one.

I mounted one of the lengths of the saved log on my lathe, centering the turning points at the very middle of the red core on each end. After the initial roughing gouge work, I had the log reduced to an essentially cylindrical shape. Again, you can see one place where a small branch emanated from this larger one.

Continuing on, I knew that where I created thinner sections, I would expose the red core, and where I left it thicker, some of the white perimeter portion would show. I ended up using about 10" of the piece to make this little lamp. Later, I used the rest to make a couple of wine bottle stoppers.

Today, I bought the necessary parts for the harp (supports the shade), a shade, and the wiring. Here is what it looks like when lit.

I turned it off and took a flash picture also, so that you can see the colors of the wood in the base a little better.
And here is one of the wine bottle stoppers.