Slow Warm-Up

 I had a job to do and it involved shoveling.  Shoveling the snowy steps down to the lake was my Saturday chore....that was just the first chore that needed to be done today.

All of the firewood down on the lake ice needed to be brought up and stacked on the first landing.  Multiple trips with arm loads of firewood equaled exercise for both Bike man and me. 

 Oh boy, we have a problem!  Our wood platform that we use on top of the lake ice with our copper fire bowl, has now merged into the lake ice, snow and lake water......oops.  Bike man spent time trying to chisel away the ice this afternoon, but no luck.   He'll try again tomorrow.

Forty degrees today, whoo hoo!   Look who's wearing his shorts.  With the mixture of sun and clouds, we have melting happening.   Perch fishing was very slow, but at least we spent time outdoors today.

White Mountains

I just felt like playing with Photoshop Elements today!  Stopped along the road today to take photos after a long day at work.

Here's my original photo.  The beauty of the drifting snow just called out to me....Lisa, Lisa, stop and get your camera out!  

 Can you see the road off to the left?  Totally iced-covered from the sunshine and 20 mph winds blowing all day long.

The snow drifts are amazing, especially for this time of the year.  I'd expect this for January or February, but not March.  With the colder than normal temperatures, the snow is dry and dense.  Normally, our March snowstorms would produce heavy wet snow.  Overnight low temperature is forecasted to be around zero degrees.  Do you know what this means?  Our lake will be making ice tonight!  Looks like we'll have lake ice hanging around until May......hello spring.

Another Winter Storm

More snow, slippery roads and lots of wind today....just something to expect in the Midwest.

The snow is accumulating around the back of the house.

And the front of the house......more snow as well!

At the rate we're going, we'll have snow in our yard until the end of April.  Spring flowers?  Probably not until mid May.  Despite the snowy weather, I still love Wisconsin.

Cottage Winery & Vineyard

After an afternoon of tagging along with Bike man and a student volunteer for urban stream monitoring, it ended with a late afternoon trip to our local winery.  Do you wanna go for a run text message, turned into, do you wanna go to the winery with me?

Jill and I postponed our late afternoon run so we could visit the Cottage Winery & Vineyard.

Tasted some very interesting wines with a good friend, while enjoying some business talk with the owner of the winery. 

Jill and I tasted five wines while leisurely enjoying the view from the cottage house.   The Cottage Winery sits high on a ridge of hills and valley's below.  Despite all the snow on the ground and cold temperatures, we still enjoyed ourselves.  At least the sunshine felt good today!!!