Dec 28 - a warming trend

I see that it's -6F right now, better than the -8F that I saw overnight ! Actually it does get warmer from here on in ...

However, despite the cold, everyone had a blast outside yesterday. Everyone, that is, except for Sandy whose "closest encounter of the cold kind" was looking out the window. Typical ! It was sunny and basically without wind, quite pleasant, in spite of the fact that it never really warmed up over 0F. Heck, I remember all of us skiing at Mt. Tremblant in -40 weather. The Celsius and Fahrenheit scales come together at -40.

Chase and I went into town, which was not without excitement ... the car doors had frozen open at first, the latches not engaging and then closed. If necessary I could have tried the back doors, the windows, the panorama roof ... we weren't exactly trapped. I thought at first about simply sitting in the sun after I backed out of the barn but decided that the car would warm up more quickly driving, so we headed into Loring. The freezing occurred because Sandy and I had been driving in the very wet weather the day before. Although the car was in the barn, the temperature was still 15F.

Sure enough, the doors were fine at the General Store where we picked up the mail and a couple of other items. We then went to Home Hardware and got two sump pump hoses which I joined together when we got home and used a small sump pump to do some rink flooding. It's not exactly perfect but will have to do. I may do some more this a.m.; we'll see.

Prior to that, I had cleared the driveway with the snow blower. The plow was overdue end of day so if he came overnight I'll have to clear the end of the driveway. The snow settled during the day, however, and I don't expect much there.

I also got the 4-wheeler out on the lake for a bit, circling the rink. I'd checked the ice thickness and it's fine. I was burying the 6" drill bit. The top part of that is crusty stuff so we have waited until today for large scale romping on the lake with the machines. I did give Chase some excitement pulling him on the road, however, and he quickly learned the trick of steering onto the fresh snow to make "fresh tracks" -- the skiers dream.

I made rice crispy cookies and ... get this ... date squares. I haven't tried those yet. It seemed to me when I was making it that there wasn't as much date filling as Sheryl's but I'll reserve judgement.

The air hockey table got some exercise as did the pool table. Jeffrey had taught Chase five card poker and later on, I taught him Blackjack.

Alexander has a place of honour on one of the shelves in the living room with a picture and the urn. Sara and Jeffrey didn't want to leave him behind. Even though this would have been his first visit, his absence is felt.

The latest schedule has David arriving this morning and Stef tomorrow. We're going with the flow :).

Onward ? ... yes ...