What a difference a week makes!

Who would have thought a little over a week ago it was just about 50 below at the house - and today - it was 40 degrees above (it got up to almost 50 above yesterday) and we went ice fishing and enjoyed it. There was all kinds of water on the lake - but noone fell in. Brent and I went out with the youthgroup and it was a great time. Brent is already planning on building his own ice house for next year. For now we are going to enjoy our above average weather and laugh at the lower 48 as they survive what we sent down.

I'm waving the white flag.

The cold snap is coming to town - per an article in the paper the weather forecasters are calling for as cold as 60 below! And the long range forecast is not looking too cheery. Shall I start naming the top 3 places I would rather be enjoying right now - I'll give you a hint, they all are known for sunshine and are about 125 degrees warmer than what we'll be. Holy cow - I had to do the math again on that one, but that is the temperature difference. Imagine, I could go hang out in the walk in freezers at Sam's Club and it would be warmer than walking outside. But I will stop complaining and accept this as my cold weather merit badge and come October I will gladly accept my "award" from the State, i.e. permanent fund dividend. Everyone stay warm and if you are down south somewhere, stand and send your warm wishes to the frozen North.

Bring it on!

As has been the motto lately - "at least it has been a nice winter SO FAR." But the bottom is about to drop out. The forecast is calling for 35 - 45 below tonight, but bring it on! At least we know a couple of days ahead of time of what to expect and with the addition of our new wood burning stove it makes it nice and toasty. I am thankful that we have the stove and are not having to deal with flooding in the middle of winter.

Oh no, it rained - and then snowed again.

Friday night it warmed up to 40 degrees and it rained all night and melted all the snow that we did have. On Saturday Brent and I were able to finish up our winter projects. All the doors have new weather stripping and the wood is unloaded and all the lawn furniture is put away. It was a rather nice day to spend outside. Then last night it snowed again. Brent was standing and staring as the snowflakes were falling and he decided that he should go and fire up the snowmachine and take it for a spin. With not even 2 inches of the ground he took his sled out for a ride. As you can tell from his ear to ear smile - winter is his favorite season.

Oh no ... it snowed!

We got our first true snow this last week and winter is here to stay. Although I will miss the green grass and warm days (I guess we had some of those in September) I do love the snow. As Brent jokingly said he will sit in his garage on his snowmachine and watch the snow fall. Brent is really looking forward to this winter, snowmaching, ice fishing, and we are even going to try and go cross country skiing. So bring on the snow - but keep the 50 below away to a minimum. But in case the 50 below does come, we are getting a woodstove installed next month. Brent and my dad, along with my mom's cousin have been busy all summer getting wood. Our woodshed is stacked tall and we are ready to start burning.

Wanted - cabbage thief

With the cold and rainy summer everybodys gardens did not do as well this year. The only vegetable that was able to grow was the cabbage. I had 3 plants that did great. The day before Brent left we picked one head of cabbage and it was great. I was hoping to get the other two picked this week, but as luck would have it - the moose beat me to it! I found evidence of the leaves that they didn't get and the footprints in the bed. Although Brent is hoping that they come back during hunting season so he can get them. Speaking of hunting season, it opens on September 1st, the day Brent gets off work. So on his way home from Delta he will be keeping his eye out for Bullwinkle. We'll keep our fingers crossed for a full freezer this fall.

One heck of a hike.

On our last day of being in the park we went for one heck of a hike. Mary Vail and I mentioned that if we would have known that our ending point would have been where it was, we would have not even gotten off the bus. As we were heading back down the mountain we noticed that we passed about three of our "hell no" hills. While hiking up the hills we got to one plateau and caught up with the boys only for them to take off again, Mary Vail called that rabbit chasing. But each time we decided that we could make it to the top of the nest hill, and sure enough slowly but surely we made it. Although the picture of the GPS show 5149 feet we started out at just over 3400 feet. But still, it was an awesome accomplishment. The 3rd picture shown is the view from the top looking down to the road where we started. The last picture is of Brent standing on the road and where his finger is pointing is where we finished - wow!