Flares
Archive for 'winter'
Fast Fall
It seems as the fall has just flown by. I can’t believe its already Christmas break this coming week. Erin and really enjoyed our time a week ago when we went up to Canada. It was great to get away just the two of us and spend some time together. Thunder Bay was nice, and our time on the shore of Lake Superior was nice and relaxing.
This past week seemed to go pretty quick. I think when your down in the trenches it can seem like its moving awfully slow, but when you look back you seem to forget those times. Anyway it was a good week. I went to a wrestling meet on Tuesday night and watched a few of my students who are on the Virginia high school wrestling team. It was fun to see them compete. They did a very nice job winning both of their dual meets. I went to the meet after our weekly curling match. Tony our high school art teacher, Chuck our superintendent, Tom one of our P.E. teachers and myself all curl in the early league. We’ve competed three times so far and are sitting at 2 for 3. I played pretty well our last game getting most of my rocks in the general area they were supposed to be, so that was good.
On Friday I was signed up to take tickets at the hockey game. Since I was tied up with this Erin spent the evening making lefsa. It turned out really well and I think she ended up getting about 70 pieces. The hockey game was fun to watch. Virginia beat International Falls after a bit of a shaky start.
Saturday night Erin and I went to her schools Christmas party at the wooden table. It was fun spending time with the people she works with on a daily basis. After dinner we headed to Hibbing to pick up Katie who was just finishing up about 28 hours of travel getting down here from St. Michael for her Christmas break.
Today we did a little bit of ice skating. I don’t know how the rink will be tomorrow. We got a little bit of snow this evening. It seems the moment you get the ice cleared enough for skating mother nature decides to spoil the fun by dropping more of that white stuff. There us rumored to be a pretty big storm that is supposed to hit us on Christmas eve. If that’s the case we need to make sure we take advantage of the skating while its available.
Erin has two days of work this week and I have three, so our Christmas break is just around the corner. I am really looking forward to relaxing and getting outside some over break.
I hope you all have a nice holiday season
Every 5 min
Last spring I set up a laptop looking out our window at the lake while the ice was going out. In a week span I got a little video of the ice melting. Its fun to see this slow change happen in just a minute or so. I just set up another one this morning to film the ice forming this fall. Its set to take a picture once every 5 min at 10 frames per second. I don’t know if this is the best set up, but I’m kinda shooting from the hip. The smart person would do the math to figure out what they want there outcome to look like. I figure I can tweak it a bit in Final Cut after its done shooting. We’ll see how it comes out. I’ll basically get about on second of video every hour its running. I turn if off in the evening because its usually too dark to see anything anyway. Tonight would have been pretty with the full moon arching across the lake. I’ll be posting the finished product so you all and take a peak and maybe leave a little feedback on what you think of it.
Hokey Pokey Camping
Our feeble attempt at camping this weekend began Thursday night after work. We pulled together most of the gear we would need for a BWCA camping trip in the fall. We were pretty tired, so we didn’t get finished with the packing, just got a decent start to the venture. Friday morning I helped Erin get the canoe on her car and threw what we had ready into her car as she left for work. I still had to pull together the rest of the gear hoping against hope that I wouldn’t forget anything. I finally got on the road about a half an hour later than usual, but I made it to school with a few minutes to spare. So to follow the hokey pokey theme Thursday night we put our right foot in and took our right foot out. Friday morning we put our right foot in and shook it all about.
After work that day Erin and I met up at the Y-store and drove to Soudan where we dropped my car off at Erin’s grandparents house. We transferred the rest of the gear from my car to hers and headed to Ely. Mind you at this time of the year dusk is showing up earlier and earlier each day. We pulled into Ely and had to pick up some last minute things that we had forgot to pack for the trip and grab something for dinner. At this time we assessed how much time it’d take us to actually get to the Moose Lake entry point and decided we would be just putting into the water when the darkness would be settling in over the lake. We made the decision to hold off actually starting the trip till the next morning. We ended up staying the night in Ely where we watched the twins throw their game two against the Yankees away in the bottom of the 9th inning. The next morning we awoke to a blanket of snow on the ground and a pretty brisk wind whipping across the tree tops. We decided to push on and headed down the Fernberg Road to the Moose Lake entry point. As we approached the lake I was beginning to second guess our trip. There were some fairly decent waves rolling across the lake. Now if this had been a summer day it wouldn’t have been as big a deal, but since the temps were below freezing it added a whole new level of concern.
We pushed on and loaded up our canoe and headed out in the waves. The wind was blowing in the same direction we were paddling, so we were making some pretty good time without much effort. Our concern was that if we had to paddle back against this same wind the next day it would make the 8 or so miles pretty tough. We paddled about a mile and decided it be smarter and safer to call the trip off. There’s no reason to force on when things could turn quickly for the worse. Truly we probably would have been fine, but it would have been a chilly wet trip. So back to the hokey theme, we started our trip Friday night, then stopped it not too much longer, only to start it the next morning and stop it again an hour or so after beginning. Lots of back and forth.
Instead of camping we went to a tea shop in Ely, and then to a movie in Virginia.
Rain + March = ICE
I’m not sure what time the rain began falling last night, but by 6:30 AM there was a glistening new layer of ice on the ground. Our driveway was nearly impossible to get out of and the following downhill seemed more like a luge run than a gravel road. Needless to say I only managed to avoid going into the ditch at the bottom because of my heroic Bond-like driving skills. I promptly parked the car and hopped in with Erin since she has the sweet escape which seems to handle the slippery roads a bit better than the bald rear tires on my KIA. The next 3 miles took us about 20 minutes to navigate doing our best not to end up in the ditch. When we finally made it to the highway the roads were fine. The rest of the day was less hectic as Mondays should be. The rain is supposed to continue for the first half of the week and then turn to snow sometime Wednesday. Looking forward to the weekend.
P.S. Who’s orchestrating the collection for “Bill’s Mini Laptop Fund?”
Winter Show
Last Sunday, Jesse and I headed out to shoot another winter episode for BWCACAST. Our journey this time led us to the Little Indian Sioux entry point. It was really warm out and very sunny. Jesse was armed with his fancy DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) camera, and I had my video camera.
One of the nice things about shooting shows with Jesse is that he is very patient, and willing to wait around while I set up shots. There were a few times where I walked a long ways ahead to set up the camera, then hiked back and the two of us would walk continue on our way with the video camera shooting us.
On the way we came across something I had never seen before. Jesse knew exactly what it was right away. A bird had taken a small animal out of the snow and in the process left a wing print in the snow.
We made it out to the Devils Cascade, which was about 5 miles from the entry point. I think I added about another mile to the trip with all the running around with the camera.
The return trip was pretty rough on me. I am pretty much out of shape, and I think my body is only rated for about 6 or 7 miles of snowshoeing, not 11 or 12. So there was a lot of grimacing and breaks on the way back. I was still hobbling around at work on Monday and Tuesday.
I am hoping to head out again this weekend to shoot another show. Hopefully Jesse will be able to join me as well.
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