Time and again...

Sitting by my morning fire, watching the rising sun, and knowing who to thank.
His peace to start the day.

Now this is a big mushroom.

huge puffball mushroom -2
Originally uploaded by Minnesota Daybreak

Can you imagine my surprise when I walked down toward the dock today and saw this huge puffball mushroom growing in the yard? It felt solid, so I picked it and sliced it open, but it was already too water saturated and therefore starting to spoil. If I had only found it sooner!

The Fish House

When we built a garage, the Petersons adopted the shed.

The neighbors re-sided their shed this year and I just had to take these photos - evidence that (a long time ago) it had been our ice fishing house.  It brings back happy memories of winter evenings and weekends out on Prior Lake.  If you 'click' on the photos so that they enlarge you can see more clearly Glenn's writing on the outside.  When we bought our lake place we brought it up here to use as a shed.  It had fishing holes in each corner that we had to seal up and I think we added a small window in the back to let some light in.  We then sided it with used lumber to match our old cabin.  (A labor intensive enterprise.)  It was a good shed, but it had been a deluxe fishing shack.

Our early 1980's ice fishing house.

Inside was a little pot belly stove to keep us warm which we also used to cook super fresh fish fillets.  The kids would ice skate or play around outside when bored with fishing. Our faithful springer spaniel, Jessie, found her own entertainment.  It took us awhile to realize she was making the rounds to other ice fishing shacks stealing and eating the fish people had tossed out their doors to freeze.  Fortunately we stopped her life of crime before she got caught and thereafter kept her tied up, but there were, no doubt, several fishermen wondering what happened to the fish they had planned to take home.

Vacation Time @ Grandma's

E - Kayaking

M - Swimming

My grandchildren each had their private week of vacation with me this summer in July.  There was plenty of "lake time" – mostly swimming, but also kayaking and fishing.
When E. was here we golfed twice and shared one meal out at the Dorset House (great evening buffet) with CC.

CC & E - Dorset House

During M’s week here our meal “out” was at Schwartzwald’s and she managed to eat two of those giant pancakes!  Prior to that we had been at Itasca State Park where we hiked to the Old Timer’s Cabin and down on another little path near Peace Pipe Vista.  She swam for about an hour at the beach and then we biked the short distance to the headwaters before leaving the park.  This visit was also M’s first time ever to try golfing.  It was a challenge, but she got the hang of it and hit her best shots on the 9^th  (final) hole.

Peace Pipe Vista

E. graduated to bigger clubs this year (thank you, Jeff) and did well with them.  Fishing was a prime part of his week’s agenda and we had a delicious meal of fresh sunfish that he cleaned and I cooked.  Mmm… couldn't ask for anything better. ☼

Blue Heron - evening silhouette

Blue Heron - evening silhouette
Originally uploaded by Minnesota Daybreak

This evening after a celebratory dinner in Dorset (in honor of a couple new retirees) we stopped by the rookery to see what we could see. There were quite a few Herons in the nests. We happened to be there when one of the birds came in to feed her huge babies - an occasion that set them squawking loudly. The lighting was poor, but I liked the images it produced - the silhouette effect.

Quote:

"One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating."
- Luciano Pavarotti

Lake Ice, 3/27/2010

From the look of the lake we could have one of the earliest ice-outs ever.  This photo from today shows that the ice has separated from the shoreline and it has that sort of slushy look, along with the tell-tale dark color of an old green Coke bottle.  However, no big cracks have opened up across it yet.  Still, with today's light rain and the promise of very mild temperatures in the coming week, it's all looking very promising.  I wonder if we might actually have a hot summer this year... that would be almost as much of a novelty as the ice going out early.

Red Fox

This morning I saw a red fox go under a neighbor's deck. I observed this several times two winters back also, but wasn't around enough last year to see him. (or her?) I grabbed my small camera and got one shot before it slipped from view. These pictures are the full shot and an enhanced, cropped portion of the same photo.

I've read that foxes have their kits around the middle of March. This Fox does not look pregnant and so is perhaps a male.

Cross Reference: Remedy For Sadness

“The remedy for sadness is prayer. But as sadness broods in selfishness and is inclined to rest rather in our own unhappy thoughts than on God, the soul turns to prayer with reluctance. Hence the saddened one must first turn to God by vocal prayer, persevering in which, that reluctance will be overcome; and as the sadness subsides, the spirit will enter anew into the heart of prayer. The second remedy against sadness is generosity. For the malady consists in morbid concentration upon oneself and a brooding within one’s self that repels sympathy and kindness as being adverse to this melancholy mood, a mood that can only be cherished in isolation of the spirit. But let the will make a little effort to be kind and considerate toward another and it is amazing how soon that malignant charm is broken that held the soul spellbound to her saddened thoughts and imaginary grievances. A smile, a kind look, a few gentle words, a considerate action, though begun with effort, will suffice to open the soul and set the spirit free from it’s delusion.”
[WILLIAM BERNARD ULLATHORNE]

Frosted Web

Frosted web - 3 by
Minnesota Daybreak

After having been told this would be a mild winter by optimistic weather-folk, we are instead having a most wintry winter. This morning I snapped this photo of a frosted web. The temperature -9°F. Just a few days earlier these windows were covered in ice from freezing rain blowing against them. There are photos of that, too, in my Flickr photostream. Winter has it's own unique beauty. I don't brave the weather as often as in the past, but hope to capture more winter scenes with my cameras during the next couple of months.