Ice Covered Shoreline

All I can say about last week is that is was cold. The majority of the week’s highs were below zero. From Monday to Saturday we had a 60-degree temperature difference. Monday was 30 below zero and Saturday it was 30 above zero. Here is a series of photos that represent what twenty to thirty below looked like this week.

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Sea Smoke at Twenty Below 001

The open waters of Lake Superior had so much sea smoke that it looked like an impending storm coming in. All of these clouds are sea smoke.

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Sea Smoke Twenty Below 002

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Window Frost 001

Our woodshop windows looked like little forests of white. All of the windowpanes were covered with window frost. I don’t think I have ever seen that much frost covering the windows. Even though it was cold it was beautiful. Each window was like an enchanted forest.

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Window Frost 002

I spent about an hour just looking at the different shapes in the frost.

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Mouse Stuck to a Pole

My neighbor called to say it was so cold that a mouse slipped while it walked along the bird feeder pipe and when his mouth or tongue touched the pipe at twenty degrees below zero he froze to the metal. This is the way he found him in the morning; frozen solid. I think even the chickadee was wondering what was going on.

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Skating

At the end of the week it was a different story. Our neighbors came to skate on our pond. With the increased warmth the frost formed on the trees making the forest look as nice as the window frost.

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Following Pine Marten Tracks

It was so much fun to enjoy outdoor activities again after the cold temperatures. We followed pine marten tracks in the woods.

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Alexa enjoying the snow

With the deep snow the girls had a great time. They found that when they fell backwards into the snow they would sink about 8 inches or so.

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Alexa still smiling

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Kate sinking in two feet of snow

It made for some great photos and a lot of fun for the girls.

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