Family Day On The Frozen Lake

The Good Life On The Lake

7:17

7:30

It's after 8:00 and I have been up for an hour, just missing the sunrise.  At the moment, the sun is hidden behind the clouds, the sky partly cloudy, the lake mottled.  It's 28º and should warm up appreciably today, into the '40s. I had a bad night sleeping, thinking about Bernie, how his chances of beating Trump are near zero.  He's an ideologue, an independent, an outlier, out of touch with most Americans, even his party.  Next to Bernie's often radical ideas, I can see why many Americans are more comfortable with Trump. A Real Clear Politics poll shows only 15 to 18 percent of the electorate are Bernie supporters. And the Never Trumpers might also be the Never Bernies.

Bridge Over Frozen Waters

Yesterday was a perfect winter day; I cannot imagine it being nicer.  Blue skies all day, brilliant sunshine, and temperatures around 30º.  The lake was a virtual playground, filled with hundreds of fishermen, snowmobiles, families, and hikers.  It was wonderful to see and made me wonder what it would be like if this kind of day were more common, the normal.  For us, we had a long morning coffee, watching the lake fill up with ice fishermen.  We didn't get busy until 10:30 and decided that after a trip to the Transfer Station, we would go for a walk around Bemus, thinking it would be the safest place to walk, without fear of ice.  So we dropped off the trash and walked the neighborhood and lakefront before stopping at the Bemus Grocery, to pick up some hot dog buns for dinner.

The View From Bemus Point

We were home by 12:30 and Evie made me what my grandchildren called Baba toast, basically sourdough toast, with feta cheese and jam. Yum.  We watched a Breaking Bad episode, then I took a nap, read, and wished I were outside cross country skiing but the lake was too icy.  So it was a long afternoon for both of us, having gotten our walk in earlier in the day. I read and watched the weekenders having a great time on the ice.  It looked like one family actually made a camp out on the ice, with tents, a couple of snowmobiles, and kids.  They taxied back and forth between the ice fishing tents and Chestnut Hill, where they would zip up the steep hill on their snowmobile, to pick up supplies or someone else.  I am sure it would be no exaggeration to say there were hundreds if not thousands of people out on the lake enjoying the weather, the sun, and blue skies.  Only we were sitting inside, watching, like sitting in front of the boob tube.

Dusk

Around 4:00, we both worked in the kitchen, putting together leeks and potato soup to go with our hot dogs, easy dinner for a Saturday night. Around 5:30, we had cocktails and Evie made some crackers with cream cheese and red pepper jelly for an appetizer, taking us back to our first year at Reserve when the DeGrays and Armontouts introduced us to this appetizer.  The good old days.  Our hot dogs tasted great, just what we wanted, as was the potato leek soup.  We watched a Colbert, then a couple more episodes of Breaking Bad, as we are nearing the final season, alas.