Cold Enough

6:54

7:34

Another morning in the teens, a few inches of snow overnight, and a partly cloudy morning begins our day here at the lake.  We are still happy with our winter, mostly because we get outside every day and look forward to the snow, the cold weather, and the natural world.  

Snowshoeing Long Point in 17º Weather

Yesterday was a busy but fun day despite the cold weather.  Evie was making an Asian extravaganza for our friends Linda and Ron.  So she had lots to do during the day to get it ready.  She wanted, however, to get in some snowshoeing so after getting both a marinade made and the Thai soup, we drove over to Long Point around 11:00. It was cold, 14º out be we forgot about the wind, with a wind chill of 3º as we hiked to the woods.  The wind was so bitter, so heavy, that we almost turned around.  Once we made it to the trails in the woods, however, it was fine and we had a good hour on the trails, happy that we made the decision to get outside despite the cold.  We always start with three or four layers and if its too much, we take one off and put it in my backpack. 

We returned home at 12:30, later than we thought and Evie whipped up the leftover grits into cakes, fried them along with a couple of eggs for my lunch.  While I ate and watched TV, she got busy with our dinner, spending a good part of the afternoon on the Thai Shimp and coconut soup, the peanut satay chicken, almond cookies, salad, and spicy green beans.  I was her bottle washer, occasionally dropping into the kitchen to clean off the island, wash up, then return to the couch to read until there were more dishes to wash. 

By 5:00, everything was ready and we both were able to relax some, shower, and get ready.  We have been enjoying cocktails recently so I made the first cocktail I ever had, a Sidecar, compliments of my Grandfather Davis who was down to see me at college in Athens, Ohio, in 1962. Before they arrived, I moistened the rim of the glasses with a lemon, dipped them in sugar, and set them out on the porch to chill.  When they arrived, I had the Sidecars made and chilled, a combo of brandy, triple sec, and lemon juice.  Needless to say, Linda and Evie loved them.  After we finished them, we sat down at the table and had our Thai soup, egg rolls, and edamame.  We then relaxed as Evie baked the Thai chicken satay, with peanut sauce, stir-fried the green beans, made the rice, and salad. The chicken was perfect, the flavors strong, as were the green beans and salad.  We ended the night with homemade almond cookies and Chinese tea, in the teacups I bought when I was in Hong Kong in 1975. It was a nice way to end the evening.  They left around 9:45 in light snow and we did up some of the dishes before deciding we had enough and went up to bed.  It's nice to be able to share a meal with our bubble friends.