Winter Rain

8:40

It's a gray morning, with rain expected much of the day. We are up listening to the Laura Coates show on Sirius Radio, waiting for the Michael Smerconish, our morning fix. It's 36º at the moment with a light drizzle. 

Ice Fishermen Back On The Lake

Woodlawn

Thursday is always a good day because Evie has kindergarten and I have breakfast in Bemus. So we were both up at 7:00 and I was in Bemus at 8:00, having breakfast at Lake Life Cafe. By 9:10, I was home finishing the blog so Evie could edit it and head to class by 9:30. I wasn't sure what to do with my day but decided to get in some cross-country skiing. So I went out around 10:00 and was out for a good forty-five minutes, skiing down to Sandy Bottom and back. Again, the lake was slush at the north end of Woodlawn for some reason, so I stayed away and skied with the wind to Sandy Bottom.  When we have a few warm days, the cracks appear in the lake and we hear the lake moan. They are not dangerous at least not yet as the ice is still six of seven inches thick if not more, Although it was not a sunny, blue sky morning, I still loved being out there. 

Cracks On Lake

Scary But Safe

I drove off to Mayville at 11:45, to pick up a prescription for Evie, stopping at the hardware store for some Ice Melt and then at Tops for a few things. I stopped at the lakefront where volunteers were building the ice castle for the Mayville Winter Festival. It was neat watching them cut ice from the lake, then placing it on a device that sends it up to the shoreline where they can set it on the castle. I talked with one of the guys who raved about the students from BOCEs who were helping out. BOCEe is a public organization, created in 1948, "From culinary arts and automotive technology to nursing and computer science, BOCES programs provide students with hands-on learning experiences and industry-relevant skills." 

Building At Ice Castle

Volunteers 

Pulling The Ice Out Of The Lake

When I returned home, it was 12:45 so I had the second half of my veggie burrito and watched my show. I started a new book, The Note, by Alafair Burke, and fell asleep while reading. By 2:30, I was putting together our dinner. It was a Greek Chicken dinner called Chicken Kapama. It has lots of onions, garlic, tomatoes, cinnamon, wine, and brandy so it sounded good. I put it all together and then let it simmer for an hour in the oven so it was ready when Evie got home.

She was really tired from school so it was a good thing she did not have to make dinner. She relaxed until happy hour at 5:00 and we made the mistake of listening to the news, raising Evie's BP. We ate earlier than usual, at 6:00, and served the chicken kapama over spaghetti. Unfortunately, it was mediocre at best, tasteless, so I don't think I will make it again. We made the mistake of watching  Trump's news conference on CNN. "Our" President, blamed the crash on DEI and Biden and Obama, lying and politicizing his response.  After that, it was a relief to watch three episodes of a new series on Hulu, Doc, and I really liked it, Evie not so much. I ended the night watching some basketball as usual before going up to read and sleep,