Winter storm

The Patron Saint of Light came in the form of bright white snow this weekend with our first major winter storm of the season. We can't even see the lake today, just blowing snow and white outside the windows. But we have a stack of dry firewood by the back door, plenty of food and no place to go, so we'll happily stay indoors.

Yesterday we had "our girls" here for the day. There was hardly a winter activity we failed to do! Unfortunately the snow was too deep for effortless ice skating, but we tried out the spark (Norwegian kick sled) on the ice out in front of our house. Angela also had her first walk in snowshoes while Summer made snow angels.

We even went sliding. I never would have known that there are places for sledding out here, but I learned that kids have a sixth sense about these things: they found two decent sliding hills, right on the island! Who knew?

After a few games of stadium checkers in the uuninpankko, we had Christmas cookies, hot chocolate, and opened some Christmas crackers before the sad time came to take them home.

Mentoring these kids has become one of the highlights of our life out here. It's like having grandkids without having had to go through the expense and bother of raising their parents first. I really recommend mentoring if you're not doing it already.

The saga of the northern shrike continues. The other day a flock of goldfinches had bad timing and were caught mid-meal at the feeder when the shrike flew in and landed on a nearby tree. We've never seen anything like this: the goldfinches froze when they saw him and didn't move for what seemed like at least a minute, maybe longer. Even when a vole came out briefly and ran past one of them, there was no response. Goldfinches are usually little bundles of nerves, constantly twitching and moving, so to see them stand so still for so long was a sight. At a casual glance, they looked like dead leaves on the snow. Eventually the shrike flew off, the goldfinches re-animated, and we began to breathe again. Poor things -- they must have been terrified! I'd have snapped a photo but it would have looked like goldfinches standing still.

Here's some winter color for this post: John Deere green. Gary moved this 100-gallon "emergency" propane tank nearer to the house yesterday. These are the times when a John Deere tractor is like a dear, dear friend. I hate to even think what we would have gone through to move this tank without this beautiful machine. I just love this color.