Sunday, December 4, 2011

Winter Finally Arrives?


A pileated woodpecker visited our apple tree to inspect the fruit that Marja had left for the birds. Apples that stay on the trees for winter can provide much-needed fuel to early spring robins.

Finnish Christmas ornaments - bundles of oats tied with red ribbons. The genius of Finnish design is in its simplicity. The Finns have long understood that it is hard to improve on nature, so they have learned the art of highlighting it.


Whose woods these are I do not know....


...but I don't think he'll mind if I watch as they fill with snow.


The next day Robert Frost got out his John Deere and started blowing some of that snow. You just can't watch it fall around here.


Ice on the pond! David and Jonathan had to scrape off about six inches of snow, but hopefully the pond hockey season will begin soon.


Clearing a skating rink is invevitably a losing battle, but you hope that the heavy snows will hold off for a few weeks.





Back in the old days before indoor ice rinks became the rule, kids developed their skating skills pushing scoops around outdoor ice rinks. Even here in the snow capital of eastern United States every town and village had at least one outdoor rink operating all winter long. The rule was, if you wanted to play hockey after the evening public skating time was over, you pushed a scoop and helped flood the rink afterward. Kids got a lot of ice time in those days and managed to get by with a minimum of adult supervision.

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