Super Sunday

Marja chopped up apples that we had picked from our own trees last summer and made pies from them.  We stored the apples in our basement which is quite cold.  The skins were a bit wrinkled, but the flesh was firm and delicious.  No pesticides on these apps.  No service fees, and free downloads with every slice.

Forty degrees and sunshine brought bees from their hives.  These are euphemistically termed "cleansing flights", as the bees leave their hives in order to relieve themselves. On a very warm afternoon the air will be filled with bees and the snow all around the hives will be yellow.  It's always amazing to see bees flying in winter, and I was encouraged to see activity in all three hives.  Hopefully, they will all make it to spring.

It was a beautiful afternoon to go snowshoeing through the swamp to the old beaver ponds, that are now just open meadows - until a family of beavers returns to rebuild the dam. 

Snowshoes and swamps go together hand in glove.  What in summer is a soggy slog through tangled undergrowth and tall grass becomes an easy stroll during the winter.  Not to mention the fact that there are no bugs during the winter.

Woolen bibs, otherwise known as the Minnesota tuxedo, are the most comfortable pants you can wear in the woods.  Wool is real.  Millions of sheep can't be wrong.

One of the old beaver dams along the creek.

Warm sunshine, hot coffee, a comfortable seat and a good book.  It doesn't get much better than this.

Green branches in sunshine, something you might take for granted if you live in a place where the sun shines year round. You probably can't  appreciate how much a sunny day means to those of us who experience sunlight starvation up here in the northern boondocks, so just take my word for it that we develop a real thirst for color during the cloudy gray times.