Even though I live now in Illinois, I continue to get the Minocqua Wisconson news paper every week because I have many friends there. Also our lake property is there with my son,Jack,as owner, and we need to follow the various changes that are occurring.
Now in last week's paper was a sad item even though I didn't know the people personally, I still felt the sadness for these people. In four consecutive days there were four accidents where people went through thin ice and drowned. The last one was the worst. Here the vehicle fell with two passengers went through the ice, but one was able to escape out of the vehicle. The other person drowned. How tragic to have sudden deaths in four families of active people.
This winter has also been mild with very little snow when a normal mid January temperatures should be near zero and ice on the lakes over 4 inches thick. This brought to my mind the time when I fell through the ice.
Very similar circumstances, mid January, but temperature was near zero and a good cover of snow. It was a week end when Jack and Marilou were over to do some cross country skiing. They went on the pond that I call, Broz Lake, because it is on the East end of our property. After they returned they suggested that there was a beautiful spot on the pond where the snow covered branches arched over the inlet creek, like a cathedral.
Then on Monday I told Dorothy that we should check it out because there was not much happening that day. After lunch we put on our skies and went to find our new found "cathedral". We were skiing on our pond before, and I knew where this creek was located. We would have to go about a half block across the pond and to our right.
There it was. A beautiful winter scene. The trees were on both sides, as if it was an entrance. It was narrow so I told Dorthy that I would go first. I hardly finished saying that when I started to go down as if I was in an elevator. Skies and all made a seven foot hole in the ice, I told her not to come any closer because I fell through the ice.
This was a shallow spot and I was standing on the bottom, However I am up to my waist standing in ice cold water. I leaned to the side to get out but the ice broke. So I moved back to thicker ice, I was able to get my left leg and ski out of the water. However when I turned my body, my right ski was caught under the ice. Now I had to lower my self back into the water to release the right ski and turn it to be able to get it into the hole where it went in. Now I was able to get both skies on top of the ice, and I decided to keep both skies on since I had to get back to the house.
I made it back but my shoes were encased in ice. I was able to get my skies off, and then I had to melt the shoe laces before I could get them off. I proceeded to remove my wet clothes and dry myself. Then a hot chocolate drink. The next day I developed a cold, but that was all of the effects after an ice bath.
My guardian angel was with me all that while so I'm here to tell you my story. So be careful of thin ice.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
Birding
This term, birding, at least to me, is a relatively a new term for a hobby of studying and bird watching. This my impression.
When I was living in Wisconsin many of us had bird feeders, and we would be watching to see which type of bird was feeding there. Most of us had two types of feeders, one for humming birds and the other for all of the other birds. The humming bird had to have a special liquid feeder that held a syrup. Then this was colored red to attract the humming bird, The other feeder had the sun flower seeds which all the other birds seem to enjoy.
In Wisconsin our challenge was to locate the feeders out of reach of the black bears. They loved both of them, and they would even destroy the feeders just to get at the food. Now in Illinois that is not a problem, so birding is much more enjoyable.
At our first feeder we had a pleasant surprise when the first birds arrived. They were the American golden finch. They were rare in Wisconsin, but here we had 3 or 4 or even 5 at one time. Very pretty site, When the weather became colder, the yellow birds disappeared. We had plenty of birds, but I assumed that they went south. Several months later after a little research, my son Rick discovered that they changed coats for the winter and become brown and white, so they were still with us Now we are waiting for them to start to change back to yellow.
We had so much bird traffic at the first feeder that we needed to put up another. And now do we have birds. We have cardinals,mourning doves, juncos, chickadees,nut hatch, woodpeckers just to name few. Surprising we can have all of them at one time. They also come in large numbers,like 6 cardinals, 16 mourning doves, numerous juncos, also many sparrows. The red headed woodpeckers come in different sizes, and they are very flighty. The tiny chickadees take one seed, and then fly to a tree near by. There they peck on the seed to crack open the shell. They really work hard to get out that morsel inside. Then they fly back to get another seed, and do it all over again.
My son, Rick is buying bird seed in 35 pound bags, because the birds are eating about 1 pound per day. It seems to me that we are the only people feeding the birds. It might be the sign of the current times where you have to feed your family first.
If you can feed the birds, you will find it very entertaining,and you will be aiding the trees as well. After all this is in God's plan as well.
When I was living in Wisconsin many of us had bird feeders, and we would be watching to see which type of bird was feeding there. Most of us had two types of feeders, one for humming birds and the other for all of the other birds. The humming bird had to have a special liquid feeder that held a syrup. Then this was colored red to attract the humming bird, The other feeder had the sun flower seeds which all the other birds seem to enjoy.
In Wisconsin our challenge was to locate the feeders out of reach of the black bears. They loved both of them, and they would even destroy the feeders just to get at the food. Now in Illinois that is not a problem, so birding is much more enjoyable.
At our first feeder we had a pleasant surprise when the first birds arrived. They were the American golden finch. They were rare in Wisconsin, but here we had 3 or 4 or even 5 at one time. Very pretty site, When the weather became colder, the yellow birds disappeared. We had plenty of birds, but I assumed that they went south. Several months later after a little research, my son Rick discovered that they changed coats for the winter and become brown and white, so they were still with us Now we are waiting for them to start to change back to yellow.
We had so much bird traffic at the first feeder that we needed to put up another. And now do we have birds. We have cardinals,mourning doves, juncos, chickadees,nut hatch, woodpeckers just to name few. Surprising we can have all of them at one time. They also come in large numbers,like 6 cardinals, 16 mourning doves, numerous juncos, also many sparrows. The red headed woodpeckers come in different sizes, and they are very flighty. The tiny chickadees take one seed, and then fly to a tree near by. There they peck on the seed to crack open the shell. They really work hard to get out that morsel inside. Then they fly back to get another seed, and do it all over again.
My son, Rick is buying bird seed in 35 pound bags, because the birds are eating about 1 pound per day. It seems to me that we are the only people feeding the birds. It might be the sign of the current times where you have to feed your family first.
If you can feed the birds, you will find it very entertaining,and you will be aiding the trees as well. After all this is in God's plan as well.
Monday, January 2, 2012
A Christmas Story
Good tidings and a Happy New Year to all of you. At present most indicators are that this year of 2012 will be a very good year.
I have not written blogs for a while, but now I have written 3 recent ones before this. I will try to do better this new year.
Our Christmas amaryllis is in full bloom. It is beautiful but it missed Christmas by one week by one week. Now for my true story.
This occurred in the 1950's when we were in CFM, Christian Family Movement. Basically we were meeting in groups of 10 couples about every two weeks in our own homes, on a rotating basis. Naturally we would become very familiar with each other. We were very fortunate to have a swimming pool, so during the summer we would have an outing with all.
In our group we had an owner of a wholesale fruit and vegetable business. While we were serving watermelon, I mentioned that I really like watermelon, and that I even would like to have it in December at Christmas time. Now remember this was in the 50's when air travel was in its infancy, so my desire was only an exotic dream.
However at Christmas that year, he shocked me when he handed me a watermelon.
That was the time that Tom Brokow called us, " The World's Greatest Generation "
I have not written blogs for a while, but now I have written 3 recent ones before this. I will try to do better this new year.
Our Christmas amaryllis is in full bloom. It is beautiful but it missed Christmas by one week by one week. Now for my true story.
This occurred in the 1950's when we were in CFM, Christian Family Movement. Basically we were meeting in groups of 10 couples about every two weeks in our own homes, on a rotating basis. Naturally we would become very familiar with each other. We were very fortunate to have a swimming pool, so during the summer we would have an outing with all.
In our group we had an owner of a wholesale fruit and vegetable business. While we were serving watermelon, I mentioned that I really like watermelon, and that I even would like to have it in December at Christmas time. Now remember this was in the 50's when air travel was in its infancy, so my desire was only an exotic dream.
However at Christmas that year, he shocked me when he handed me a watermelon.
That was the time that Tom Brokow called us, " The World's Greatest Generation "
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