Clear and cold

The past few mornings it's like we live in Yellowstone Park, only without the snowmobiles. Huge steam rising from the river, big ol' chunks of ice floating by (more on that in a sec), and sincere cold*.

* cold for these parts, not cold for Minnesota, North Dakota, Michigan, Maine, New Hampshire, et al.

We don't have a thermometer, so we rely on the internets for weather info. We know the websites aren't accurate for us; a forecast for Bigfork (eight miles away) really means Kalispell (30 miles away). If they say 20% chance of snow, we'll get six inches. We do know it's been below zero every night since Sunday, and the high hasn't been very. The only burden has been trying to start the vehicles every few hours to keep their vital fluids from freezing.

But the scenery... astonishing! Brilliant stars, lots and lots of river steam, and crystal clear skies. Two days ago I decided to go for a river walk. Waders, ear muffs, cheap driving gloves, camera... check!

I'm totally comfortable in water and I know this part of the river quite well, but I'd never been in water with ice before. What's floating on the surface may or may not have bulk below, but regardless: ice has mass, and moving ice has kinetic energy that can't be ignored. Of course I chose noon for my walk -- sun high, the "warm" part of the day. Guess what? That's also when most ice chunks break loose and float downriver.

Here's a shot of me in my waders and tennies, among clouds of bottom ice. The ice consistency is much like a DQ Mr. Misty^TM (ahh, the width and breadth of my education and life experience comes to the fore). It's not slippery at all.

My toes grew cold immediately, but I stayed dry. As soon as I entered the current, ice floated by. Most slushy and harmless, but some was big, several inches thick, and pointy! The beast in the photo below was about about twelve feet long, five wide, at least four inches thick, and moving quickly. I knew enough to not turn my back to the current.
Only got whammed once, by a sneaky chunk just below the surface. It wasn't pointy, but it was solid, and it hit me on the thigh. Monique watched as I took at least ten minutes to walk the last 20 feet back to shore. I was scanning upriver, waiting for a moment when not much (visible) ice was floating by. I wasn't scared, but I definitely knew my timing was poor and my toes were numb.

The snow is deep, beautiful, white, and it has those little sparkle flecks. Supposedly by Saturday the temps will soar to near-freezing... T-shirt weather!

This last shot is of frozen old footprints (mine), evoking a photo from the moon. The only footprints upriver from us for quite a ways, are mine. Mine and the deer's and the beaver's. That's just good.

by the light of the....

Monique here...on a cold clear beautiful night here in Montana.
It has been a beautiful weekend of amazing weather, snow-shoeing and just enjoying the lovely winter here. It won't be a long post tonight...but then again they say that a picture is worth a thousand words....so here are a few thousand to hold you over.

I hope you're all warm and snug in your own deep mid-winters!

Hunkering Down

While these frozen rounds of river foam look like floating rice cakes, I assure you, the foam tastes much, much better. No, I didn't try one, but I have eaten rice cakes, and I stand by my guarantee.

Stomach issues sidelined me today as Monique and some friends saw Johnny Depp's "Sweeney Todd" in Kaslipell. I stayed home, played a lot of Yahtzee (my family knows exactly what I mean), and watched snow fall. Lots of it.

Yesterday at lunch Monique and I went down to the Swan River National Wildlife Refuge and trekked around in our snowshoes. First off, how completely cool that I can visit a National Wildlife Refuge on my lunch hour! And second, once we got a couple hundred yards in, ours were the only tracks around. Walking back I felt tired, and since then I've been wiped out. I've been taking vitamin C, drinking tea, and only went outside to knock a few icicles off the house.

It's very quiet around here. I don't really pay attention to traffic noise, unless it's unusually heavy or light. Just a bit ago a logging truck passed, and I realized that was the first big truck I've heard all day. Woo Hoo!! Come summer, maybe I'll try the trick I heard from one of my aunts... steal a "Road Closed" sign and stick it on the highway.

Just kidding, any authorities monitoring blogs for suspicious or potentially suspicious activity!! ^HA_HA Wouldn't dream of interrupting commerce on Montana's rural highway system to reduce noise and traffic and pollution! No way, José!

The Christmas tree is down and chopped up, the decorations are boxed up, but until the snow leaves, some of the outdoor lights are staying up. They look so good!

Here's a shot looking down the river. Where the current slows, and especially in the shallows where the bottom is uniform, there's quite a bit of ice. If the high over the next two days only hits 10 as forecasted, with lows around -10, the ice should expand nicely.

Eek! A Week!

A whole week's gone by since I (Bob) posted. The big wildlife news is that both Mutt & Jeff are still around! One morning there were nine deer roaming around, including the two boys and two of their chums. Dunno if I've ever seen four bucks in the same place at once, PLUS there were five girls around, too. That was amazing.

Work's been quite busy for me, and for the first time in my life, I've taken to playing Tetris. For me it's the new Sudoku, and greatly helps explain why I haven't blogged more recently.

Politically we watch from afar... Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, gettin' geared up for Florida and the biggies. Anyone who wants to get a glimpse of the insanity of caucuses need only watch West Wing, especially the episode where Toby, Josh, and Donna are left behind by the motorcade. I promise I won't get political here, but The Daily Show and The Colbert Report -- even without writers -- are still the best and most honest political shows on TV.

We've gotten a lot of snow lately, which we love, but this weekend's s'posed to warm up. We'll have some left whenever it snows again, but Kalispell only had a few inches to begin with.

I feel really out of practice on this "typing my thoughts" thing... gotta try to do better and more frequently.

Bliss

We have found a great new use for our wood stove!

Granted the idea that the wood stove gives off HEAT is not a new one. And the concept that the heat from the wood stove can make water also hot (if placed in a proper container on the top of said wood stove) is not beyond our mental thinking--in fact we tend to keep a kettle on most all the time to keep some moisture in the air.

But tonight...in a stroke of genius, we put this knowledge to a wonderful use. The lovely little foot bath that Bob gave me for my birthday a while back has one small flaw...the water cools too quickly when you use it. Not so if you heat up a stock pot of water on the wood stove and dish it in to foot bath!

The result...happy, toasty, soft and lovely toes.

It may be snowing outside,...but it's not winter in here!

mmmmmm