Winter’s here!

All across the country, the news channels are giving reports on all the problems winter is giving us. I don’t know about the rest of the country, but I don’t see this as a big deal. It’s barely a foot of snow. Goodness gracious, the roads were plowed and salted by the time I had to go anywhere. It only took me 15 minutes to dig out my car. Bonus: there wasn’t even a layer of ice to contend with. Personally, I think the area looks freakin’ beautiful. Ask me again in a couple days and I’ll probably tell you something different but for right now, I’m enjoying it. I said earlier this season that I wanted to try out skiing. Well how ‘bout that? Now I can.

"Downtown" Galien

Towards the end of last week, the Hunter Ice Festival took place in Niles. The weather wasn’t exactly cooperative. We were worried that all the warm weather would either cancel the event or confine it to a few hours of the morning before the blocks melted in the sun. If I remember right, the festival honors the two Hunter brothers who farmed ice out of Barron Lake. To those of you who may be unfamiliar with ice farming, think back to the days before the refrigerator. Ice carvers come from all across the Mid-west to create sculptures that line up all along the downtown streets.

These two pictures are actually from last year. I wasn’t around Niles during the day to shoot some pics of the ones this year. They are a little bit melted (It was warm that year too) but you get the idea.


This was taken from my camera phone. This was the Fire and Ice show. Even though it was drizzly, they put it on and people actually showed up. We waited until they lit up the bonfire which was inside a stack of ice. Maybe I was hoping for a little more to it, but basically it confirmed what I knew all along: fire will melt ice. *yawn* My friends and I didn’t stay long.