It’s been a chilly few days, with even a bit of snow during the night. Nothing like what they got in other parts of the country, that’s for sure! I actually wouldn’t mind more snow right now. Or rain. Instead, as of yesterday, we are now under a burn ban. It’s just too dry out there.

I had a bit of company while doing my rounds today. Just Rolando Moon this morning.

It’s funny that such an ornery cat acts so affectionate at times. She’s gotten better at letting me pick her up, but not for long. She either jumps down after a few moments, or starts biting at my fingers. Not full-on bites. Just enough to feel it. Then she jumps down. 😀

One of the things about the extra walking around I’m doing, now that the snow is all gone and the mud has dried, is once again seeing all the things that need to be done. I keep having to remind myself. This is only year 2. Our focus is still on the inner yard. Once that is done, we can start on the outer yard and the garage.

We still having finished packing up the house of my parents’ stuff. I went into the shed we’re storing it all in, and I just can’t think where we can put more stuff. There are a couple of shelves in the old kitchen I want to get rid of (and one I want to keep), and probably several boxes worth of … stuff to pack. I just don’t know where we can put it. Then there are the basements. I don’t even go down there, if I can avoid it. Too hard on the knees. I discovered, while going up the ladder to the hay loft in the barn, just to take a look, that I can’t do ladders anymore. I can go up them, but when I tried to do down, my left knee started giving out. Painfully. The stairs to the old part basement are really not much more than a ladder with risers. It has a rail, at least. The stairs to the new part basement are easier to take, but not by much. Ah, well. The joys of bring broken! 😉

I haven’t been able to do much of anything since I cleaned the yard of fallen branches. As expected, with a relatively sedentary winter, there was some muscle pain from bending and stretching so much, but it just wouldn’t go away. I was in pain for days, and it just didn’t make sense that such a relatively small amount of work would cause it. It took one of my daughters to suggest I might be reacting to the weather we’ve been having. She’s probably right. I’d forgotten about that sensitivity; it used to be a big problem when we lived on the very humid climate of the West coast, which led me to discovering I had osteoarthritis in the first place. It’s been much better since we moved back to the prairies, but there are still times when it hits. Ah, well. The joys of being broken! 😀

My daughter worked a short shift today, so I stayed in town, rather than drive home, only to have to drive back again soon after. I took the opportunity check out the lake, and get a few pictures. Including of this one plant I got some really nice pictures of, last year, that still looks quite lovely.

The lake is a lot more open right now. I was there at high tide, so it was pretty calm, except for the wind blowing the ice towards the dock.

Here, you can see a bit of how the ice from the back is being pushed into and over the ice at the beach. I’ve been at the beach while the tide was coming in, watching the ice as it gouged into the sand in some sections. In others, the ice had been pushed forward as far as it could, so more ice was being pushed over the top until it went over the edge of the ice below and broke apart.

I took some videos and put them together, to show the candle ice. The first part, I was really hoping would catch the constant tinkling sound of the candle ice being pushed by the wind and breaking up. The wind just drowned it out, though. You can hear it a bit, in the clip where I am breaking up the ice with my hand.

You can see in the last two clips, why candle ice is such a danger. When it first starts to form, the ice looks just as thick as ever, but the vertical shards just disintegrate.

Also, my really beat up looking hand is because of cat scratches. LOL

If we keep getting the cooler temperatures we have been, it’s going to be quite a while longer before the lake is clear of ice!

The Re-Farmer