this past week, at least since the cold came back after the rain on wednesday, has been interesting. i expected the couple inches of snow to soak up the rain and ruin last weeks smooth-ish ice. instead, the rain totally smoothed out the surface and i skated twice on thursday. in the morning, at the end of the first time around the perimeter i turned into the northern outlet bay, where crowell's dock is, with my head down, pushing against a fairly strong wind. at some point i must have looked up and saw something strange. about twenty feet in front of my skates, there was open water--what? a ten-fifteen foot gap in skatable ice stretched from the cardigan point all the way across to the canaan street side. i had never seen an opening here before and wondered what the heck might have caused it, beyond the warm weather tuesday into wednesday. i got pictures of it on saturday when it was a bit more iced over. i still didn't cross it.
i came back that evening and went around again and thought i saw skip putting his skates on down at the crowell's dock. sure enough it was him so i hollered a couple of times and got his attention. he made it around the opening by going up on the shore. he couldn't explain the watery divide either but we had a good skate until it was getting pretty dark and he cut back through the woods at the shore and i turned back to the town beach.
pam and i got out again both saturday and sunday for a couple of hours each. i decided to take the kite and see what i could do with it on a glass smooth surface. saturday was too windy, and sunday was not windy enough. oh well, the sun was bright and the skating was good.
on the way around the lake we like to stop and chat up the fishing folk. saturday we saw an old student of mine--from sadie's class, '06--and someone who worked with the dirt digger on the first house i built in canaan back in '83. sunday we came across another even older student--graduated in '98--with his two kids. on the other side of the lake our district superintendent, who started teaching with me back in the day was set up through several holes. he and his two boys and wife were skating around as they fished. it is more likely than not that when ever we go out, skating or what have you, i run across somebody connected with my school days.pam calls them 'koby sitings' ever since a particular funny greeting one of my students gave me, yelling out his truck window as he power slid past us on our bikes! it doesn't seem all that funny or memorable until i tell you that minutes before i had told pam that we wouldn't be seeing anybody way the heck out on back roads two towns over...
two fine weeks of ice will certainly help get us through this 'open' winter, but i am getting closer and closer to admitting this has been a bummer of a season. our friend billy b. who came up with his family a few weeks ago, wrote and spoke of how he thought winter seemed pretty much over--at least down in rhode island. he was glad we got out in the woods to ski--his only time and just my second. obviously i would rather ski, but this winter i am getting used to not...
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