Rob and I went to watch the St. George River whitewater race Saturday - yes, March 28 in Maine. Notice the snowy banks in the picture. Folks use canoes (1, 2 and 3 people) and kayaks. We watched several people fall out into the freezing cold water and were fascinated when they got back in their boats and continued! This is the first race of the season so there were about 50 boats entered. Every weekend from now on they travel around the state for more races. I prefer to watch (at least until the temps get up around 70!)
Here are some new backyard visitors from this winter. It was cool to see them up so close. I guess they came around for the bird seed leftovers. They left these great tracks across the snow that we could see for weeks afterward, sort of like fossilized dinosaur tracks.
A couple months ago, we went out for a winter festival on Chickawaukee Lake,
just west of Rockland. Notice I said on the lake. It was during the mid-winter thaw (quit laughing) that seems to happen every year around January-February. We have a series of really warm days (40ish) and the top layer of things that should be frozen turns sort of slushy. On this day, they had cleared snow off of the lake in hopes of having a skating area. They must have sprayed it with some water to see if they could put a nice smooth surface on it. But it wasn't cold enough to freeze it quickly, so it was more like a wading pool. For the rest of the activities, conditions were great. Out on the lake there were trucks with trailers for snow mobiles, a tractor pulling a sled-train as a ride, a giant slingshot that jettisoned kids on
sleds, sail sleds (or wind skaters?), and ice fishing demonstrations. A bald eagle was cruising around hoping for a fish. The ice fishermen throw the trash fish out on the surface of the lake and the eagles get a free meal. So many new things for a displaced California girl!
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