someday, when we’re very very old, there will be a huge orange tree growing right out of the lake not too far off our shoreline.  people will drive up in their fishing boats and their power boats and their pontoons and canoes and waverunners, plus in whatever new type of water vehicles that might have been invented by then, and they’ll marvel  at the orange tree growing so tall right out of the lake.

and if you have a very good memory, you can tell your grandchildren, “that tree was planted by grace.”

on saturday, the lake had completely thawed.  the water was full of waves and it must have been very, very cold, because on sunday morning, it was all covered with ice again.

“it can’t be THAT thick,” i said, and went down to the dock to investigate.  on the way down the hill i spotted an orange sitting in the snow.  we had thwoen it in the compost bin a while ago and somebody dragged it away.  i picked it up and carried it down to the edge of the dock and threw it as hard as i could onto the ice.

it didn’t even make a dent.  it hit the ice and skidded along the top.

the ice was THICK, and it happened overnight.

later that day mollie and i went down to the dock again, and this time i decided to try breaking the ice with a potato.  you might recall that frozen potato that was sitting outside the window, the one that neither the birds nor the raccoon was interested in.

once again, i threw it hard (relatively speaking, of course), and once again, not even a dent.  it too, rolled right out onto the ice.

and there they sat.

the orange is on the right; the potato, on the left.

1

the orange.  it was interesting that the top had been all frozen and gray, but the bottom, the part that was buried in the snow, was still bright orange and looked perfectly fine.

2

the potato, very hard.  i have to confess that i hoped that since they didn’t sink, that the geese or maybe some ducks or somebody out there would want to come over and have a lovely orange or potato snack.  but no.

3

sunday was nice because the sun was out.  today it has been gray gray gray all day, as it is most days here in the winter.  but the blue skies and the billowing smoke even made the power plant look scenic.  i couldn’t decide which of these pictures i liked better, so included them both.

i like this first one because i like the inclusion of the shoreline on the left, plus i like the big panorama of the lake.

4

i like this one because the mirrored image of the smokestacks seems better, plus i like the geese flying.

5

that shape there in the foreground?  a dead goose.  when we first saw it on sunday mollie was quite excited and wanted to go out on the ice to look at it.  it looked like maybe it had gotten stuck in the ice, but yesterday when we found it in the yard we realized that wasn’t the case.

poor dead goose.

6

the rest of the geese seemed to be having a great time.  that one in the middle, a little off to the right, looks like it’s skating.

7

as we watched, the geese kept taking off and more of them showed up.  i tried to capture it, but it’s hard with a digital camera.

8

i started shooting right up in the sky and have a few photos that are just perfectly blue and empty.  this is the only one featuring geese that wasn’t fuzzy.

9

11

i took yet more pictures this morning – it’s funny how that now that it’s over 20 degrees, it feels pretty warm outside.  this morning the geese were right in front of the house.

i’ll post those soon.  later today, even, with any luck.

ok then,

grace on tuesday.