Swan Lake Thanksgiving

It's Sunday and time to finish off the Thanksgiving weekend. It was a cold day, but pretty enough to walk outside a bit. It snowed overnight and again this morning and the fresh snow made the landscape white and pure. PW and I walked down the hill to the shore of Swan Lake to scope out the view and, of course, to get a photo or two for the blog. The stairs under her feet were snowy, but not yet icy and even as the snow fell the day was pretty and pure.

Swan Lake is pretty deep and even with the temperature in the lower teens for a couple of days there is not any ice covering yet. Last winter in January I walked across this bay on a couple of feet of ice, thick enough for trucks to drive on. We are on our way back to that level, slowly, but surely. The only ice was on the shore, but soon there will be more, a lot more.

We built a fire in the fire pit and burned some carbon to fight the cool northern Minnesota chill. I guess it's winter, but it's not yet anywhere near the cold that is yet to descend. TT looks a little chilled, but it was nice to be in the pure air of the northern pine forest.  And the fire was nice and toasty.

We set about our meal preparations in the afternoon. It was a Thanksgiving menu, a trifle scaled down, but with way too much food for just the two of us. We had the mini-turkey, actually a big chicken, stuffing with wild rice and mushrooms, cranberry sauce - the old family recipe - potatoes and some really good gravy. The table is set, the chicken is roasted and the feasting is about to begin for Thanksgiving II.

I'm once again, for the second time in less than a week, way too full of good food. I'm again thankful. This is a great country.