Monday Musings- Ice Skating on the Pond

Hi!

It's back to work and school for everyone!  We had a great break, although it seems like it went by too fast.

New Year's Eve was pretty uneventful.  We went for dinner at the in-laws and the kids spent the night.  C actually spent the night at an in-town friend's house and N stayed at his grandparents'.  But something N ate New Year's Eve didn't agree with him and he woke up sick around 2am.  K and I came home and went to bed at the usual time, without any fanfare.

This weekend, it got super cold so the pond was frozen enough to skate on.  We checked on Friday, but the ice was just over 3 inches thick.  It needs to be at least 4 inches for skating.  Saturday, it was plenty thick enough, but too cold for skating.  The ice was so smooth.

But, the wind chill was around Neg 33 C (Neg 27F)!

Sunday, it warmed up to around Neg 5 C (27F) and snowed!  About 5 inches.  This meant the ice was good, but it needed to be shoveled.  And shoveling an ice rink by hand is hard work!  Luckily the ice was so smooth underneath the snow and the snow itself was so fluffy and powdery that it wasn't too bad!  We (I) ended up shoveling a path.  

Here are the kids putting their skates on.

Here's the path.

We're all working on clearing it.

Here's me after so much shoveling!

After a bit, we came home...

 It seemed like the weather had cleared in the afternoon so we went back down to shovel the last bit of snow off the path. But, freezing rain had started!  We were able to shovel the snow, but as soon as it was cleared off, the formerly smooth-as-glass ice turned bumpy from the rain!  So, we didn't skate long.  Now it's warmed up to around freezing and we're supposed to get some flash freezing tonight.  Hopefully, it will have melted a bit and can re-freeze the path so it'll be good smooth skating again! 

Have a great week!  Stay warm! :-)