2 {Winter} Months Down, Just One {Winter} Month to Go.....

Much of the weekend, especially yesterday {Sunday} felt like winter....not that is was bitter cold, but there was a stiff breeze from the north with temperatures failing to move beyond the low 30s.  After working the JV boys game at Van Wert on Friday night, the rest of the weekend was pretty much a relaxing time.  I watched a little basketball, Duke wins on Sunday, while Ohio State lost at hated Michigan, or "scUM" as we call that school around these parts, on Saturday Night at Ann Arbor.  Yesterday was Hockey Day in America, as coined on NBC, as they try to get their hockey ratings up.  I love Hockey, but despise NBC, so while I want more NHL games on non-pay television, I would rather not have NBC, the Obama butt kissing, biased, network succeed at anything.

Winter Sunrise on Grand Lake_____

Today being the Holiday of President's Day. leaves us with just one official month of winter left...2 down 1 to go....and although it has been a mostly snowless and mild winter by all accounts, I am tired of it.  I do not enjoy rising on a cold winter day and venturing outside...those are the simple facts.

However yesterday I pondered that if the skies would dawn clear that I would get up and head out to a couple of spots on the lake, that I usually reserve for shooting photos only in the warm summer months.  So I headed to bed early and arose some 10 hours later....only interrupted by the now nearing 14 year old Airedale, Reagan, as she decided at least three times during the night to wake me, needing to relieve herself....of course as I age, I usually get up that many times during the night anyway...so what the Hell?

Patricia got out of bed shortly after 6am, and I soon followed.  As she headed out to the fitness center on the other side of Celina, I warmed up the van, grabbed the camera and a cup of coffee....then headed out and scraped the ice off the windows on the Montana.  The temperature was reading just at the 20 degree mark, as I entered the gloam, and drove towards Windy Point.

 When I arrived on the southwest side of the lake, the sun had not yet risen above the eastern shoreline, some 10 miles across Grand Lake.  I snapped a few photos of the ice and snow that was sticking to the rocks and low lying tree limbs that covered the shores around the jetty known as Windy Point.  I took perhaps 15 photos, and jumped back in the van, hopeful that I could arrive back at West Bank Road, before the Sun popped....I arrived just a minute or two after the Ol' Sol had risen...the results of this morning's photos are in capsule on this site this morning.

I still hate the morning winter weather....but the fact that it is nearing the end makes it bearable, sure there will be another 2 or three months of cool or cold conditions in the early mornings....howeverf, the end of winter and the beginning of several months of better conditions beckons.

Tonight I head for Schumm for the final Dartball regular season contest, that will be followed by the tournament beginning next Sunday and the All-Star Game, Monday, March 12th, and Banquet, March 19th...the season will finisher  for another 7 months or so.

back later>>>>

Photos-A cold February morning on Grand Lake, mostly ice free this year...with the exception of some Ice and lingering snow along the rocks and weeds that surround the shoreline.