Winter Festival

Last weekend, we went to another winter festival. This one was centered around ice fishing and outdoor sports. It took place in a local state park. There were hikes to point out animal tracks and owl calling hikes and snowsnake races and dogsleds!

The main reason we went to see an Owl Show. These are birds that have been rescued. Aaron really likes owls and he loved the show. I believe that this is a small screech owl.

This is a Horned Owl. I think. I guess I should have Aaron helping me with this blog.

This is a Barred owl. This is the kind of owl that my dh saw when he was bow hunting this past fall. It came up silently and sat on a branch about 10 feet away, watched the riverbank for a while, and then left as silently as it had come.

And this is a Snowy Owl. I didn't know we got Snowy Owls around here but apparently this is the southern part of their range.

Tapping Trees

We tapped our trees today. It seems a little early but we've missed some good sap weather this week already. We added some new trees and double tapped some of our best producers. We name all the trees for fun and to keep track of which trees produce well.

We now have two Star Wars names. Personally I wonder why it took this long. So behold the tree Kashyyyk (where Chewbacca is from)....

... and next to it, Corellia (where Han Solo is from - of course).

Ice Festival

Several of our church families went to a local Snow and Ice Festival. There were professional scow sculptors and local teams that competed.

This amazing ice sculpture had been started at 9 am that morning! And we saw it at 2 pm.

This was my favorite one.

They had a petting zoo there also....

... complete with camels! I wonder how they liked the cold?

This is a cool kaleidoscope that looks down into the flowers.

The happy crew, minus the moms taking the pictures.

Wounded Warrior Project

A group of our friends got together and worked on a Wounded Warrior project. We made pillowcases and fleece blankets for wounded soldiers that are in the hospital.

Amazingly we only found 3 pins in the carpet afterwards and none of them got into my dh's feet (which is the usual case with pins).

Everyone liked making the fleece blankets but they were also surprised by how much time it took to make all those cuts and tie all the ties.