Ice Out Photo

When we bought the house 9 years ago, this steel, heavier-than-Hades dock, came with it.    It needed two wheels.  Case took measurements of what the configuration was to attach to the dock.  He went to the junk yard to look for the exact match.  You are looking at two wheels from a Crown Victoria!  What a hoot!  He fills them with air before "the boys" roll it in. 

There is our bay - Steamboat Bay on Lost Land Lake - free of ice.  Spring is here!

Big Day on Lost Land Lake

I bet you remember the Surfaris song "Wipe out"    Every carnival ride at the Champaign County Fair played this song in the mid 60's when I spent much time there.  What, you say, does that have to do with Lost land Lake?  Every spring there is a day when all the ice is gone.  Locals call it "ice out."  Last week when ice out occurred, Case and I were running around the house in excitement.  Somehow Wipe Out came to mind.  So I was saying ICE OUT like WIPE OUT with the crazy laugh like in the song.  Good times!

I going to get on the phone and call the "dock boys" to come out and git 'er done!

Words

Here is a "parlor" game or conversation at the dinner table.

A few words do not have rhymes...unless you can find one.  (There are no rhyming words for these.)

angel
bulb
orange - I already knew this one.
silver
month

I enjoy this kind of stuff.

The Party's Over

Case and I have been suffering from the let down - now that Tuesday's party is over.  I am referring to the Wisconsin Presidential Primary.  For more than a week we were the center of the political universe.  Boy, was that exciting!  Candidates showing up at large and small venues.  We watched all of this from the comfort of our living room, but, nevertheless, the excitement was felt.  Both of us are election inspectors as they are called in WI.  Getting ready Tuesday morning was as exciting as the big ski race day.  We were giddy.  There are 303 registered voters in our "Town of Spider Lake."  186 voted which is about 61% voter turnout.  There was no down time.  The time went quickly.  I left at 2:30 when the next inspector came on duty.  Case and another inspector were there from 6:30 am to 10 pm.  I don't work the whole time because President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 freeing the slaves.  15.5 hours of work with NO breaks is slavery in my opinion and I won't do it. Thank you, Abe.

Another reason we were giddy was because we felt we were facilitating the Stop Trump campaign which was running strong.  The state did just that - stop Trump.  However, here are the results of our polling place.  And our county followed suit. We were disappointed. So Trump received 3 delegates from the northern part of the state and 3 delegates from the western part of WI.  The rest went to Cruz. 

Trump 69
Cruz 35
Kasich 23

Sanders 34
Clinton 20

There were only two candidates running for two positions on the local town board.  They received 139 and 126 votes and 1 vote for "Dave" - one of the election inspectors!  I guess that brought a little levity to the late night counting situation. 

It's the little things that are fun

I have never seen a black safety pin...until now.  Didn't know they even existed!  Only seen the gold-colored or silver-colored ones. Recently, I was at a store in Hayward to buy a pair of ski/snowshoe pants on clearance.  Last pair I bought was when we moved here 5 years ago.  I'm due for a new pair.  I arrive home to look at my new purchase and remove the tags.  None of that plastic tag business that is attached with a "gun."  No sirree!!  This was attached with a little black safety pin.  Well, isn't that something?  So, back to my original thought, it's the little things that are fun.  I will enjoy the pants next year, too.

Giant Strawberry

...no foolin'    When we go to see Lucyna and Shane, we pass through Strawberry Point, Iowa (pop. 1279).  Everything is named strawberry (restaurants, barbers, other shops).  This huge strawberry is in front of the police station on the main drag through town.  Citizens claim that it is the world's largest one.  It got me to wondering what their school mascot is...the Fighting Stems?....well, the town is one of three in a new consolidated school called Starmont.  There is NO mascot yet.  They are still deciding/voting, etc.  But the PTO will donate 1/3 of the money to buy a "costume" of  some sort.  Who says Iowa is boring?

This is one of the welcome signs.