Good Morning Chatters. It looks to be a beautiful day in our special placeas usual. perhaps it's a good day to go rollerskating wherever you live.. Can't go here as it is WAY TOO COLD!!!!

Hiya Freddie! Brr - how about ice skating - our ponds have inches of ice on top.

When the snow clears away a little bit you can see the goldfish v-e-r-y slowly swimming to and fro.

The little critters amaze me with their ability to withstand sub-zero temps out there. We're going thru a ton of seed for the birds and squirrels right now.

WOWEE - Satchmo and Dolly!

Hiya Freddie and Rusty. Nice pic of Satchmo and his mate.

Shame we can't all go to Bon for the winter. No ice skating on this water eh gals.

fingers crossed this works now.

Hey, Annie Baby! You're a star! You got the panorama-jamma just right.

Excellent capture. I've got to get outside, winter sucks. The plan is to put the long boards (cross country skiing) on this afternoon. It will be nice to be out in the woods.

I still hangling, waxable or waxless skis. The snow is near perfect, fluffy, dry, and deep. Air temp will be in the high 20's. My buddy's wants to bring the waxless. I want the faster waxable skis. I still use my first waxable skis, these skis have gouges from half the rocks in New Hampshire. The back of the skis kind-of flaps when you ski. These skis have seen three different styles of bindings and maybe 8 pairs of bindings. But I still love them, they work fine and they're fast.

I checked the reef archives - but didn't catch any visitors yet this morning. Just bits and pieces of fishies passing by. Off to read my email! I'll be baaacckk!

Cecil - you feeling okay? Outside? It's about 20 out there, silly. How about a nice warm fire and a book? The snow here is like a rock - but maybe that's just where the dogs and squirrels have trampled it into a racetrack around the yard.

Have fun - the sunshine *is* lovely.

Cecil. Be Careful on those waxed skis. and make sure you go round the trees. LOL. I'm staying indoors in the warm. Too cold for me. Annie B.

Rusty. I was messing about here for hours on end trying out the pano's. It was so simple in the end. I could have kicked myself. LOL

Ah - winter sports. Great to watch during the Olympics - but way too much work for me.

I tried snowshoeing one winter when it snowed just before a winter tree identification course I was leading. I kept stepping onto the other snowshoe and tumbling one way and the other. By the time I got done trying them out my legs were shaking. I decided to just stump along in my Sorel boots. I could have slept for a week after all that exercise out in the cold! LOL

Can you say *wimp*?

Get cold cross country skiing, not bloody likely. Remember when cross country skiing, if your not cold walking from the parking lot, you overdressed. When down hilling, if your not sweating walking from the parking lot you're underdressed.

As far as skiing fast, this is cross country, I describe it as getting the fear of God at 2 MPH. Alternatly, out of control skiing. Two rules in skiing, never go down hill in cross country skis and never go cross country in down hill skis.

My buddy also describes it as uphill skiing. Which if you anaylzed the time on the skis, most of the time is spent going up hills.

LOL Cecil. So you go somewhere, not just strike out into the woods near your house? How many miles do you go?

Imagine how many people buy a Nordic Track in January when it's all out there for free - if you live in NH!

Bush wacking, that's to much work. We're off to a touring center, actually a golf course in warm weather. It's always an interesting contrast between the golfers and the cross country skiers. One is emaculent (sp), one is pretty ratty.

The other nice thing about a touring center, tracks. It makes the skiing so easy, just stay in the tracks. We'll probably cover 20-30 kms, easy to do in the tracks.

Fishface:

Gonna watch some tv for a while. Might catcha for some sunsets. Annie B.

Hello! Glimpse of Charlotte's Tail!

Cecil, your 11:20 posting cracked me up! But it's so true...

We just got back in from about an hour of X-C skiing out on Bolton Flats. We have backcountry skis (a bit wider than regular cross-country, more designed for bushwacking than regular ones), so if we see an interesting spot that nobody else has gone to yet, we go ourselves.

Wind was whipping out there. Once we got to a good spot to do so, we headed north into the woods, rather than going south into the open flats. The woods gave us at least some level of protection from the wind. Was very pleasant once we got up there! And yeah, even on a day this cold I was sweating like a pig...

ON the way back in, we got into a spot where we had the full force of the wind behind us, and we got to do a bit of sailing along with our skiing! Get a little momentum going, then fling out the arms to either side. A couple of times the wind caught my jacket and gave me a bit of a push. Pretty neat!

Now I need to shower. As I said above, I was sweatin' like a pig...

Faith

Wish it were me!

Nice pics Eileen. I just watched Gladiator again, and now I am going to watch The Perfect Storm again. Two of my favorite films. Annie B.

Hi gang, I am the acting Nurse Ratchit for the neigborhood today!!! Flu season is upon us!!!! Ugh..
Here is the sunset for all my health buddies!!

Faith - it was REALLY blowing here so I know what you mean - para-skiing, huh? We ran out to get a can opener at Walley World and I had my collar up like Elvis and a scarf twice around my face and the wind was still getting under my coat. Next on ESPN "Extreme Shopping"!

Jeez, and the water on Bonaire is all the way down to 77 degrees. Brr. Haha.

Freddie - I love those dark ones!

Eileen - you got Picture of the Day for the upside down diver. That's a riot!!