Watching winter come on Burntside Lake near Ely Minnesota

...watching Burntside Lake start to freeze over.
Even though we have had lots of cold and even a brief below zero night, Burntside Lake has remained largely unfrozen so far.
I was at a spot on the west end every day this week. On Tuesday it was all open with ice capping the rocks on the shoreline. I took these pictures, very cold:

Then on Tuesday night the wind died down and a smooth but presumably thin layer of ice covered everything as far as I could see. It looks like open water out there, but it is smooth ice:

On Friday, 12/7/12, this picture was taken. Things are solidifying, but I could still break a hole in the ice easily along the shoreline:

I thought that was it, but then I stopped in at another job-site on Burntside lake, on the larger part of the lake near Burntside Lodge, and the water still looked pretty wild. This picture was taken on Friday too:

As I write this on Sunday morning, 12/9 2012, it has started snowing. There are a couple inches on the ground. They are predicting a storm that will ultimately bring 6 to 10 inches with strong winds.

I plan on sitting inside and putting wood on the fire.

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In other meaningless news, I turned 51 recently. 

It was OK because I had been 50 for about a year and I was getting tired of it.

Somewhere along the line, I can't remember exactly when, I stopped getting a cake that has individual candles and started getting a cake with just two... like one in the shape of a 5 and one in the shape of a 1.

I'm not sure how significant of an event a birthday is anymore. Or ever was.

I have always had trouble with birthdays. I don't ever remember having one that was significant in any way. I don't have any great birthday stories... wait...well maybe one... But mostly they just passed quietly...

...anyway, I will just mark it here by saying, sometime in the past week or two, I did get another year older.

But I feel pretty much the same.

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