We went into the woods on snowshoes this afternoon - our first time out this year. Conditions were nearly perfect and it was beautiful in the woods. We expected to see lots of trees down from the high winds we had a couple weeks ago, but there weren't as many as we'd feared, although we only did a short circle of our property. Jamie and Marie had more come down than we did, probably because their property is a bit higher than ours.

Fred broke trail, which is always nice for me! The snow is dry and powdery, and DEEP in the woods. Where it covers brush or logs, our snowshoes sometimes took nosedives, but over all, the going was pretty good. We found Marie's trail and followed it for a little way, which was much easier going, but we wanted to come back along the lower section of our lot to see if trees were down there, so left her trail. I always get really warm snowshoeing, and as usual, I had worn a heavier jacket than I needed, and had to shed that before we'd gone very far. I was bushed when we got back, but loved the scenery and the crisp fresh air. We made a short slide show to show you what it was like out there today. The last picture is our trail coming up across our lawn, taken from our living room window after I'd cooled off and dried off. Slides

The overnight fishermen have left. I think they were there around noon, but can't be sure. There will be quite a lot of activity on the ice this weekend, probably. There are several shantys near the fishing access at the south end of the lake.