Battling The Winter Blahs

 

Battling The Winter Blahs

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for January 17, 2021

Luke and Avery have gone back to college but before they left we had our 6 month visit to the Mayo Clinic with Luke.  We're pleased to say we had a very positive checkup with no new surprises.  That's always a great way to start a new year!

The albino squirrel has seemed frustrated this week searching around the snow.  Guessing he's missing some nuts, but that isn't confirmed.  It could be some completely different reason that I don't even know.  I wish we could communicate better so I know where his mind is at.

It's been snowy and crappy all week.  Couple that with the fact that we are still doing our best to isolate as much as possible because of the silly virus and it sets up a battle against the winter blahs!

We thought it might be fun for the weekend to venture out onto frozen Prior Lake to see if life was somehow more exciting out there.

There's lots of places to wander, but they all look pretty similar to one another.

I like to walk by the ice houses and imagine what they are like inside.  I get tempted to knock on the door and ask the people if the fish are biting.  I usually decide against it because it's probably not a best practice in a social distance type of situation.

Some people fish without a big house standing over them.  We don't talk to them either primarily because we're not very friendly people.  However, I'm still very curious if the fish were biting.

Sometimes I explore their old holes to see if they might have left any fish behind but no luck this weekend.

We saw these people whizzing around being pulled by some contraption called the "Snowdog".  It kind of gave me the impression that someone has a lot of time on their hands.  That being said, I also really wanted a ride.

Blue is a funny dog.  Unlike other Goldens we've had before, he really struggles with leaving our sides even when we let him off the leash.  He's quite timid to go off and explore on his own even when we encourage him to do so.  I guess he knows when he has a good thing going.

We walked by the island and I was surprised to see these two still hanging around on the edge of it.  We haven't seen them since we were on our boat at the end of last summer.  They were still here and seemed just as happy as ever.  I wish I could maintain a good attitude like that.  They're pretty inspirational.