Frozen Missouri

I visited Ponca State Park a few weeks ago. This is what the Missouri River from there looked like at that time. It was completely frozen. It's no secret that this winter has been bitterly cold. The good thing for me is that it appears that the deep freeze is over for the year here.

We had our biggest snowfall of the year when it got down so cold once again after a brief warming. It appeared that our snowless winter had ended. We finally had several inches of snow on the ground, and I was staying off the snowy roads for a few days.

It didn't look like the snow was going to melt any time soon because of the extremely cold weather. On top of that I made a big mistake relating to the cold weather. To keep my pipes from freezing, I have to leave a little bit of water running in the house at all times. I made the mistake of turning off the water one night, and the pipes froze solid.

It took me a couple of days to figure out what to do. There is a crawlspace under my house where the pipes are. Early in the morning I took my infrared heater under there and turned it on. I was only hoping and guessing that it would help, but that evening my water came back on. I got lucky. Really lucky. 

I've been using my wood stove again this winter. I think I mentioned that in my last post. Doing all the work involved with burning wood may sound like a lot of work to most of you, but I have to tell you that when you get used to it, it becomes one of the most enjoyable activities you can have. And this stove heats better than anything else. My dad built this stove right. He was an amazing man.

As you can tell, I'm not really saying much about my pictures. That's because they're a few weeks old so the experience isn't very fresh in my mind. I really didn't know what to write about them, so I thought I'd just bring you a few other things that are on my mind. It works better when I do that.

This river is probably thawing out by now. It appears that our deep freeze is over for the year. Didn't I already say that? We're finally seeing the beginnings of spring around here. That should be a good sign for the rest of you.

Now that the weather is warming up a bit, I'm hoping to be out traveling a bit more again, and I'm hoping to be abler to get back onto a few nature trails. That part's going to be hard because I've let myself get too out of shape this winter cooped up from the cold. I'll have to start slowly, but I will start. I'll talk to you later.