no shadow

February 2nd: no groundhog here at the farmette saw his shadow. I mean, we didn't poke and prod our resident guy to come out -- he's a content little beast who minds his own business until spring, at which time he eats up some of my favorite flowers with a voracious appetite. But I can't say that I mind terribly. At least he only eats plants. Not chickens and kittens. (I say this after a dusk walk to the garage where our feral cat family has been seeking shelter: suddenly I heard the telltale flap of wings of a big bird in retreat. I know it was the hawk. I don't think he attacked any of the kittens, but it's very disconcerting to know that he is still here.)

After the bitter cold of last week, some would welcome today's above freezing temperature. You could linger outside for more than five minutes and not walk away with permanently damaged skin. But it is a foggy day, a very gray day. We miss the sunshine!

Still, there is a benefit to the warmup: after breakfast....







... Ed and I take out our skis. First time this season! One can only wish that it wasn't the last time. We're to get rain for the next day or two. That's not good news for the freshly groomed cross country trails.






Foggy...






Very foggy ...

 



We ski early...






... because we have a late morning meet up with some of Ed's old college era buds in Lake Geneva.

Do you know Lake Geneva? It's familiar turf for Chicagoans looking for a weekend retreat by a lake in "quaint Wisconsin." For us, it's a good meet up place when half your group hails from Chicago, as it's halfway between Madison and the windy city. Too, this weekend Lake Geneva is hosting the International Snow Sculpting Championships.

You would think that the town was hosting the Academy Awards! Lake Geneva is packed: sort of like Coney Island only in winter and without the rides.

We eat lunch at the Simple Cafe -- a quite nice "field to table" type of eatery. And from there, we walk to the Snow Sculptures.

They are, indeed, fine snow sculptures. I mean, lots of talent behind their execution. But the depicted characters are strange. Possibly everyone recognizes them from known fantasy flicks or comic strips. They seem mostly evil. This, to me, is the tamest (and therefore my favorite):






There is also an ice castle. None of us wants to pay money and wait in a mile-long line to go inside, so we have our photo taken out front and let it go at that.






With a little more time on our hands, we poke around some stores. The kind of stores you'd have if you knew your shoppers were mostly from the more affluent suburbs of Chicago. For instance, there is this one, with objects made from animal fur. Like this cap:






Or this teddy, made of (gulp) beautiful rabbit fur. ($265)





It's curious that anyone would think of this town as being a slice of Wisconsin. But of course, no state is without its outliers: towns that stand apart from the rest. Lake Geneva has an attractive lake and the usual undulating Wisconsin topography. You can't be surprised that big city people would come up to take in a little bit of its flavor.


So, no shadow. Now how many weeks until spring??