This morning we arose to a world encased in silver-white hoar frost, with the ground frozen hard as a bowling alley. Every single blade of grass, each twig and all the dried stems of goldenrod were coated with thick, bright icing like a huge, valley-sized wedding cake. It was blindingly lovely to look at, but ever so cold to venture out in. Therefore I am posting for your enjoyment (and my own) a picture taken from a sturdy little wooden row boat anchored over the best rainbow trout fishing I have ever experienced. We were watching the sun coming up over Peck's Lake NY when I took it with our Canon AE1 camera.

Alan and I have spent many July mornings (not to mention afternoons and evenings) in this favorite cove of ours, either fishing from the rowboat or watching deer and ducks from the silence of the gliding canoe. Even mergansers , which are normally very wary birds seem to have no fear of the little metal boat, perhaps because it is so utterly quiet. Here in the early days of January, with our surroundings covered with water in its most solid form, it is comforting to remember those golden summer days. Sometimes the only thing that keeps me chugging along is secret memories of that wonderful lake...that and the knowledge that I have a reservation for a week this July too.