Counting ducks.

Sunday mutterings:

1. Road trip :: fun!
2. Pool hall :: smoky
3. Extraordinary :: item (It's a technical term in financial reporting.)
4. Jackson :: Michael
5. Heartfelt :: emotions
6. Wet :: cat
7. Strangle :: hold
8. .com :: bust
9. Touched :: by an angel
10. Insipid :: normal people

* * * * *

I bought a clever row counter on Etsy last week.

It also has a set of ten more counter beads for 10, 20, etc., for those impossibly long pattern repeats. M&Ms are fine, but I seldom have them handy. I do have several of those ordinary plastic row counters with the spinny dials, but my problem is remembering to move the dial before every row. This counter will hang right there on my needle in the midst of the knitting so I cannot forget. Yeah, I know there are ordinary plastic row counters with the spinny dials that will hang on your needle; I bought one and the first thing I did was break the plastic hanging loop. Such is the nature of plastic -- it breaks. This new one is sterling silver =  pretty much unbreakable. Not to mention clever and pretty and handmade and not plastic.

The seller's Etsy name is jeanettejed if you are interested.

* * * * *

This is how our lake looked three weeks ago.

 

The patterns on the snow were interesting as it slowly sublimated.

 

A week later, the melting continued. Appearances to the contrary, there was still no open water. What you see is melting snow on top of the ice. I have no idea why some of the rotten ice looks like it was peed upon by a giant dog.

 

Here we see the origin of the term "goose-step".

Well, there WAS open water, but it was the opening where the aeration system keeps it open all winter; that open water was not visible in any of the above photos because it was off to the left behind the trees.

We now have visible open water.

 

Whereas until a few minutes ago there had been only Canada geese hanging around the open water, now we have ducks. Mallards, to be specific.

 

I do believe spring may really come some day.