Christian Park Ice Skating

The girls and I went over to Christian Park to skate last weekend.  It was a puddle of Joy!

Grand Superior Lodge

We had the BEST respite for a long winter cold at Grand Superior Lodge, January 17-19. We drove up to Two Harbors with Tim feeling pretty lousy with a chest cold.... and by the end of the three days I felt pretty lousy with a head cold.  We made the best of it, stopping at Tobies for my first time, hiking at Gooseberry State Park and touring the Glensheen Mansion in Duluth.   Lake Superior is so beautiful iced over!  I had fun taking pictures of all the ice formations.

I think I need this:

Falling Fluffy Snow

I had the perfect New Years Eve with my husband up in a DNR cabin at Wild River State Park.
No running water, no fireplace (all electric heat) and bunk beds.  The weather was sunny and 20°.

On new year's day January 1, 2015 I woke up to a silent cabin with the occasional snore laying next to me.  As my eyes opened and focused on the gingham green cabin curtains, I saw large fluffy white snow drifting down.  Like a little kid (at 52) I jumped up threwon my outdoor clothing. I grabbed my camera and tripodand stumbled to the door.  I've always wanted to capture falling fluffy snow!  IT'S HARDER than I thought.  I figured a wide open aperture was the way to get a shot I opened to 4.0  and did not get one good shot!    Later I read up and learned to capture falling snow.... use a narrow aperture.  The shot above is one that I took that bombed.  I photoshopped it with a Bellevue Avenue - Winter Wonderland Snow Overlay to get the look of falling fluffy snow.

Here are 5 of my favorite shots from my New Year's Celebration:

5.) Old No. 7 by the fire   I like this shot because of the warmth of the whiskey color in front of the raging campfire ensures you you really can be comfortable in the cold with warm things.

4.) Taylor's Falls One Room School House  (the first in the State of Minnesota) This shot is fun because of the time of day and the height of the sun as it creates great contrasty shadows through the trees.

3.) Blizzard Children  It seemed appropriate to set the newly purchased book into a snow scene and take a picture.  

2.)Timer photography is so much fun!  The iphone 5 has a burst setting that shoots every 5-7 seconds.  I didn't know this until the third shot.

1.)The Furuby School House  I knew this school house existed but I could not figure out where it was in Chisago county.  This is one of my favorite pictures from the weekend because I spent so many hours looking for it on Google Maps.  It's my trophy of accomplishment.

It's been a fun run, but I'm not done

Recently it occurred to me that getting snapshots of one-room school houses is getting  harder and harder.  It is more time consuming driving further distances from the city.   I spend a good deal of time finding schools that are still standing by using Flickr and plat maps of each county.  I contacted the history center and they advised me to contact each county.  NO one person knows how many one-room schools are still standing.
If you want to feast your eyes on some great images of school houses...check out Earl Leatherberry on Flickr.  Man O live!  He does great work and record keeping. Earl doesn't give over-detail of locations of the school houses he finds but usually he names the county.  I have spent countless hours tracking down several of the houses that he has captured.  In today's world of gps, smart phones and Google maps this has become my new relaxing hobby.  I'm somewhat obsessed.  I thought it was all about getting the image...but I'm learning that the real high for me is locating another standing one room school house!   This month I'm dreaming of buying one for retirement.  Something like this...