I headed back out to Nordegg on Saturday January 20th. I didn't get a particularly early start, as I slept in a bit. And I had some packing to do, and supplies to pick up before I left town. But by early afternoon, I was on the road. Margarit and the girls decided to stay home, so this would be another solo trip.
Shortly after I arrived at the cottage, my former neighbor Dan stopped by with his Dad for a visit. We caught up for an hour or so and had a nice visit. After they left I finished unpacking, and then headed over to the rink in town to play outside hockey. It seems there was a fair bit of interest in a skate as it has been so cold in recent days that previous games had to be cancelled. We had two goaltenders and about a dozen skaters, which is just perfect. The temperature was about -8C when we started, so pretty comfortable for playing. But it was a good thing we didn't have any more players as then we would have spent more time sitting and waiting for a shift, than playing. Under those conditions -8 starts to feel a little colder.
On Sunday the 21st I didn't do much of anything. Just had a very relaxing and low-key day. In the afternoon I slipped into town and stopped in at the Beehive Artisan Market. I had a couple more small framed prints to drop off, and had a nice visit with Celina, the owner. She said it has been surprisingly busy this winter, and now that Abraham Lake has frozen over, the "Bubblers" are starting to come. The Beehive also owns three short term rental cabins in the townsite, and apparently things have been picking up. Celina had some visitors from New York that came all the way out just to see the Ice Bubbles.
A year or two back Celina's brother Matt saw my "Keep Nordegg Weird" sign on my gate, and asked if he could use the slogan. I had no objection to it and gave him my blessing. Recently the Beehive had a bunch of stickers made up, and Celina gave me some.
By Sunday evening it got really quiet up in the subdivision as most of the weekend people that were out, and there were not a lot of them, went home. Dan stopped by again in the evening and we had another visit, and like usual, a great discussion about all sorts of things.... politics, spiritual and other general nonsense.
Monday January 22nd was low key again. It was about -15 in the morning, but by late afternoon it warmed up to about -5. The forecast keeps saying that the warmup is supposed to come, but so far it hasn't materialized. That said, this current weather is a lot better than the -45C that was experienced out here a week or so back.
In the morning I put some oats out for the deer. At the sound of the oats being poured into the feeder, six of them came running out of my backwoods. Later in the day, there were around a dozen of them hanging around, looking for yet more oats. I went out to oblige them, and they didn't retreat very far. One of them walked right up to within 20 feet of me as I refilled the feeder, and the others weren't very far away. I love having them around, and enjoy watching them from the window of my breakfast nook. They have trackways through the yard, that they travel daily to check out the feeder. It's almost like Deer Highways. I don't feed during hunting season, or in the summer when bears are around, but in the winter I don't mind helping them out, despite the expense. I picked up three 50Lb sacks of oats on my way out of the city last Saturday and it cost me almost 60 bucks.
In the afternoon I puttered around over in the guest cottage. I unpacked a bunch of dishes that Margarit and I picked up at antique stores over the last year or so. Mostly these are from Medicine Hat Pottery and I remember this pattern from when I was a kid.
Later in the afternoon I put a rib roast in the over, turned on some music, had a couple of beers and just kicked back to relax. Even though I no longer have the guest cottage to work on, I'm really coming to enjoy just relaxing and not doing much of anything.... particularly in winter when there aren't very many people around.
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