Sawing Ice

Upon arrival at the water's edge, I noticed that the checkerboard mentioned in the previous post was already scored onto the ice and a channel of squares had been removed from the shore out as far as the harvest intended to go.
From there, participants were allowed to walk carefully out onto the ice, pick up the long saw, and literally saw back and forth along two sides of a square, sawing in from the channel. One brave volunteer, clad in shorts despite the cold snap, is seen sawing out a group of five squares across.
We will look at the floating of the cut squares in the coming posts.

Tools

Here we see some of the tools of Ice Harvesting. Hand tools only, of course, in any traditional manner. The interesting item here almost looks like a hand plow: it scores the ice in long straight lines perhaps an inch into the surface. Once one line is established in each of two perpendicular directions, a guide blade sets the width of the stripes a bit more than a foot apart. Once the checkerboard is scored, the hand saw comes out.
Sawing will be seen in the next post.

On Thin Ice

Kline Creek Farm hosted one of its best annual events, the Ice Harvest, following its role as a living museum of the 1890s. And that time more than a century ago was a time where enterprising people had many modern amenities. Despite the lack of one of our necessities, the refigerator, folks could enjoy a cold drink on July 4 -- if ice had been harvested and preserved.
Upon arrival, all participants found tools and instructors to demonstrate and assist the work. It was a very enjoyable learning experience. We will look at the steps in the project in the next several days.

Kline Creek Farm

Cloudy, gray, unattractive. Rainy. And cold. The weather on Saturday a week ago had pretty much talked me out of heading to Kline Creek Farm for a photo visit during the Ice Harvesting Season. But when I went to the mailbox, it felt passable outdoors, the rain was slackening, and I decided to give it a try. An excellent idea as it turned out.
A reasonable hike through snow gave me a view of the 1890s farm house, and I picked up a lucky picture of a horse shoe print on the way. In the next post we will see the historical concept of harvesting natural ice in the winter to save for use during the spring and summer. Careful on the ice!

Flight

Only a moment more, and it was time. Off he flew. I was pleased with one of these two images immediately; the other looked like a 'just missed' shot, but in the days since I have come to love it, too. It sure shows the terrific beauty in the intracy of the feathers.
As he flies off, we head to Kline Creek Farm to harvest some ice.

Still Posing

My hawk shot as posted yesterday was unexpected; I never thought he would wait for me. But then he kept watching, posing, so I snapped another. I can't decide whether I like yesterday's or today's better. But in both cases I enjoyed developing the vector images (cartoon styles) that join them.
The hawk flies in the next post.

Across Maple Lake

At Meacham Grove, an asphalt loop runs around Maple Lake beginning quite near to the parking lot. In January, the path is all ice, flattened by many feet but not conducive to running or walking quickly. I had walked up and started to the left, thne noticed a light color smudge in the bare trees across the lake. Through the telephoto, I could tell it was a large bird, probably a hawk, but I was too far away for a decent shot. Waiting, I did see the bird fly a short route to another branch, still across the lake. I waited again, then set out, walking carefully and assuming I would never make it around the lake, perhaps a half-mile trudge. As this image shows, I did make it.
The Red-Tail waited, posed, stared at me. I got at least two close shots I like and I had some fun with generating a vector image from this one. The other shot is set for the next post.