Lake Ripple on ice

Today was the skating party on Lake Ripple and, if you’re reading this and it’s before 8 p.m. on Saturday, you still have time to strap on your ice skates and head out.

The Rec. Department was out earlier today and cleared off large patches of ice for skating, as well as pathways all around the lake’s surface for people to skate across.

These paths were reassuring for those of us who, despite a week’s worth of temperature in the low teens, still need visual affirmation that the ice was not going to split open and swallow us whole.

There were plenty of kids with skates and varying ice styles. There were a number of hockey games going on and even a few pile-ons that would make an NHL player proud.

I keep meaning to take my kids ice skating. We did it all the time, because in addition to the frozen swamp directly behind our house, we also had Beaver Pond about a half-mile walk further. My kids don’t even have ice skates — terrible parenting on my part.

It was a balmy 19 degrees when I set out across frozen Lake Ripple. I’d originally planned to just hang out and snap some skaters, but I saw other quarry across the lake and I was curious.

Because this is the time of year when you see lots of these all over the lake, usually guarded by a guy sitting on a folding camp chair. And I wondered, what exactly can you get in Lake Ripple?

The answer? Bass. The guys who were fishing said they’d snagged about seven fish, several of them good-sized.

And so, I trudged back across the lake.

Around this time, I was swearing at myself for not bringing my gloves. I had good reason for that — I can’t operate the camera while wearing gloves — but I’m always telling my kids to remember their hats and gloves and what kind of example were my cold hands setting?

Fortunately, the Rec. Dept. had planned for idiots like myself, as well as the need for more sensible folk to warm up, and they build a good-sized bonfire on the ice. There are also lights to brighten up the ice once the sun goes down.

I know. Fire on ice just sounds wacky, but when it’s been this cold, it’s really not going to weaken the ice all that much. (My favorite part of this photo is the guy with the leaf blower, who is trying to get the fire to catch on a bit more by mechanically blowing on it.)