Interesting Times

There is an old Chinese curse -- May you live in interesting times -- that has become quite applicable to my current life. For many reasons, one of which I will share with you today.

The month of April, 2008, has become ice-out on the lake. Normally, this is a fairly benign process, at least for us. You see, we live on the southern shore of the lake and our property sits quite high on the bank above the lake. So when the ice goes out, we are normally untouched. We watch others along the shoreline have their boat lifts crushed by the ice, or their docks get swept away. Or their shorelines get gouged out. You get the idea I'm sure.

This year, the lake dumped all the ice on our shoreline. And normally this really isn't a problem since we have this big concrete wall protecting our lake access. When I say "big," I do mean big. It's about 10 feet high by 12 or 13 feet wide. Doug stores the dock parts up on top during the winter, which saves him hauling them another 12 feet up to the yard. Generally this is a good plan.

Remember when I said that the lake dumped all the ice on our shoreline? This is what we found last week: Those red planks up there? Those are 4 dock sections that require two strong men each to move.
The ice shoved up the wall, and then another two feet. Those dock sections started the winter with the short side facing the lake. Now? You can only see the long sides. The ice picked them all up and moved the front end by about 12 feet.

Just for perspective, here's a shot of me standing in front of the ice pile.
Impressive, eh? Never again will I scoff at the power of the lake.

In knitting news, I finished the Ada Fenick (page 46) square of the Great American Afghan.
It is delightfully well-written and fun to knit. One of the reasons I loved this square so much is that there was only one chart to follow. None of this switching from chart a to chart b to chart a stuff. Just one big chart. I loved it! Everyone that sees the square loves it.

I moved on to the Ada Hunt (page 20) square and finished it as well. Again, well-written and reasonably accurate. The down side of this square is that there were 5 charts, two of which were repeated. The pattern was, however, accurately written, so I can't complain. Well, I can and do. But I shouldn't.
So that's now 4 squares completed of my afghan. 21 left ... assembly and then the border. Did I mention that I'm looking forward to it?