They say it’s an ill wind that blows no good and the north wind certainly blew in with ill intent here at Notaires recently, freezing the upstairs pipes and causing havoc with the heating.  Even the drain pipes froze up overnight as the temperatures dropped below -10 each night for two weeks, even reaching as low as -19. The fix for the drainpipes was to fill a backpack sprayer with hot water and use it as a hot water drill to melt the plug of ice each morning.

On the plus side a well frozen lake meant that we could reach the overhanging willow branches that were dipping down into the house lake on the far side, this area is a great fish attracting area with both shade and rich natural pickings for the carp but with the consequence that the carp made a run for the trees when they were hooked (and as the records show there were plenty of carp caught in the house lake this year, but that is for the next post).

We had thought of using the boat to reach the branches but a boat and a chainsaw sounds like a fast trip to casualty, this only left the option of partially draining the lake and slogging around in the mud, even then each year we have been defeated by the onset of cold weather before the slow drainage had reduced the levels sufficiently, so here you can see the results as we trim back the willows and do a 360 degree pan around the banks from the center of the lake.