I'm Gonna Miss Winter (don't shoot!) - Joel

I don't mean this in anyway as a response to my dear wife's longing for spring.
We got 16 inches of snow on Wed but I don't mind - spring is still coming.
I was standing on a finger of Gunflint Lake on Friday, the Narrows, looking down past the open water where the Canadian border runs through from Magnetic. The distant eastern end of the lake faded into the winter fog as I stood and enjoyed the stillness and thought, "I'm going to miss this." Gunflint lake in the winter, on an overcast day takes me back to the Rockies, specifically Lake Abraham in Alberta where I've spent a lot of time back-packing. I imagine steep mountains rising from the shores of the Gunflint, towering over the surrounding hills and it feels like home. We are working on a project at the Narrows where the road is partially a cross-country ski-trail. So we either walk across that part of the lake from another project we've just finished, or snowmobile down the lake, up a steep hill and along a narrow trail. I've spent a good deal of time in the last few weeks riding an Otter sled piled with lumber and building materials, bouncing along behind a snowmobile. (Laughing at how ridiculous it all was while hanging on for dear life!)
Friday morning as I walked up to our tracks from the previous day I saw large deer tracks and wolf tracks intermingling with our own. A couple months ago we noticed a deer kill out in the middle of Gunflint. Two wolves were walking away from the kill, in different directions. They seemed unsure of what to do next, glancing over their shoulders. Eventually, the healthier looking of the two, decides to return to the deer. He turns at about 500 feet away and charges back at a full run. His only remaining contestants for the kill, a cloud of ravens went scattering. Then the ravens and the wolf together settle down for a meal and we go to work.
I think of one of our early morning drives up the Gunflint Trail when there was heavy frost on the trees and the sky was overcast. You could have sworn the world was only black and white if it weren't for road signs and an occasional glimpse of the yellow lines. We were just coming through an area that had been burned by the Ham Lake fire of 2007 when we saw a large dark animal in the middle of the road. The moose fit right into this black and white morning in a beautiful way. She relunctantly stepped off the road into the snow and stopped to strike a pose against the open meadow and the distant hills shrouded in snow and fog.
Moving back down the Trail in my memories of winter beauty we get to the hill overlooking our town on Lake Superior. Usually the lake temperatures don't drop enough to freeze until about this time of year, April. And then it only has a skim of ice for a few days as the air temps warm up. But this year the lake was frozen for as far as the eye could see (all you can see is water - if you think you see Michigan people tell you your dreaming) for most of February and March. Only on windy days did the ice break up. But the best part of this was driving up the hill as the sun came up over the lake somewhere over in Ontario. I can't describe how neat those sunrises were.
A few weeks ago Joshua, Rachel and I went to go throw rocks in the harbor because it was warming up. Instead we ended up throwing rocks on the harbor as it was covered in a glass-like sheet of ice. It made a good rock-skipper out of anyone. The rocks I threw went spinning on seemingly forever making funny spinning noises, and jumping over irregularities in the ice. That was neat too.
These have been some of my favorite moments of this winter. I like all the beauty God has instilled in the season. And the joy of spring time and hope of resurrection that follows. Thats all.