Harvesting Ice in January

 I've been thinking about the day I took this photo a few years ago. It was mid-January and although it doesn't look it, the temperature was below zero. It was a day like the recent days we've been experiencing. Beautiful and sunny, then absolutely earth shattering frigid cold when the sun goes down. Even the moon, as glorious and bright as it has been, is unable to warm the night.

I remember standing there in the snow, dressed in layers and shivering as I took some photos and as I took the photos, I listened to the Amish men, laughing and talking as they cut through the ice, then loaded those blocks onto wagons to take back home and store in their barns or sheds. A dog they had with them barked as the cattails snapped to my touch and geese said good morning. The horses stood in place, a few curious of my presence.

I remember hearing and reading stories my Aunt Helen wrote in a family cookbook of my grandfather, bundled up in his fur coat and cap and his horses covered in blankets, heading out before dawn to harvest ice on the St. Lawrence River. When returning home, he'd store the blocks of ice in sawdust in one of his barns.

January in northern New York sometimes comes with the irony we are currently experiencing, beautiful days and below zero nights. This is nothing new. It's happened through generations. And now it's our turn.

Bundle up!