approaching lock-up

it’s been snowing for five days, and temps never rose above 20 degrees today. so, while the lake is still not frozen, everything else is. when the lake freezes over, we officially enter lock-up. while this feels a little early, we had a very nice warm autumn, so i trying to remain grateful.  if you look at minnesota on a map of north america (not a u.s. map, but rather, a continental map), you will see we are very close to the middle of the continent. this means we have no large bodies of water to help mitigate extremes in weather. and, extremes we have. living here is not for the faint of heart.

winter prairie grasses