November 9, 2008

Today was even colder than yesterday. The high temperature today hit only 20 degrees. And with a steady wind of 10-15 mph out of the WNW, gusting to 20+ mph, the wind chill was probably closer to zero.

The lake was choppy from the wind and ice had begun to form along the shoreline. I was worried about Tom's boat as it sat in my harbor, or more specifically, about the 10hp Mercury motor on the boat. The small Mercury is a 2-stroke motor, which means it has to pull water from the lake to cool the motor. Since some water is always inside the housing the motor, it was likely to freeze and possible crack the head of the motor or do other damage.

I pulled the motor out of the water, pulled the starter cord a number of times with the motor in the off position to drive any water from the inner workings of the motor. Then once all of the water had been expelled from the motor, I lowered the motor back into the water. At this point the water in the harbor was actually warmer than the air.

Once I had secured Tom's boat, I joined Kathleen in working around the yard. We cut back the hosta plants, trimmed other plants, and did other general yard work. It was cold, but it was fun working outside with Kathleen. I'm going to miss our time together working in the yard.

No fishing on Leech Lake today.