After several days of no new flakes held at bay by brilliant blue skies the suns heat hits my roof. The old windblown snow takes on the appearance of candle wax working for the soffits. After two clear days I notice stuff outside because im not a huddled bundled frozen blob. Two days ago at the peak there were no exposed shingles, today I have a green bedraggled shingled line slowly appearing. A day without clouds after so many grays is an awaking, heck, my roof even notices. Two days of it has my trigger finger pretty itchy. The sun came out outside and turned my furnace back on in my insides. It's cold, but with the sun and blue it's not as mentally cold perhaps. I could do all kinds of stuff but I think I'm going to work on some vitamin d and just sit still. I load the perch bucket and one hand cranked ice auger. At the public access I park. I slowly fill the towable sled and a hiking I do go. I like when the snow is firm over the ice. When it's soft like hiking through warm sand, it wears me out to quick. And at my age I don't need to be worn down to fast. I don't grind holes in the ice like it's a race and today I know it's going to require some serious grinding to get my twenty perch. Slowly and steady will get me there. The first three holes gave up fish, but no keepers. The next eleven holes gave me half a bucket. When I turned around to see all my little snow mounds I could see where that hole was a good one, that one wasn't, and from under the ice a pattern shaped like a donut with a hole in it started to emerge so I played drill a ring around the fishing hole and finished the limit. Its days like this with sunshine blue sky and more fish then I can handle that make winter so wonderful, So much fun. It's not bad on days like this; it's actually the great part of winter. Today it's not the dangerous roads, the storms, the blizzards or frozen fingers. Today, it's that entire magical winter wonderland Hans Christian Anderson, Walden, Muir and Longfellow had me believe. And today it's so simple, it's just me, and I believe. The trout whisperer