Our namesake lake is cooling at last. Water temp. Thanksgiving Eve is 39 F., air temp 40. 40 F. is the magic number when the water is heaviest and goes to the bottom of the lake in the “fall overturn”. Water colder than 40 stays on top until it gets to 32 F. and freezes, that is why the ice is on the top where we can play on it. This lake usually freezes around the last week of December, these days is is likely to be later by a week or so. I recall that the “heat of fusion”, think freezion, is something like 325 calories of heat that have to be removed from each cc. of water to get to ice. It only takes 1 calorie to cool a cc. of water a degree C., then a lot more to solidify it at 32 F. or 0 C. The “calories” you eat or expend on a gym machine are actually kilo calories, 1000 real calories. Our lake temperatures are not far from the ocean temperatures reported by ocean buoys in NOAA weather reports this time of year. We will have ice sooner or later. A small pond just West of Chicky had skimmed over yesterday and there were several geese standing on the ice with little piles of droppings under their tails, not playing, just relaxing safe from foxes and coyotes.

Lloyd