winter excitement

I was talking on the phone today with my sister Emily, and was walking around the house packing things up to go out, when I look out the back windows in the dining room and I see four fire trucks, an ambulance, and some weird other vehicle I can't quite distinguish parked along the side of the road on the "bridge" between the lakes. I immediately think, "oh no, someone is in the lake!" But as I look closely, there are at least 10 firefighters walking/running down the little hill to the path and then just stand around. They seemed to be talking, not taking any action at all. One of them picks up a chunk of snow at one point and hurls it onto the lake. This makes me assume that no one is actually IN the lake. I watch for a while and nothing really happens. So William and I get packed up and leave, and I drive past them, as they continue to "do nothing". [I notice that the last vehicle that I couldn't distinguish is a big truck with a trailer and boat attached.]

I meet Em and the girls at the Hard Times Cafe for free chili day, and we have a great lunch together (the kids already ate; they didn't have chili). We also ran in Bed, Bath and Beyond for my much needed Olive Oil dispenser. When we were driving back to my house [about an hour and a half later?] there are firefighters in the lake, sitting on the ice around the hole, and more watching on the path and hill. They were out "practicing" water rescue today, I guess, since it was such a nice winter day [sunny, 51 degrees]. As I took these pictures from our deck, I noticed that one of the firefighters on the hill had a camera and was documenting their expedition... so I'm pretty sure it was some kind of training. Almost wish I'd put my coat on and walked down to watch, with the camera for you blog readers, of course :)