Ice Chimes and Giant Coleus

The Lac La Ronge ice is quickly being replaced with rippling water now. Nobody's taking trips out to their cabins for a little while now, except perhaps that guy we see with one of those airboats that travels over ice and water as if he were in the northern version of the everglades. I hear he lives out there year-round. Impressive. We walked out on the pier across the street and I was really taken by the tinkling of the ice in the water. The lake ice is about a foot thick, and vertical shards of ice are continually "calving" off the leading edges . Millions of glassy ice sticks float around, glinting in the sunshine and banging against each other, making a sound like hundreds of bamboo wind chimes. Heavenly!

Meanwhile, down in the fertile grounds of the basement, my coleus grows bigger than most coleus I have ever seen before. Check out the photo -- these plants only have about 3 sets of true leaves! This is a Kong Rose coleus, I suppose the "Kong" series name denoting their size. These are supposed to get 18" tall. I'll probably be putting them in a whisky barrel planter under the poplar, so they are in shade.