It's Ice Baby Ice!

 This weekend a little town south of us has it's annual Winter festival.  Part of that fun time are ice sculptures.  Many years there are freak warm spells on this weekend. Luckily for Loudonville it was nice and chilly and perfect for the ice sculptures not to  melt like last year.  On Saturday it was cold...around 30 but with crystal blue skies and sunshine galore it was pleasant to trek up and down the main street and enjoy the many sculptures.

Like Ashland, Loudonville has a quaint downtown with small shops and restaurants. It's  mainly a tourist town in the summer months because it's right next to the Mohican State Park and campgrounds.  The Mohican river runs through it and canoeing and kayaking are big here.  The park is beautiful and I've featured it on a few blogs in the past. Our sweet Arnold dog used to love to go and play in the river!  There was a good turnout for this weekend as the weather on Saturday was beautiful and folks are just looking for a way to have fun and be outside where masks aren't necessary.

This cute log cabin sits in the main square. I've gone here when they've had antique shows in July.

The school teams are called "The Redbirds" and here's one in ice!

This little ice piggy didn't go to the market although he could with all those pennies inside!

Every little town needs a winery...or at least a brewery!

The ice sculptures on the sunny side of the street were starting to melt even though the temps were around freezing.  I don't know who won the best ice sculpture but I thought all were really cute and clever.  There were lots of people there and many had brought along dogs. It made me wish we had a pup of our own to bring along! Maybe one day we'll get a dog again. Time will tell! I found a few cute shops to explore but the only thing I bought was a sign that I just felt I needed:

It will go nicely with my Witches Brew mug I use daily.  It was a fun afternoon adventure. We stopped at Village Point market on the way home for some cheese and other goodies.  Once home I decided I needed to try out a recipe I found in this book I found at the dollar store of all places.

The cover caught my eye and the title looked cute so I grabbed it. It's really a young adult book but it was a fun story written by an English author.  I tried out the scone recipe:

The flavor wasn't bad but they didn't rise as nice as I hoped. Probably the chef's fault! Anyway the book is good and I'm going to find the sequels online.  The temps are going to get colder by tomorrow so homemade veggie soup will be on the menu along with some homemade bread.  The woodstove is humming along keeping us toasty and comfy and this month is flying by. Covid is going crazy here in Ohio and my son and daughter-in-law who are both respiratory therapists got Covid. Evelyn is back at work and Jackie has to stay home until Thursday. His weird main symptom was a swollen right eye.  45 employees have the virus and the hospital is in crisis mode. Jackie and Evelyn are vaccinated and boosted but one employee in their department wasn't and came to work sick and it spread quickly. Hopefully all the employees will get better soon. I think we all need to keep hospital workers in our prayers. Maybe by February this will start to die down again. Night all!