Getting ice and encountering snowballs

 It was a beautiful spring day, but it still had a real bite with the wind blowing. I decided to go out for a walk out to the old cemetery and Eli said he'd be 'down' with that (I thought people were up for things, now I hear they are down for things). Anyway, off across the back pond we went.

 Some of the drifts were quite deep so it took a bit of slogging to get up to the high ground. We could see some people in the distance with their sled, so we decided to investigate and see what they were up to.

 The boys were out collecting ice to take back for their water. They said they come out about once a week, chop, fill up the barrels and take them home. For those without the pick, snowball fights were the order of business.

 We have a village well that several people use for washing and drinking water. But I found out recently that a majority of the community chop ice, or dip water in back ponds preferring the taste to the well water.

 But these two were all about the fight!

 By the time we left they had made quite a hole in the ice. It's hard work, and time consuming.