A Busy Week

A week ago today we were on our way to Riding Mountain National Park for a destination wedding!  Some people do exotic places we do Manitoba.
It was such a great time and it brought back so many wonderful memories.  For many, many years our family went to Prince Albert National Park at this time of year with a fairly large group of friends.  We cross-country skied, played shinny and card games and ate.  
This time Pat was out skiing a couple of times but I was content with my snowshoes.  We had three days that we were able to get out and it was glorious, clear blue sky, crisp air and the boreal forest.  My sister-in-law Val and I agreed that we love winter when it is like this.  I will try and hold those thoughts for the weekend.  There are blowing snow and wind chill warnings for tonight  Saturday night the forecast low is -39 degrees C, breathing out should create a wind chill well into the minus 40's.

We have friends arriving today, we were supposed to be spending time outdoors and planning a trip.  We travelled to Italy with them a couple years ago and are looking forward to seeing some of Scotland and perhaps Spain with them this fall.  With the forecast I think most of our time this weekend will be indoors.  

I had a good morning, we have a new radio.
I know some of you are thinking hmmm, excited about a radio.  
I spent most of the morning in the kitchen cooking.  I like to listen to CBC when I cook.  An induction stove, rural Saskatchewan and our old radio were not compatible.  The stove interferes with the radio and creates all sorts of whines, clicks and bleeps that drown out the voices.  This morning I had two burners and the oven on.  I was able to listen to The Current and Q.  It was great, no "i's" or apps involved.

Now an update and correction on the stoat.  After more internet searching and a couple of conversations with people who know more about wildlife than Pat and I we have decided that what we saw was a short tailed weasel in Canada and a stoat in Britain.  The names are interchangeable.  Now I need someone to tell me if ermine is the winter name for a short tailed weasel/stoat or is it a different mammal.