It's Time for some LUMINARIES!!!!!

Kim Wed Jan 17, 2024 2:30 pm

Well, I truly hate to let a good Arctic Blast go to waste, and so decided to make some front yard decorations for a front yard that typically gets no maintenance other than getting mowed in the summer.

I discovered these "Ice Luminaries" during a long-ago event called "Book Across the Bay". This involves an 11 mile hike across a frozen bay of Lake Superior...at night.

https://www.batb.org/

The path is marked by hundreds of candle-lit blocks of ice. The blocks are made by letting water freeze in 5-gallon buckets, which are allowed to freeze just enough to leave a liquid core in their center. The blocks are slid from their buckets, the water core is poured out, and a candle is inserted in the cavity.

The candle is almost totally shielded from wind, and lights up the block like a beacon that can literally be seen for miles on a frozen lake surface in clear weather.

Volunteers would make up hundreds of them before the event, and place them along the ice trail.

So, I occasionally make these when we have a sustained cold spell, probably making my landlord shake his head at more strange antics from his long-time renter.

This one is my second attempt (didn't wait long enough for the first one to freeze properly), and some other images from the site:

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And...just in case any of my buds might wonder how a Missouri Redneck found himself snow-shoeing across a frozen bay of Lake Superior...suffice to say that it involved a member of the female species...

706jim Wed Jan 17, 2024 3:39 pm

Those pictures are absolutely fabulous! We live on the other side of the lake, but have boated to the Apostle islands region a few times when we were younger. This event and the Apostle islands ice caves are truly spectacular

rdw777 Wed Jan 17, 2024 4:25 pm

Fire and ice makes an unlikely but beautiful combination…. Never have seen that before… Very pretty….I don’t know about that hike across Lake Superior though lol!! …
But I get it Very Happy

rsv1cox Wed Jan 17, 2024 11:01 pm

The local Hospice puts on something similar every Christmas, only they use sand filled paper bags. Very impressive. I light one for my wife every year.

balogh Thu Jan 18, 2024 9:17 am

That is a great and spectacular idea, Kim, thanks for letting us know...I would try it should we have freezing weather here in central Europe ...a rarity in the past few years.

I am not sure if I were brave enough to cross the frozen Lake Superior , especially in the middle of the night..

Our lake Balaton in Hungary - lets call it Lake Inferior for the sake of comparison - where my summer house is sometimes freezes up in winter, but even then it is not recommended to go far offshore on the ice that can be delusively thin at some places...the average depth of the lake is 4m or so though, with shallow water for at least 300 meters from the South shore where I reside in the summer.

getback Thu Jan 18, 2024 1:24 pm

Cool man you got out there and did the hike and the lights are fantastic , i have seen these before on the web. but no in person . Hope the slid with the female type went well for you ! Very Happy

!

Kim Thu Jan 18, 2024 1:47 pm

balogh wrote:That is a great and spectacular idea, Kim, thanks for letting us know...I would try it should we have freezing weather here in central Europe ...a rarity in the past few years.

I am not sure if I were brave enough to cross the frozen Lake Superior , especially in the middle of the night..
.

I'll admit to more than a little concern, having punched a foot or two through "frozen" creek crossings during my youth. But, the sight of snowmobiles and pickup trucks rolling alongside the course did give me some confidence.

There HAD been cracks in the ice, forming "pressure ridges", where the frozen surfaces pushed against themselves, and raised tiny "mountain ranges" a couple of feet tall. These were cut through by the volunteers, and at one crossing, keeping with the fun atmosphere, there was a small neon sign flashing: "This Pressure Ridge brought to you by Joe's Cafe."

My third attempt at making an Ice Luminary worked a little better:

It's Time for some LUMINARIES!!!!! Third_10

akjgardner Thu Jan 18, 2024 8:53 pm

That’s Cool Kim ( pun Intended) we have hade single digits for a week . I think I will try to make a couple.

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It's Time for some LUMINARIES!!!!!

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