It was a perfect week to be off from school. With temperatures lingering at about 20 degrees, conditions were great for an eight year old looking to spend the whole day on the surface of frozen Limekiln Lake.
I gathered my winter wool socks and pulled my old hand-me-down skates from where they were hanging in the cellar stairway.
With my dog Mutt at my side, we made the 100-yard journey down the road to the lake.
The slightly snow-covered road shielded a coating of ice. I shuffle-skated in my boots for a hundred feet before stopping to put on my skates.
I had decided to tackle the rest of the downhill slope on steel blades.
I laced up my skates, tied my boots together and flung them around my neck. I was ready to stand and give it a go.
I must have looked a bit awkward when I got on my feet as it appeared that my skates were wanting to take off on their own.
Despite positioning myself in a low tuck, I began moving at a pace I had not anticipated.
Mutt yelped at my heels as she tried to match my speed.
I heard her toenails clicking and scratching against the road surface as we both hurled down the hill.
I’m not sure if it was a small stone or a clump of frozen dirt that derailed me but before I knew it one of my boots was pinned under my chest and I was hurled face-first into a snow bank.
That was fun!
Mutt danced over me several times before romping up the bank and settling on the top to eat some snow as if she was waiting to see my next trick.
It took a moment for me to brush myself off and collect my thoughts.
But eventually I was back on my feet and wading through a mountain of snow piled at the end of the road by the snow plow.
I slid down the side of the bank and tiptoed my way out onto the frozen lake.
Its surface was smooth and covered with about an eighth of an inch of fluffy snow.
Mutt made her way onto the ice but found it difficult to keep up with me as she could not maneuver the sharp turns on the frozen perfection.
I skated for almost two hours following ribbons of snow lines.
Every so often I stopped to sit and just listen to the lake as it moaned and talked to me.
That low rumble of the ice was the only sound in the world.
Mutt laid down next to me and broke the silence with her panting. Eventually she laid her head in my lap and we both rested and listened for a bit.
The whiskers on her chin were frozen in a white mix of saliva and snow.
Her eyes were wide open and she tried to catch her breath.
Eventually she closed her eyes, and as she laid there in a half-sleep we become part of the stillness that had surrounded us.
We were both tired as we trudged uphill towards home. The sounds of the moaning lake slowly faded away, as did the days of my holiday break.
Mitch Lee, Adirondack native & storyteller, lives at Inlet. ltmitch3rdny@aol.com