An Introduction to Winter Sports

Winter arrives and my usual outdoor activities seem less appealing. I look for something to keep myself active and busy during the months of subfreezing temperatures and icy snow.
Skiing seems out of the question. I would have to drive miles to find a decent slope, and it is an expensive way to get hurt.
Then there is the infamous ice fishing, which I have never tried because... it just doesn't make sense. Why would anyone choose to sit out in the middle of a frozen lake for hours inside a claustrophobic hut?  Cross country skiing should be more popular around here.  The trick is finding a day when there is enough snow on the ground without the -25º wind chills.  Jon has found his course around the lake, but can't fit many laps in before the sun sets. It is dark early and invites us to stay indoors.

If I am crazy I can join the polar bear club and plunge into a freezing lake. Or I can seek out a warm gym with indoor pool in which to spend some of those dark hours.  I confess I joined a Pickleball group which meets twice a week, indoors, to hit a plastic ball over a makeshift net. No one can say I don't exercise!
However, these are not the winter sports that really get us going and let us sink into bed exhausted at the end of the day. This is my version of the winter sports that I have taken up since moving to Minnesota.
First I dig myself out. I can spend up to an hour several mornings a week shoveling the driveway before I can get the car out. The snow is not cooperative. It sticks to the pavement and lies over sheets of ice. It laughs at my attempts to shovel and whips back in my face. I scrape and I chisel, knowing that winter is far from over and it will all need to be done again.
Then there is the getting of firewood, because there is nothing better than sitting by a real fire on a cold night. But firewood just doesn't appear in the wood box.  It must be cut and trucked in from the farm, before carting it piece by heavy piece to our wood pile.

Before making a fire I put on my gloves and boots and traipse outside to look for sticks for kindling and logs that are not covered in snow or ice. I was told that being cold burns calories... I'm certainly burning a few.
This activity usually leads to cooking.  The cold makes you hungry for potpies, warm cookies and soup.  So I shop and I chop, then I roll and I bake.  There is no pizza delivery service here or restaurant nearby, but the eating is good!
The winter sport that keeps me the busiest is home improvement projects. After being forced to stay inside on a day when the snow is howling outside, you start to notice all those less than perfect parts of the house.

In October we started with tearing out carpet, toilets and walls. Yesterday I was tiling the dining room floor and refinishing a table top.  "Not a sport ," you say? Well tell that to my tennis elbow I got from, not pickleball, but sanding and painting the drywall. If, like me, you have spent hours in Home Depot looking for bullnose tile and thinset, then you know how arduous these projects can be. I spend hours researching and searching for materials. And I often have to start again when I have come to the conclusion that it just doesn't look right. This is a winter sport that I am just learning and will need a lot more practice before I can join the big leagues.