Christmas at Loveless

The weeHouse flew through the air about a year ago, arriving on its Loveless perch on Dec. 22. My how time flies.

The place is still pretty far from being ready to entertain overnight guests, but here’s hoping that a year from now we’ll be welcoming fellow adventurers to Loveless Lake – with steaming mugs of coffee sipped from this most handsome Christmas gift from my brother and his wife.

Merry merry.

Save the date

Just in time for the end of the world and the Mayan calendar, winter has arrived in the Midwest. The blog, in turn, has taken on a new wintry design as well.

Twelve inches of snow dumped on Minneapolis a couple of weekends ago and, if weather.com is to be believed, Loveless got about 14 inches.

Soon, the lake will be frozen enough for us to ski and snowshoe and fish. Chris is starting to talk about hosting a fishing and frolicking party in frosty February, so here's hoping we all survive the doomsday.

Mark your calendars!

How ‘bout them Cheese Heads?

From F&A Dairy's web site.

Here’s a great story about my Loveless Lake tax dollars at work. (Since I can’t vote, the least I can do is support progressive thinking wherever I can find it.)

According to a recent story on WCCO-TV, Polk County officials have found a new use for the briny waste water from the F & A Dairy plant in nearby Dresser, Wis. As it happens, the salty byproduct works wonders in melting winter ice off of the roads.

For the past four years, the county has been experimenting with the cheese whey – remember Little Miss Muffet? – and discovered that it’s cheaper and more effective than the magnesium chloride that normally gets mixed with the salt before getting spread on roads.

F & A Dairy, which we drive by on the way to the weeHouse, churns out 5,000 gallons of the brine waste a month, according to the report. It charges Polk County 9 cents a gallon to haul it away.

The county said it has cut its use of salt by about a third, and saved taxpayers $40,000 by substituting the brine water.

“It’s a win-win for both us and the dairy,” Polk County’s Mike Norby told the TV station. “They get rid of their waste product and we get it for free, for just the trucking costs.”

Rock on, Cheese Heads!