Melt

Drilled a hole yesterday and 27" ice!! The ice has melted at our landing and in a couple days will have to lay down a sheet plywood as a bridge.still too much snow in places where it blows in on the North side to walk around island yet.Mergansers and Golden eye ducks have been back swimming around in the open areas for about a week now.As well as Red Finch and a few songbirds.Took this picture on 23rd and since then it has doubled in size,last year on May 7 we could canoe across.The lake temperature is now 3.5C

Spring

Made last snowmobile/quad trip yesterday as the ice on the South side of the French Narrows Portage is no longer safe! It has melted away from shore about 5' and lots of holes. The travel on North side is still okay.There has to be more than 100 Geese at the Narrows as well as 12 Pelicans,saw bumble bee yesterday as well as a butterfly and Turkey Vulcher.the snow in the bush appears to have shrunk enough that this afternoon before the rain arrives we are going to try and walk around the Island for first time this Spring.There is a hole starting to open up at the corner of our dock,and when you walk out onto ice on our South side landing the water is moving up and down and holes big enough to get a booter ! I still cannot bring up pictures to post?? If anyone wants to see the slow melting process you can email me and I could forward pictures until we get this figured out?

Snow

Woke up to 1.5" snow,screaming SE winds all night. Still 12" snow in the bush. Yesterday the ice melted enough at the French Narrows Portage that my Quad was pushing a wave up onto shore as I approached.We went back through last years diary and we have same conditions today as we did last year.Last year be boated out May 14, lake temperature was 5.5c, difference being last year had warmer daytime high and low temps than our long range is forecasting.

Trip to Town

Snowmobiled to BarePoint yesterday,due to the -11 overnight all the standing water froze and snowbanks are like cement! Very bumpy ride had to drive slow.Took a picture of snowbanks to post but still having issues because of updates to IPad my pictures are not where they are supposed to be? This picture of truck showing snowbanks was taken March 29 beside main ice road,there are still banks there today!Raccoons,junco's,butterfly have returned. This weekend looks like our turning point with double digit highs and plus temps overnight? I have to go to Town on 21st so will give update on 22nd.

After the storm

Today is 8 days after the 10 plus inches we rec'd on March 31-she went out like a "lion" ! All that snow has disappeared and a lot of  previous snow as well,Temps have been H +8,L -4 so the freeze at night has sure helped to dry up the run off. Greg and Sherl Smith are now full time residents out here and Greg and I made a town run for fresh produce this morning. The trip in was uneventful,good snowmobiling on top of the crust,,but the return trip took almost 3hrs,water on ice road was up to running boards on snowmobile and so slippery underneath we tried running beside road-the snowbanks were crotch deep and would not support our weight,then water on top of ice and under snow was 12" deep. My sleigh and 5 gas cans is still sitting on ice North end Queer-retrieve it in morning on the crust.Will not travel again till all the snow has melted and water starts to drain off-at least another week or more,then we should be able to run around with quad-will do another post then.
We have a small strip of open water at the Narrows-now home to 7 Canada Geese and 2 seagulls,still no ducks yet.