Open water

I apologize for not posting more frequently in this, the most exciting of seasons. It's all happening so fast this year I can barely step back and process it all. It seems like a dream: warm temperatures came and snow started disappearing in mid March, and I sat there waiting for things to return to normal, for a blizzard or deep freeze or something. It never happened, and here I sit in a comfortably warm house that will not need supplemental heat tonight. In early April!

The ice went out on all the lakes in the area this week. According to records kept by my grandpa at the lake home now owned by my uncle, this year was the second earliest the ice disappeared from that lake. The records probably go back over 30 years. Today we spent a nice Easter at the lake, watching various ducks, grebes, geese, and herons on the water.

Of course with my job monitoring fish populations, ice out meant work. I had meant to take Thursday and Friday off and spend some time with the kids while they had some time off school for spring break. Instead I was one of the first people out on a boat on a couple of lakes, setting nets and checking them for fish. I can't complain, how many jobs are there where you get paid to go out in a boat, but suddenly I'm feeling the need for some time off!

The warming and thawing has finally resolved a situation we had here with the pond over the last two weeks. The pond was flooded from melt water that had nowhere to go because an outflow culvert under our driveway was blocked with ice. Finally some time last night the water broke through the ice and I can just imagine the powerful rush as the water flowed through and lowered the level of the pond by about a foot. Thank goodness there was no damage to the driveway.

Tonight the frogs are singing, and I can even keep my window open a bit to hear them. Maybe I will hear the northern saw whet owl I heard last night as well.