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	February 3rd through 6th, 2011

Late Friday morning, Mrs Nemo took to the ice to locate this year's forts in camera frame.

The deep snow made the task take longer than usual.

Fort forms were dragged to the future southern fort location and setup. There were fewer than 5 heart attacks during the form dragging.

Snow! During the wall building of the southern fort, a snow squall came up fast. It ended in about an hour, depositing an inch or two of fresh white stuff.

The forms are getting old, but they still make a good wall.

When finished, the southern fort had a subtle Packer theme thanks to green and yellow food coloring.

The igloo that was to anchor the west wall of the northern fort suffered structural failure during building and was later transformed into a thick wall.

The northern fort ended up going with a Superbowl prognostication theme with 1+3 Lombardi trophies adorning the top of the walls.

By sundown on Saturday, the southern fort complex had its launch tubes mounted and aimed.

The northern fort responded in kind

Over 2000 rockets were launched in about 45 minutes.

The device on the camera that takes pictures automatically refused to engage. Much of the battle was recorded only in the minds of the few that were there. When the rocket supplies began to dwindle, I ran off to take these 30 second exposures.

The northern fort seems to be putting out more ordnance than the south. In the south's defense, at this point in the war, supplies were running low and 50% of the men deserted their posts to take pictures.

Still, despite being outnumbered 3 to 1 at this point, the south managed several accurate shots while the snow around the fort was erupting in bright white explosions. The bar night that followed was well attended with warriors and spectators that came both in cars and on sleds.

On a cold Superbowl Sunday Morning, we were picking up 2000+ little red sticks (our motto:Take only pictures, leave only powder burns!). There were an awful lot of sticks and cold on the ground and impaled into the walls of the northern fort.

The northern fort had more than it's share of "red whiskers" too.

Three of the Lombardi Trophies were untouched. One was struck at it's base and 2/3 from the top.

The green and yellow decorative cylinders on the south were struck more than twice.

It took over an hour, but we got most every stick.

The cold air and deep snow made it seem that tapping season was quite a ways away. But in less than a month the first holes and spiles could be being drilled and tapped.

On Saturday night the wartime temperature was 15°F to 20°F Positively balmy by bottle rocket war standards. The really ugly cold pushed in on Sunday and deep froze Lake Lucerne and anything else north of 64. South of 64 too. Knowing the we are rapidly running out of winter makes the extreme cold...well...not welcome, but more tolerable. We'll be up one more time in February to try and not break anyone/thing on the slopes of Brule. The ice-out contest should be up before then so check daily.<br><br><br>-Nemo scratched "bottle rocket blowing up in lap" off his bucket list.

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