Sorta Spring

We had more heat than Winter this week. The snow continued to retreat and the lake ice did not grow much, but it was not quite warm. At least the calendar underscored Spring.

There was much talk of a huge geomagnetic storm this week. The aurora was supposed to be fantastic. We had a clear sky and looked but did not see it over Lake Lucerne. We did see a sliver of the moon set on Saturday and that was nice.

As mentioned before, the weather was not quite warm, but there were some signs of Spring. A favorite flower for Chinese New Year, the Pussy Willows (you learn something new everyday), are starting to bud.

The Bears are still down, but squirrels are active.

And of course there's the sap. It's running like crazy.

Many, many buckets were collected. Some before they overflowed.

The cookers were boiling sap 24 hours a day in a vain attempt to catch up.

The fruit of all that collecting and boiling flowed from the end of the plate filter twice this week.

Lake walkers are safe from breaking through the ice but the super slick nature of that ice makes them prone to slipping and breaking their heads. To prevent head dents, the drone spread her wings on Sunday to check the remains of the bottle rocket forts, inflows and lake level.

The forts have seen better days.

The creeks on the North end of the lake have not de-iced any of the shore yet.

The rocks on the North end continue to be covered by the rising lake water. Yay!

We don't have any broken bones. That's a subtle way of saying we did not get an ice thickness check this week. Trodding on the frictionless surface will have to wait until the crazy running of the sap drives us mad. At the current rate, figure about another week. Until then, we'll keep a close eye on the state of the shoreline ice. It should be pulling away soon. The fairways and tees at Nicolet are mostly snow free. Golf could be just a week away. Yay!

-Nemo's currently unbruised.

Sorta Spring

March 17th through 23rd, 2015