Buried

April 9th through 15th
Last week started off pleasant enough. If not for the large amount of snow on the ground and the extra cold in the air, you'd have believed it was Spring. The maple trees certainly thought so. The deep snow in the woods made collecting buckets of sap more interesting than we would have liked. The hundreds of gallons of sap that was pulled from the forest had an extremely high sugar count. Steam shot from the cookers all day and through the nights mid-week to push the sap to syrup. The result was some of the finest syrup we have ever produced. What this year is lacking in quantity it is more than making up for in quality. All that sap ran with the coming of the above freezing weather. Lake Lucerne is still frozen, but it's usually one of the last lakes to open up. Lake Wabikon typically has its ice-out a week or two before Lucerne's. Wabikon, Riley, and Devils Lake are still frozen. An April ice-out on Lucerne is becoming very unlikely. Given the solid nature of the surface of Wabikon, et al., it's implied that Metonga is also ice covered, but for the record we'll state it outright. Lake Metonga is also ice-covered. The lake is going up. Many docks that have been on the shore for decades have become one with the lake. Ice-out, if it does come to Lucerne this year, is going to be a destructive one. It started on Friday. Sleet ranging from BB to pea sized bounced off roofs, roads, and noggins. It didn't collect much and it hurt even less, but it did not bode well for the weekend. Some snow began to fall. The wind picked up. The lake became populated with an amazing amount of snow devils. Then the snow really began to fall and collect in truly horrific amounts. Officially, we got 18 inches. It was noted that there was 22 inches on the bar's deck. By Sunday evening it stopped enough to begin clearing operations. Some of the more dreadful drifts cleared the top of snowblowers. On the lake, there's a lot of ice under all that snow. We'll be measuring that ice just as soon as we dig out. It's hard to believe that Memorial day weekend is less than 6 weeks away. We don't think that the ice will make it until then. Mostly we don't. Mostly. The 5 people with the "After May 10th" date are sitting pretty. It might go out before then, but that will require more sun. And much less snow.<br><br>-Nemo has a shovel in one hand, a hot beverage in the other.