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March 14th through 20th, 2022

The nights were seasonably cool, but every day last week had a high above freezing. The result has been shrinking snow piles, ice free roads, and running maples. The snow that covered the lake for months is, for the most part, gone. Despite over a foot of ice, the resulting large puddles has given the lake an open feel. The melt on the shore brought back yard puddles or in some cases lawn lakes. Every cold night put an ice crust on all that snowmelt. At the start of the week, lawns began to peak out from beneath the retreating snow. By the end of the week, some lots had more green than white. The warmer days have not been kind to the old bottle rocket war forts. By the weekend they were reduced to a couple of puddles surrounded by drift residue. The cold nights coupled with some relatively damp air created mornings that reminded all that this was still the last week of Winter. Knott Lane went from icy to slushy to squishy. It'll need another week or so of warm to be considered good. Other more paved roads started off plowed and passable and ended the week all dry and Arizona-y. After tapping 360 maples in the deep snow of the northwoods over the course of 3 days, sunsets were seasoned with a hint of exhaustion. If anyone needed to tap or collect sap at night, the tapping moon made such foolishness possible. By the weekend, it was clear that there was still plenty of deep, deep snow in the woods. The freshly tapped maples were running all weekend. A full crew of sugarpeople collected all that sap. Most wore snowshoes, others chose to tromp around in the deep, deep snow. To keep up with the trees, both the Knott Lane cookers were in full burn all weekend. I don't think it had anything to do with the cooker's fire, but the sunsets on the weekend were more red than most. Wild turkeys were still hanging around the bar all week. On Sunday, a huge flock of tiny birds made wee holes in the sky on the North end of the lake. All week, whenever the feeders were filled, local squirrels put on feats of both gymnastics and gastronomy. On Sunday, with the equinox, running trees, and emerging grass, Winter was declared dead.. Huzzah! With this year's extended Deep Winter and all the frozen flotsam that accompanied it, few will be shedding a tear at Winter's eulogy. The extra excitement that greeted Spring 2022 was evident in the jaunty sap collecting of the sugarpeople and the over 50 entries in 48 hours in this year's ice-out contest. The unexpected volume of entries kept the knottlane code monkeys busy. Too busy to check on the lake ice thickness. We'll try to get one next week if it stays thick enough to tromp on.<br><br><br>-Nemo claims snowshoes only slow him down.

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