Ice-Out 2022

At the start of last week, the sky was cloudy, the air was still, and a large but shrinking, glob of ice roamed the middle of the lake. If there had been any wind at all, the ice would not have stood a chance. The calm air allowed the ice to survive into Tuesday.

The wind and the warm picked up on Tuesday and melted the remaining ice on Lucerne. There was some question about the exact time of ice-out, but there was no doubt that by Tuesday evening, the lake was ice free for the first time this year.

There was not the usual rush to get docks and piers in. That could be due to the non-weekend nature of this year's ice-out.

Then again, it could be the lake temperature.

The end of the ice coincided with the end of the tapping season. As the last of the ice became a memory, buckets, spiles, and other sapping detritus were pulled from the woods around Lucerne.

It took the men about 5 hours to wash, rinse, and stack the buckets.

There was also golf. The course was in pretty good shape for early May.

Just after ice-out, the northwoods seemed to really wake up from Winter. The birds seemed to be particularly active.

Decks also began to take on a Summery tone.

There were some nice sunsets, too.

After all that bucket washing, it was relaxing to sit and watch the evening go by.

That, and some of the trees are getting all pollen-y. If you're coming up north, you may want to bring a tissue or two.

On Sunday we attended a glass blowing demonstration put on by a museum in Wausau.

It was pretty impressive.

The resulting vase was tall with layered colors and weighted about 13 pounds.

No one has been spotted mowing yet. A few have been seen picking up (and burning!) some lawn litter in preparation for this seminal Summer event.

No one skied. The lake was a little rough during the weekend and the water temperature was still 46°F. so this was not a complete surprise. We were surprised to find that the lake level has gone up 11 inches since ice-in. That's still about 3 inches short of the record level set early last year, but with a little more rain, we could be setting a new record by June. When putting in piers and docks this year, plan accordingly.

-Nemo has only a cord or so of lawn litter to go.

Ice-Out 2022

May 2nd through 8th, 2022