Motion, music and melting

The ice is breaking up! It's moving around the lake in big chunks - one minute the canoe launch is all iced in as it is now, come back in 15 minutes and the ice has moved somewhere else, leaving a little pile of long thin crystals of ice piled on the shore. Another 20 minutes - here it is back again!

One of the neat things about this crystal ice is that as the wind blows against the edge, it makes a sound like ice rattling in a glass - this is one of the "sounds of fall" as the ice forms and an even better "sound of spring" as it disappears!

We've been working hard the past week - the water is on in all the cabins and bunkrooms, the canoes are out in the yard where they belong, cleaning is underway, tree planting is underway, - work season is UNDERWAY! :)

Mike and I drove up to the Iron Lake Campground Sunday - no ice to be seen on Iron Lake! There were, however, more moose tracks in the campground and on up the Old Gunflint Trail than I've seen in a long time - lots and lots and LOTS of moose tracks! There's even one wandering past Rockwood the last day or so!

Beautiful Day

Gorgeous, sunny day today - windy though, so not exactly warm. Mike saw a couple black and white ducks enjoying the open water in front of outfitting this morning, I wasn't so lucky, but isn't it beautiful? I agree, it would be nicer if it were all blue rather than blue and ice, but ...

I've been putting stuff together for cabins, Mike's been working on the water system - we have water in the apartment/laundry room now! Fishing opener is coming fast!

Why you may not see a moose...

The moose are trying something new this year! Camouflage, yet! I've never seen moose this color - sort of a dirty white with lots of light brown - perfect for hiding in the woods this time of year. Can you spot the two moose in this photo?

We drove up the trail for our "Easter Treat" - and spotted these moose between Seagull and Sag enjoying lunch. There's quite a bit of open water at the Seagull landing - lots of ducks too. Sag landing didn't have as much open, no ducks, but far more than Poplar does. Of course we're at a much higher elevation, so we stay frozen longer.

The Cross River is also open, flowing great - all in all, there's a lot more open ground up the trail than there is here and between here and Grand Marais, but the forecast is for warmer temperatures and maybe some rain, which should open us up fairly quickly. I can tell the lake ice has changed... there are a few rotten spots, so it's at least "thinking" about melting.

A milestone!

Mike managed to get the truck down to outfitting and the water room today. Not that the snow is gone, by any means, and not that it isn't a rather exciting ride (especially through the deep snow by the canoe yard!) but we got there. And more to the point, the big shipping boxes that have been overflowing the house - new tents, new sleeping bags, tarps, packs, towel sets - are out of the house and - put away in outfitting and the water room. Wow!

As Mike says, "Gee, I can see the back door now!"

With any luck the ruts we cut in two round trips will help the snow melt faster and we'll be able to get some work done down there next week?

Just for fun, here's our Snowshoe Easter Bunny sitting in a bare patch (before last weekend's 7-9 inches of new snow) - he's starting to change color for summer - Joyous Easter to all of you!

Poplar Lake ice at Rockwood

It was a little cooler (ok, a lot cooler) this morning so we don't have the two feet of open water at the canoe launch today... but you can see how thick the ice is two feet from shore! At least the beach launch area is free of snow - finally!

Mike and I have been doing a lot of walking, getting in shape for the season, and watching for signs of spring. The snowshoe hares are getting speckles of brown in their white coats, the crazy frittilary butterflies are fluttering around (how do they keep from freezing at night?), a few lonely pussy willows are starting to bloom, the martins are very active, and last night I saw something I'm not sure what it was ... just saw the hindquarters of an animal walking into the woods, about the size of a fox but grey-light brown black speckled fur and no tail that I noticed. Do you suppose we have a bobcat around?