Happy anniversary to me and Grasshopper.

It has been 1 year ,

or 12 months,

or 52 weeks,

or 364 AND 1/4 days,

or 8742 hours since we have had a cigarette!


As you might be able to tell, we, and especially me, are still missing smoking. A LOT some days. I still get the knee buckling cravings, but luckily they mostly happen when there are no smokers around. Most of our friends now are non smokers, I hear that they are a dying breed.

Yesterday morning we were visited by a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers. Here is Mr. P.



Mrs.P.




There goes Mr.




And the Missus is just a blur.





Oh yeah, the loons came back Monday evening. Can the humming birds and the Queen of London be far behind?

As I have asked before, is there any thing more beautiful than snow in the morning sun? I think that this snow is all your fault. When it stops snowing you say "well I hope that's it for this year" and the BVWSQ says "I don't think so. Tim".




Maybe it's my fault, I had put the roof rake away.




I have had to bail out and shovel out the boat the past few mornings.




We have had some really high winds lately so I checked to see if any trees had fallen on the drive way. No trees down, but lots of tracks. It seems like everything is on the move at this time of year. Bear tracks.




I've never seen three bears traveling together.




Moose, wolf and bear tracks on the Brule Lake Road.








Who ate who?



Herons circling their nests on Sand Lake.



Herons on the nest.






View out the back door at supper time last evening.

We have had a beautiful spring, so far. Temperatures into the high 20's.




Until today.Temperature is +1 at 2 PM.

Hail hitting the lake.



Foggy too.



Some accumulation.




Yesterday we spent a few hours with the Brown Super kids. No pics cause we had too much fun. If you must have pics, get your own super kids.

The lake is now ice free!


It never fails, you put the dock in one day and you get a wind storm the next. Last evening the wind knocked out power from just north of North bay up the hwy 11 corridor and it is still out 3:30 the next day. Hey dudes, turn yer solar panels!





P.S. Grasshopper has finally put up a couple of new blogs.

Sorry that I've been too busy to keep you up to date on the ice.

Ice road to BedRock Tuesday morning.




Wednesday



A big hole in the middle on Thursday.



Friday! The 2nd of April has to be a record.



The lake is not ice free yet, but I think it is safe to say that Causeway will win the ice pool by picking the 7th. You can still see snowmobile tracks in the dieing ice.



Bigger bergie bit.



This whole bay was still iced over as was half of the Tomiko Pond end of the lake.

Man, it was hot on Thursday.


How hot was it?


It was this hot.!




But it has cooled off pretty good the past two days. So, we still have lots of ice.



Oh yeah, Happy Earth Hour Day! If you are on the grid, get off between 8:30 and 9:30 local. If you are not on the grid, you can watch the Rangers give it to the hapless Leafs. Har, har. I wonder if Mayor Vic and his neighbours will turn off their lights to night? I got my eye on you.

Free to a good home. 1, 1972(?) Onan 3000w gas generator.

The last time I started it, years ago, it purred like a kitten. It has electric start and a auto choke, so it could be remote started. The fuel lines are rotten and need to be replaced. It has a separate fuel tank. I already have a back up gennie and this one always seems to be in my way. It is cast iron and weighs a ton so bring some one with a strong back. This offer stands until the old goat comes home and can take it away.









4 or 5 days ago you would have thought that the ice was on it's way out. It was very spongy. Air from my water system( I would explain how that works to you, but it would hurt your brain) was bubbling through the ice. But, after a couple of -10 nights, the lake has tightened up and you can skate from one end to the other. They are calling for -18 tomorrow night. You should have heard the lake groaning and crunching this morning when the sun hit it.







Ice road to BedRock.


Tim, you know what they say, the camera adds twenty pounds, twenty years and turns blond hair grey. I say shoot the photographer!

Grasshopper, read above.

Mike, thanks for your understanding. I am also sorry that you have lost your dirty, salty slush. Maybe some day you can move where they have real white snow.

With winter's untimely passing, there was one more thing to mourn. Some might call it the past timely passing of my old military parka. I have worn this coat pretty much every day of every winter since 1992. There was nothing left to sew a patch on to, or so I was told by Grasshopper.



Good bye old friend.



So, here's a pic of my new parka, just in case you don't recognize me next winter.



We have had a bunch of moths here already, and yesterday I heard, and then saw one lone goose. For the past week we have had temps in the double digits, except for today we are relapsing.

It's NOT fair!

Winter just got here 3 weeks ago, and is over already. It's been double digits and sunny the past week and a half.

Before winter ended I managed to fit in a trip to Martin River with Razor and Mike.





Remember to set your clocks ahead to night and change the batteries in all your detectors.











Ice fog one morning last week.



Another sun set.



Tree line this morning.



No tree line this afternoon.



The snow is going fast.



Grasshopper pickin' up what I'm droppin'

Sorry for not posting much lately. Slow time of year, very few silly people doing silly things. That should be corrected soon as our amigo working in Chile will be home this week. He is fine, but has to travel through Argentina to Brazil to get home.


We finally have some snow. Actually we had to snow blow the waist deep drifts at the gravel pit on the Notman road to let the plow through. But "they" are calling for +6 degrees later this week.








There is nothing more beautiful than a sunny winter day.



We had another light emitting sunset last week.








I have been trying to get high speed internet. The Rogers Rocket hub only worked as good as dial up. The bell stick was a little faster when it worked, but was unreliable. Now Ontera is checking their new wireless system to see if it will work out here.