More Sping Projects

The temperatures have been in the fifties the past few days.  That may not sound good to those of you who live further south but is heaven to us.  There has been no freezing the last couple of nights.  Yesterday the afternoon was filled with wind to cut through the ice and snow.  Then we even had rain at night.  The next two days will be warm.  It is really feeling like spring.

 

As a result everyone is into spring projects.  Here is a picture of Bruce working on one of his favorite spring projects – building a fireplace.  This one is in #18 and it is converting a wood fireplace to a gas one.  Building fireplaces is one of Bruce’s favorite projects.  He just steadily works on it each afternoon.

I walked down to Tucker Lake yesterday.  The path is almost all clear of ice and snow.  The dock is clean but a little tilted in places.  Once the ice goes out we will see how it settles in.  There is a little melting along the edge of the lake with some water on the ice.  Things are not quite ready for a boat ride but I can start to dream about it.

All the garden beds at my house are clear of snow.  It will still be weeks before I can plant anything.  The next step is to bring over some more horse manure to enrich the soil.  Everything is going to come in nice and strong. We will have spinach and fresh lettuce by the third week in June.

Another project we hope to get finished this summer is the pond between the house and the workshop.  Bruce has ideas in his head about how it will look.  I understand that there may even be a troll on a little island.

Spring birds are starting to appear.  Snow buntings and juncos are passing through to their summer habitats.  There are lots of ducks on the open water by Cross River.  Yesterday the first red-winged blackbirds appeared at my house.  Front Desk Dave saw two robins on his way to work the other day.

The ice on Gunflint Lake is quite gray.  At this point I would not recommend that anyone try to walk across it.  Wind like we had yesterday really melts the ice.  I have been watching as the wind is coming up today.  It will be interesting to see how black the ice is when I go over for lunch today.  Also the ice is very soft along the shore.  Some guest sunk in to their ankles the other day.  It must have been really cold.  Hope they had extra shoes.

For those of you who remember Zach – Robert and Miranda’s cute little boy.  As usual time has flown by.  Last week he passed his driving permit.  It is scary how quickly these kids grow up.